How to photograph your Thanksgiving dinner.

You spend hours, and even days, preparing your Thanksgiving feast. Why not take photos that really show off your hard work? Below are some easy tips for taking photos that look good enough to eat!

1. Lighting. Treat the food you’re photographing as you would any other still life subject and ensure that it is well lit. One of the best places to photograph food is by a window where there is plenty of natural light. This daylight helps to keep the food looking much more natural.

2. Props. Pay attention not only to the arrangement of the food itself but to the context that you put it in, including the plate and any table settings around it. Don’t clutter the photo with a full table setting but consider one or two extra elements such as a glass, fork, flower or napkin. 

3. Be quick. Food doesn’t keep it’s appetizing looks for long, so you’ll need to be well prepared and able to shoot quickly after it’s been cooked before it melts, collapses, wilts or changes color. This means being prepared and knowing what you want to achieve before the food arrives. 

4. Style it. The way food is set out on the plate is as important as the way you photograph it. Pay attention to the balance of food in a shot (color, shapes etc) and utilize common composition rules like leading lines, the rule-of-thirds and repetition. One of the best ways to learn is to get some cook books to see how the pros do it.

5. Enhance it. One tip is to use a little vegetable oil and brush it over food to make it glisten in your shots. Photographing food straight out of the oven while it's still steaming also adds to the appeal. 

6. Get low and close. A mistake that many beginner food photographers make is taking shots that look down on a plate from directly above. While this can work in some circumstances – in most cases you’ll get a better shot by shooting from plate level (or slightly above it). Getting close and really focusing in on just one part of the dish can be an effective way of highlighting the different elements of it.