5 Free Classes in Food Photography

Available for a limited time only, these classes will show you how to take great photographs of your favorite recipes

A quick scroll on Instagram proves that food photography has made a big impact on social media. You’ll also see how difficult it is to stand out amongst the sea of images that have been hashtagged with popular categories like #foodporn.

When going up against this strong competition, it’s a good idea to learn from the best: from coming up with a concept to setting up lighting. These five free classes are an invitation into the exciting world of food styling and the range of skills you can master.

Free Class: Set and Lighting

A photography set is where the magic begins, and creating it, of course, has its secrets. In this class from the course Food Photography Basic Techniques, commercial photographer Ernesto López explains how to create a workspace that helps you concentrate on your creative process. He will also teach you how to control light so that your photographs look great from the get-go. In summary, you will learn how to assemble a set and will discover the basic knowledge you need to take a spectacular photograph.

Free Class: Creating a Composition

Vega Hernando, creator of Eating Patterns, shares some of the secrets behind the success of her unique food photography. In this class, which is part of her course Gastronomic Creativity and Pattern Composition, Vega shares tips on how to take a great photo by arranging different ingredients and projects on top of a piece of color card. The final objective is to learn how to communicate concepts through food in an original and fun way.

Free Class: Building Your Set

In this class, Paola, Andrés, and Natalia–the team behind Espacio Crudo–will teach you how to create the perfect setting for your photos, incorporating different elements and ingredients. These tips are part of their course, Introduction to the Business of Food Styling, in which they explain the ins and outs of the food styling business and share the process behind their stunning photographs, from the first contact with the client to the final photo.

Free Class: Make it real. Art Direction

In this video, Espacio Crudo gives us a class in art direction, showing us how to bring all of our ideas together in a harmonious way. These experts emphasize the importance of sketching out your plan and shed light on how you can use lighting to create different moods. This class is part of the course, Creating Culinary Photo Series, in which you will discover the importance of pre-production.

Free Class: Photographing Packaging

Francesc Guillamet is one of the best food photographers in the world. He has snapped the amazing culinary creations of acclaimed Spanish chefs such as Ferran Adrià, Sergi Arola, the Roca brothers (Jordi, Joan, and Josep), Carme Ruscalleda, and Paco Torreblanca. In this class, he chooses a product that is complicated to photograph and analyzes each of the decisions he makes with regard to photographing packaging. You can learn more about this in his course Food Photography and Retouching with Photoshop, in which he presents the challenges he has had to overcome when photographing miniature vegetables and other unusual elements.

These classes will only be available until the 28th of December 2020. If you want to access them after this date, sign up to the courses that they’ve been extracted from.

You may also like:

–15 Food Photography Ideas To Try This Holiday Season
–5 Courses to Help You Make the Most of Instagram
–Introduction to the Business of Food Styling