How to Take Beautiful Photos of Your Holiday Meal with Your Phone

You can’t open Instagram without scrolling past a hunger-inducing photo. But if your #foodporn shots leave something to be desired, this tutorial is for you.

We teamed up with professional photographer Ashley Batz and Adobe Lightroom to learn mobile photography tips and quick editing tricks to capture your gorgeous holiday meals. From composition tricks to quick photo edits to easy ways to turn your photos into shareable stories, this live demo equips you with everything you need to create punchy, gorgeous visual content in a flash.

Key Takeaways

1. Use household items to create the perfect composition.
When shooting on your phone, make sure what’s in your display is telling the story you want it to. Think about visual weight, contrast, and movement to set the scene. Ask yourself where your eye goes first? And adjust if anything is distracting. Instead of zooming, change your position or remove or add items in the frame to get the shot.

2. Let natural light do the heavy lifting.
Whenever possible shoot near a window. The cool light from natural sunlight makes food look fantastic. In Lightroom Mobile, shoot slightly under-exposed—it’s much easier to bring up the brightness in post-production. Need a little more light or a little less? Got a distracting shadow? Bounce light in strategic ways using commons items such as towels, tinfoil, construction paper or anything else you have handy to achieve the perfect scene before you hit capture. White items will make your scene look brighter, while darker items will tone down or create shadows.

3. Adjust exposure and make other light adjustments in Lightroom Mobile.
A few key editing workflows can help you turn your raw photo into a work of art. We discuss easy photo editing tricks in Lightroom starting around 48:42 as well as an easy way to apply edits across multiple photos to speed up your workflow.

4. Bring your photos to life with Adobe Spark.
Turn your photos into shareable moments with Spark’s easy creation tools. Perfect Pinterest pins, Instagram Stories, or fun memes are just a few taps away, while video slideshows or photo journals can help your images tell a complete story. Learn how to seamlessly take your photos from Lightroom into Spark around the 1 hour mark.

Learn More

More Food Photography Tips from a Professional Chef and Photographer
Create Addictive Recipe Videos that Rival Buzzfeed’s Tasty
Master the #Flatlay Prop Styling