Light Your Food Photos Like A Pro - Use A Reflector

Using a reflector is one of the easiest yet most significant things you can do to improve the lighting of your food photographs. A strong light source can cause harsh shadows to fall on your food which usually translates into poor images. A reflector can fix that situation by bouncing light onto the shadow side and adding an overall brightness to the image.

How to use a reflector in second part of post... 

What Is A Reflector?

A reflector is any rigid form used to bounce light onto the shadow side of the subject. I use a small, store bought reflector that folds up into a small compact shape. It's made out of fabric over a rigid frame with one side white and the other side a metallic silver. The white gives me a softer brightness while the silver gives me bright, punchy light.

You can make your own by taking a piece of white foamboard and covering one side with aluminum foil.

Placement Is Key

The placement of the reflector is the most important consideration. The reflector should be placed OPPOSITE of the main light source. In the photo above, the window is the light source, so the reflector is placed to the right of the bowl of lemons, FACING the window. This will cause the light to bounce from the reflector back onto the lemons. As you can see in the photo, I use two jars of jam to hold the reflector up. No fancy equipment needed!

Here is a before and after

Comments

[The Cooking Photographer]

Great advice on reflectors.

[Danny]

Thanks Cooking Photographer! I love the photos on your blog!

[Kian]

Excellent tip! Amazing what a simple reflector can do to a photograph.

[Moira]

Thank you for sharing your knowledge with us.
This is very useful for me.
Regards from Lisbon, Portugal
Moira

[Muneeba]

Awesome piece of truly useful advice .. THANK YOU!

[Danny]

Thanks for the great comments everyone! This tip is truly simple and makes a world of difference.

[Michelle Johnson]

Thank you so much! I am going to try this!

[Danny]

Thanks Michelle. Let me know how it turns out.

[TaGa_Luto]

You do see the difference. Thank you for sharing.

[Danny]

Thanks Taga. It's amazing, right?

[فرشاد پالیده]

interesting lightin

[The Culinary Chase]

What do you recommend when taking photos when the natural light is gone?

[Danny]

Hi Culinary Chase,

If the natural lighting is gone I'd recommend waiting until it returns. Flash photography is really one of those things that require fancy or expensive equipment and I simply don't recommend it.....I'm usually really disappointed with the results so I don't even bother.

[Ciao Chow Linda]

good tip. i can use all the help you can give.

[T$]

Same for me - I'm just getting started with this food blogging thing and am not happy with my pictures so far. Definitely going to give this a try and scour the rest of this site. Thanks much!

[chocolatecup]

thank youuuuuu!:) i will make/buy one after my exams!:)

[Kate]

Thanks for posting this; it will really help out in my tiny little apartment (with very little natural light)!

This seems like a dumb question, but I have to ask: does size or shape matter when all is said and done?

[Danny]

Thanks for the comments everyone!

Kate, the reflector I use is about the size of a large serving dish, do it doesn't have to be huge....I find that the smaller ones are easier to place and to control the direction of the bounced light.

[ButterYum]

EXCELLENT Info!!!!!!! Thank you so much!