The China Mood Restaurant at the Al Bustan Palace Ritz Carlton creates some beautiful dim sum. I did a quick one day food photography shoot for them where I photographed a wide variety of these amazing packets of goodness.
Food Photography Of The Day
When you are doing food photography with a lot of circular objects like these dim sum steamer baskets, finding a natural looking composition can be difficult. The repeating shapes tend to make the image look staged and the eye will have a hard time finding a place to focus and rest. So I though I would give a few short styling recommendations for this type of food photography.
- Crop a few of the circles off with the edge of the frame to break up the repetition and that staged look.
- If one of the circular props is larger, place that center stage with your hero subject, as the eyes will always gravitate towards larger objects.
- In the case of this dim sum, I chose to place a piece of the brightest colored dim sum to be in the center as well for the same reason. The eye will also gravitate towards the most colorful objects.
- Without any straight edged props to naturally give you those compositional lines for your food photography, try using the food like the pink and white dim sum at the corners in this image or any oddly shaped props like the spout on the glass tea pot.