YOU ONLY NEED ONE LIGHT SOURCE
Food photography is definitely one of those genres where less is more. With portraits, cars, and interior architecture, for example, we can keep adding more and more light until we have it shaped perfectly for our needs. Add a kicker. Throw in a little more fill. Craft the light and direct the shadows. With food photography, however, making the food the star is usually a matter of carefully selecting a single large, diffused light source. Before you click over to B&H or Adorama in search of the biggest soft box you can find, take a few minutes to check out your windows. Nine times out of ten, a simple window will be all you need to create beautifully diffused back or side light. Lighting from the back or side will create dimension and highlight the textures in the food. As a portrait photographer, I found this to be a little counter-intuitive when I first started shooting food. Even though we CAN take stunning portraits with just one light, adding a fill light to soften the shadows or background lights to create separation is very common. Not so with food. The best light for food photography is the light they won’t even notice when they look at the photos. We want it as natural as possible. That’s one of the reasons why window light works so well. It also means, though, that there are going to be naturally occurring shadows. If you feel they need to be softened, or that some fill is necessary, use a bounce card.