Food Photography With Natural Light: Charcuterie Board

Learn how to capture deliciously simple food images at home.

One advantage of using studio lighting for food photography is the ability to control that light using modifiers. But it’s perfectly possible to modify natural light too, as you’ll discover in this easy-to-follow class!

As you watch Karl and Anna work together to create a mouthwatering charcuterie shot, you’ll learn how to use simple accessories to control natural light. For instance, you’ll find out how to reduce natural light to increase contrast and change the mood of the shot. You’ll also learn how to use simple accessories to create focussed pockets of light.

In this class:

• How to photograph food at home
• How to photograph food using natural light
• How to modify natural light to increase contrast
• Useful accessories for food photography

Questions? Please post them in the comments section below.

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Having demonstrated how to photograph food using natural light in the previous class, Karl took this shoot one step further and demonstrated how to reduce the size of the light source to create a higher contrast image with a totally different mood.

 

By modifying the light, Karl was able to control how much light he wanted for the image (the same way you would when working with studio lights). Methods of controlling natural light include using diffusers, flags or reflectors.

As the weather was overcast, the light for the shot was already quite soft, which meant there was no need for diffusers. However, had it been a bright sunny day, using diffusers (as was done in this portrait class) would have helped create a softer, more even light.

By using a combination of flags and reflectors, Karl and Anna were able to create an image very different from that achieved in the previous class and you can see how straightforward and simple the accessories and tools used to create it are.