20 Inspirational Examples of Food Photography

„What I’ve enjoyed most, though, is meeting people who have a real interest in food and sharing ideas with them. Good food is a global thing and I find there is always something new and amazing to learn – I love it!”

-Jamie Oliver

In this day and age, with so many people eating wrong, food is a topic we need to discuss more seriously again. More and more people have eating disorders of one kind or another. Whether it’s over-eating or eating the wrong things that leads to such a large percentage of the world population being overweight or the other end of the spectrum, with eating disorders like bulimia or anorexia, it’s clear that we, as a culture, have some issues with food and need to have a serious reevaluation of our stance on the topic.

This is apparent even if you look at the job market or just on your TV screen. Nutritionists have become some of the most sought-out professionals of our time and odds are that you are no more than 30 minutes away from a cooking show on one channel or another.

The first of these issues to show up, historically, is overeating or eating the wrong kinds of foods (too much fat and sugar, not enough protein and other components). This issue stems from the fact that we live in a post-scarcity society.

Most of us have never ever had to want for food, but our bodies are still programmed to enjoy fatty and sweet foods the most, as we can store up more of them and to eat as much as we can at any given point. These are evolutionary traits that did make sense in a world where food was scarce and we had to ensure our survival, but these days, it seems that all it does is get us to become overweight.

What can you do about this issue? Well, it’s simply a matter of willpower. It’s self-restraint, when your mind has to overcome your antiquated instincts before they can harm you.

Unfortunately, this conclusion is not novel and it has brought us the other end of the eating disorder spectrum: under-eating in the form of anorexia, bulimia and a whole host of other such problems. These stem from excess in the other direction.

Body image and self esteem issues come together and take this admirable goal of self-control too far, making people literally sick with the reverse condition. It’s needless to say that this is a big problem in the modern world.

It certainly does seem that we, as a culture, have a love-hate relationship with food. This is doing us nothing but harm and many people are struggling with low self-esteem, not to mention the host of physical health issues that come with either side of the eating disorder spectrum.

So, as stated above, we need to take a step back and rethink our attitude towards food. An important part of the way we look at food comes from its presentation.

This is where the main theme of the article comes into play. Food photography can come in and help us understand that food is great for us (obviously, seeing as we need it to survive), but that it shouldn’t be overdone.

We’ve taken the time to compile a list of our favorite 20 examples of food photography in order to showcase this much underrated art, on one hand, and, on the other, in order to serve as design inspiration for any of you who may be photographers working in this field or just looking to expand your horizon with food photography.

Before we get into this, though, there is just one more thing we’d like to talk about. Like we said, nutrition is highly important these days and, in an age where people don’t really have the time to cook for themselves and eat home-made dishes like they used to, we spend more and more time in restaurants, diners and delis.

This is another reason for which food photography is important in this day and age. Not only does it serve to help us create a new image of food, but it’s also a highly lucrative and fascinating medium. We strongly encourage any photographers reading this to give it a shot.

So, without further ado, we give you the list of our top 20 picks of inspirational food photography. Enjoy and do try not to let your mouth water too much!

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That pretty much wraps up the list of our top 20 picks of inspirational food photography. Do you do food photography? What are your favorites and why? What tips would you give to someone who’s just getting started with food photography? Don’t hesitate to leave us a message in the comments section below!