How to shoot food photos if you’re not a chef or a great baker?

Let’s face it, not everyone of us is a Cordon Bleu and have all the time in the world to bake a cute cake from scratch every time we want one. Even if you have time, you might want to go the easy way and bake a cute cake from a delicious cake mix. And if you’re a real foodie, you might want to turn this cake into a food photo.

With this quick photo essay, I just wanted to show it’s easy to style a photo to make (almost) anything look good. Take this lemon cake made from IKEA Muffinsmix for example; it’s probably the easiest cake batter I’ve ever made, but still, there’s a way to make it look good with the right accessories, lighting and styling.

How to style a food photo for a recipe that wasn’t meant to be styled?

For this one, you’re gonna have to use or imagination or rely on Pinterest. Pinterest is a great source of inspiration for my food photos.

For this food photo, I was inspired by the cake mix itself and decided to put on a homemade lemon icing along with halves of thin lemon slices. I also added a few full lemon slices on the side as well as full lemons. I put the cake on a cooling rack and the background is a concrete tile from Ciot.

What was my lighting setup for this food photo?

For these photos, I had a rather simple lighting setup: an external flash triggered wirelessly with a snoot so the light is harsher and concentrated on the subject.

To soften up the scene, I turned on my LED Ring Light which was installed on the lens for the occasion.

I shot this in RAW on my trusty Nikon D750 at 1/200 @ f/4 with the unbelievable Sigma 50mm f/1.4 Art lens.

What I wanted to show you with this article is that with enough creativity, you can have great results even if it’s a simple cake mix you bought from the store.