Do you ever look at a picture of a plate of food in your Twitter or Instagram feed and think it's absolutely gorgeous? We do, it happens all of the time. You may (with good reasons) suspect that said image is taken with an SLR camera and then transferred onto social media platforms, which for the record, we think is kind of lame.
We'll we're not quite ready to ditch our SLR altogether, here are 5 pieces of advice that can turn you into an expert food porn creator, and get your friends salivating (and hopefully jealous) over your edible outings.
Google+ Snapseed
It's beyond us how this amazing photo editing app remains widely unused. You take photos of anything and everything with your phones, right? Sheesh. Anyway, with a multitude of photo editing options all controlled by swiping your finger (left to decrease, right to increase), this nifty little program is like a miniature Photoshop for dummies.
And, like most things in life, it's also free.
(September, 2014 Update: Although Instagram now has a similar feature built into its app, Snapseed is much more effective and allows for more dynamic changes when editing your photography.)
Friends as spotlights
What are friends for, if not to serve as beacons of light and hope in dark times? Since you're likely already sitting with other food nerds at a restaurant, people are already staring at you strangely while you all snap photos of your dinner. If it's dimly lit, get a friend (or two) to use the flashlight application on his/her phone to get a much more clear image of your plate of food.
Now, eat it before it gets cold!
Sit by the God damn window!
If diamonds are a girl's best friend, then natural lighting is that for a plate of food. If you're eating out over the lunch hour, ask to be seated by a window if possible. Most restaurants have them (I would be scared if they didn't). Besides, it's one thing to snap photos of your meal in a restaurant, but quite another to have an obnoxious flash going off.
This may seem like common sense, but sometimes common sense is not so common.
Know your angles
A photo is only as good as its photographer, so you need to pick the right angles to shoot from. This gorgeous heirloom tomato and ricotta salad is a beautiful mish-mash of colours when taken from a bird's eye view. Having it shot head-on wouldn't show the great variety of colours and textures.
Because, remember: on social media, your followers can only eat with their eyes.
Know what you're eating
As much as you intend to make others jealous and hungry by sharing your meal with the entire online world, it's also important to stay informative. If all things culinary are of interest to you, that's likely what your followers want to see from you. So, outlining specifics of a menu item (as well as tagging your location) can allow people to seek out that sexy-looking dish for themselves the next time they're out to eat!
Now, go out and make Canada a more delectable looking place!
