What to photograph when you sell food

The most common mistake is photographing the whole menu. The second is photographing it at night, under the kitchen lights, on a stainless steel counter.

You are not making a catalogue. You are making someone hungry.

One window is a studio

Daylight from the side, at an angle, is the only light you need. Put the plate on a table near a window, stand so the light comes across the food rather than from behind you, and shoot.

Turn the ceiling lights off. Mixed light — warm bulbs plus cool daylight — is what makes home photography look like home photography.

Shoot the best seller first

If you photograph five dishes and three are blurry, you have wasted an afternoon. Photograph one dish properly:

• Top-down for anything flat: pizza, bowls, boards.
• Forty-five degrees for anything with height: burgers, stacks, cake.
• Close enough that the food fills the frame. Then closer.

The details that sell

What you show	What the buyer reads
Steam, or a cut edge	It is hot, it is fresh
A hand reaching in	It is real, someone eats this
An empty plate beside it	It is a portion, not a prop

Then stop

Six good photographs will carry a shop for a year. Take those, put a price under each one, and go back to cooking.

The same one-window rule works for anything you sell, not just food — there's a fuller version in product photography for small sellers. Once the pictures are done, the next thing that decides whether someone orders is what you write underneath them.