Food photography with Dr. Chris Brown

With a love of travel, adventure, gastronomy and photography, Dr. Chris Brown reveals his top tips for capturing images of meals that will transport you back to your destination every time – images so good that you'll taste the favours and breathe in the aromas with every view.

I always find that food is such a highlight of the whole travel experience so it makes sense to capture our meals with some food photography. And I guess the hope is that the image allows you to enjoy the meal long after the taste of it has faded.

Straight away I always have to fight the initial urge to dive right in and start eating when a beautiful and delicious meal is served, because right now the priority is getting a nice shot.

I always look to find a focal point – the key to what might be a great food photograph. I am always looking at textures, at colours, and at the layout of the meal and trying to pick out a food priority straight away.

You could say I’ve got a bit of a unique approach to food photography, I kind of see food like a landscape on a plate.

To capture this landscape on my plate, I have used an aperture of f/2.8, speed of 1/200” and ISO of 100. So in this image, my duck is like a mountain range and all the little bits around it, like the orange and the peas, is kind of like the foreground of the shot. And just like a landscape photograph, I am trying to find a way to step the eye from the foreground to the background.

So for a different view in landscape photography you may get up in a helicopter and take an aerial view, and likewise shooting from above works really well with food because it gives you a really good idea of the texture and the layout of the dish. So no matter whether its the colours of Indian spices or the wafts of a Brazilian churrasco that you want to capture, look at the meal as a landscape and work your angles.

Watch the next film with Chris: capturing night photography