Note: I do not know how to do it but I always roll up like blinds writing and I have very long posts. Although it is a very useful post, you can go looking in points the suggestions that I make.
If you follow this blog you know that I like buy instagram comments.
In amateur plan, with the phone. But I am one of those who see photos in their path while I walk places or sit at a table.
That’s why my Instagram profile I use to publish those photographic stories that I find, not just about gastronomy. And I know I’m not the only one.
Instagram has made us all want to immortalize our moments with images. And if we talk about food, the foodie movement with its hashtags #foodpon and #healthyfoodporn generates that we share what we eat. And that is where I want to go.
Because you do not have to be an expert in photography to do beautiful things. And since you’re going to publish, make it something attractive.
It does not matter if you are a personal profile or a hotel business profile.
That’s why I want to give you some suggestions for your Instagram photos. Attentive
How to improve your gastronomic photos on Instagram
- The light
It is not the first time that I tell you this in the blog.
The light will always be better if it is natural.
It is the one that gives the best results when you look at what you have done. With which you can see nuances, textures, fair colors, etc.
Peeeeero, we know that many restaurants are more inclined by the dim light in their space, because of the cozy atmosphere.
And yes, it’s true, I also like short, romantic lighting, but when it comes to taking a picture of the dish you’re going to eat you do the job, do not you?
Then you have to edit.
Whether you do it in the same Instagram app or edit it first with another tool on your phone, apply what applies: a little bit of brightness, a touch of light, less shadow, a tad of contrast or less warmth.
I really like the Ambiente function in Snapssed because it gives light to the whole picture, but without abusing it, because it also applies a warm tone. If the photo has turned yellow, let alone use it.
And forget about the saturation, just a little bit if you see that you need it. But in the photos of food, his is that it looks as real as possible.
- No filters
It is related to the previous point and that is why I put it second.
It’s true that Instagram has a few cool filters, but you know what? Metricool’s latest report on the use of social networks in Spain says that unfiltered photos generate more interactions.
And I tell you something else: the food photos, as I said above, the more natural, the better.
It is food. And everyone has a predetermined perception in their head of the colors and tones of the food. I also told you about that in a post.
In any case, the Clarendon, the Juno and the Lark (the most used filters according to this report) apply them in other types of photos.
- The plans
I start with a basic plan: the rule of three thirds.
I had forgotten the concept, but I remembered it recently in a course I did on video with smartphones.
Maybe you have activated the function on your phone or have seen it on another. Your image, when you are going to photograph, appears striped by two horizontal lines and two vertical lines forming a 3-in-a-row game.
The three-thirds rule refers to the distribution you make of the elements in the image to bring attention to what you want to highlight. He says that this element of attention must always be at one of the crossing points of the lines.
In this way the eye will focus its attention on the strong point. In this post where I got the images they explain it to you very well.
From now on you will not want to put your main element back in the center of the photo (although there are exceptions); you will see that it is much nicer with this rule
Detail plane
In food this can be a very good resource.
Because sometimes, the joke of what you’re going to eat is not its general appearance but the texture, or what it offers when you cut it, or the droplets it exudes.
Then you have to zoom in and photograph a detail of the photo, the result can be much more appetizing.
When you do this, remember to step on the screen at the point you want to focus so that it is clear; if I’m not wrong now all smartphones have that function.
Eye, there are telephones, like mine, that if you zoom in too much the screen is out of focus and there is no way. What I do is that I walk away a tad, touch the screen to focus on the point and then cut.
In these cases, a cool resource is that you use the Instagram blur function, so you’ll give even more attention to that bite.
Aerial and flatlay
You’ll be thinking, we started with the words … what you want me to tell you (whatsapp shrug icon).
The zenithal panoraft has always existed but Instagram has taken care to make it very fashionable.
It refers to the approach you make when you place the camera just above what you want to photograph, completely perpendicular to the object photographed.
What do you already know what I’m talking about?
Flatlay on the other hand, are these zenith photos composed of various elements occupying the picture of the image to explain a context.
I do not know if the concept was invented with Instagram (if you know the origin, tell me), but it is the most used approach after selfies. In fact, there is a cool account called @flatlays that shares the most beautiful images tagged with this hashtag.
- Hashtag
I mentioned them to you before but now your special section arrives.
The hashtag or labels are those words or phrases together preceded by the symbol #.
Both Instagram and the rest of social networks work as search engines, if you click on the word you will get the images (in the case of IG) that have been published with this tag.
Hence its importance.
We all like to look from time to time (or daily depending on the phone addiction) what is published, and when we look for new photos in addition to the profiles we follow, we are guided by the hashtags. That is why it is important to give your publications labels that are related to what you publish.
Eye, I have seen profiles that in the text of your photos put a phrase with each word converted into a hashtag…
#desayunando #en #mi # casa … Noooooooooo!
People do not usually look for the labels #en, #mi, #de, etc. It is about relating your image with what you want to project, in addition, using labels that have a lot of diffusion.
Instagram facilitates this: when you start writing the hashtag the network gives you the number of publications made with that tag, so you can be guided.
For example, if you are a restaurant in Madrid in the Chamberí neighborhood and you are going to publish a photo of a plate of the letter, I would use the hashtags #madrid, # chamberí, #plato, #cocina, #restaurantesmadrid, #restauranteschamberi, of course #food #foodporn, and look at other hashtags that you can find in the list of the most used when you write them and they are related: #madridfood, #madridmola, etc.
- Test, play … decide
With this I finish.
If you want to make beautiful photos, do not pretend that they always leave you the first time. Make several of each point to photograph, play with the angles, with the closeness, look and try again. And then select the one you like best to edit it and upload it.
I know it’s an extra job, but it’s fast, and if you’ve done the photo with natural light, you probably do not need anything or almost no retouching.
You will see that the photo gallery of your Instagram profile improves.