Ensure your Festive Food Photos Aren't a Turkey, Even if your Dinner Is
LONDON, December 20, 2013 /PRNewswire/ --
Platter, an award-winning, free iOS app for home cooks everywhere, has today released an infographic and a list of top-tips on how to take the perfect food photo this Christmas.
With celebrities like Martha Stewart being chastised for their "revolting" food photos, Platter hopes this simple guide will help home cooks keep delicious keepsakes from their Christmas.
Platter is a free iOS app that helps home cooks showcase their dishes in a like-minded community. From birthday cakes to hangover cures, Platter celebrates real food by real people.
Platter Founder Will Hodson comments: "Social networks are festooned with food photos over the festive period. As a community dedicated to home cooking, we thought we'd share some tips on how to make yours as good as possible. If you pulled off an incredible Christmas roast, you don't want to look back at photos that depict a murky trough of gravy-based swill. If you follow a few simple rules, your photos will be as delicious as your dinner."
Top 10 Tips and Tricks:
- Do use natural daylight. Window light will always produce the best results!
- Don't rely on overhead lights. They tend to create grim shadows. By contrast, a standing lamp or a table lamp will cast your dish in a more flattering light.
- Do choose the right angle for your dish. With flat dishes of many components (think Christmas dinner or a fry-up,) an overhead shot may be best. But with a stacked dish (imagine your fantasy burger, people), shooting side on may produce more dramatic results.
- Don't overcrowd the plate! The most memorable photos generally show a bit of plate. Less picturesque is a gluttonous trough with gravy cascading over the edge of your crockery, like seas off the end of the world.
- Do let other items and objects play a part in your photo. To capture the happiness of being en famille over Christmas dinner, why not pan out to include the victorious half of a Christmas cracker?
- Don't feel obliged to photo the whole plate. Sometimes, a close-up is better than snapping the whole thing. A stack of red cabbage may be boring from a distance, but a close up might reveal hidden spices, like star anise.
- Don't fear the gravy. Few food images could capture a white Christmas dinner better than steam rising off your plate. Except maybe the sight of a drunken uncle eating brussels sprouts off the snow. Just try and avoid the gravy steaming up your lens… photo fast!
- Do keep a steady hand. Limit yourself to no more than four glasses of champagne during The Snowman. Hold the camera in two hands. And if you're planning an all-out festive bender, why not rest on your elbows to create an ersatz tripod?
- Do take photos of the process and the party around the main dish. Some apps let you animate several photos to tell the full story of a dinner.
- Do put down your camera and enjoy your Christmas dinner. Or someone will snatch at least one of your spuds. Honestly, don't bother with more than a couple of shots from a given angle. They don't get better with repetition. And if you follow these tips, they'll be bang on first time!
Platter is a free iOS app that helps home cooks showcase their dishes in a like-minded community. From birthday cakes to hangover cures, Platter celebrates real food by real people. This disruptive appeal has won awards from Digital Shoreditch, A&N Media and Shortlist inter alia.
As the world's first food micro-blog, Platter spreads culinary inspiration in the simplest format. All photos are tagged by ingredient, so you can quickly find fresh ideas for the food in your fridge. The app also lets users animate multiple food photos to create 'visual recipes' without words. Platter is the brainchild of Will Hodson, a former food blogger and vintage wine salesman who has contributed to The Guardian on business and food. You can follow Will's cooking on Platter here: PlatterBill.
SOURCE Platterhq.com
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