Up Your Travel Photography Game: Food

Showing more than just your lunch

Photo by Author: Cotton Candy in Tokyo. When I was 16 and working on the Redondo Beach Pier in California, I used to make cotton candy, but my little pink creations never looked anything like this.

I must admit, I haven’t been cruising around Facebook and Instagram as much lately as I have been caught up in several great books and my garden is screaming for attention. However, in spite of their many evils, I do love social media platforms as a way to share what is going on in my life with people I don’t see every day. I also love seeing what they are up to. One of the things I love most is seeing pictures of my loved ones on vacation.

I have noticed that people love to share what they are eating while they are traveling. I get it, you sat down to an amazing meal and you want to share the joy with me. As a viewer of these pictures, the joy is usually lost on me though. I wasn’t there and the picture of the food isn’t bringing me there. It is just a picture of food on a plate or in a bowl. Likewise, pictures of my friends and/or family sitting all together at a table eating is not very interesting in and of itself. Don’t get me wrong, I love to see your smiling faces but I would rather see less posed ones.

So, that is where I am here to help. How can you make food interesting in a photograph? What is the difference between a food pic that I scroll by and one that I stop on because it helps me travel vicariously with you?

Here are some tips I have discovered through trial and error as I have traveled around the world.

Get close up and show me the texture

I can’t be there with you to smell and taste those wonderful meals with you, but I can share the texture and perhaps even the feeling of warmth if you get a bit closer. The whole photograph doesn’t have to be in focus, in fact, sometimes isolating just one part of the food can really make my mouth water. One of the things I loved about Japan was the food. I don’t think I ever had a bad meal there. The attention to detail didn’t just involve the food, it extended to how the food looked as well. I took the images below in restaurants in Tokyo. Can you feel and appreciate them with me?

Photo by Author: Winter in Tokyo gets cold but there is almost always a ramen shop nearby to warm you up. I don’t think I ever had a bowl I didn’t like! The experience was great for shy people as many times you don’t even have to talk to a waiter. You just select your food and pay on a machine that spits out a ticket. Take the ticket and hand it to the people preparing the food behind the counter and a few minutes later, a bowl of perfectly delicious warmth arrives in front of you.

Photo by Author: Tokyo is full of little sweet shops where you can get a perfect pastry and a cup of tea or coffee and take a break. I found this orange and chocolate creation just outside of Ueno park as I walked back to my apartment. Just looking at it makes me want to feel the crumble of the crust, the soft pudding and the subtle resistance of the candied orange alongside the snap of the dark chocolate.

Photo by Author: Another sweetshop in Tokyo created this little cake. How many textures can you find?

Show Me a Little of What the Atmosphere was like

As much as I love food, I would also love to see what the place you were in was like. The food is only one part of the dining experience! Don’t limit your image to just food, show me the rest of the place in the same image.

Photo by Author: One of the things I love about Spain is the amount of food growing on the trees all around. This is a photo I took of a vacation rental house in Andalucia. The grapes, pomegranate and olives were all from around the house and the cheese was local. What a feast we had in this beautiful kitchen!

Photo by Author: Tapas, tapas, tapas are the name of the game in Spain! I took this photo in northern Spain where the tapas look very different from the ones in the south. The original idea for tapas came about because flies kept getting in people’s wine so restaurants began to put bread over the glass. Then restaurants began to compete with each other to see what they could put on the bread to entice customers in. I am sold, bring on the tapas. This image also gives you and idea of what the bar looked like.

Photo by Author: Another example of the ramen I love so much. This time I have included the counter too.

Share the Emotion of the Moment

One of the ways in which we bond with other people is through food. I love watching people enjoying themselves over a good meal. Traveling gives me the opportunity to connect with my daughter. We choose where and what we want to eat together and then we enjoy ourselves. This is what I want to show in my photographs and what I would love to see in yours.

Photo by Author: You would think my daughter and I were in Italy for this picture but no, we were in Tokyo. She was so happy because pizza is a wonderful thing.

Photo by Author: Again, the joy of pizza but this time in Indonesia

Photo by Author: Tacos also bring a lot of joy to the table! This time they were vegan made of jackfruit grown in the garden in back of the restaurant in Bali

Show me the process of making the food

Food is one of the most accessible cultural experiences we have when we are traveling. To truly appreciate it, it is fun to watch people make it. Don’t forget that taking pictures of food includes the ingredients and preparation.

Photo by Author: In a friend’s kitchen in Spain.

photo by Author: Street food in Japan is just as good as restaurant food. I loved watching the vendors preparing their stalls for the day. Ueno Park, Tokyo

Food and Hands

I find hands to be very expressive. With food, we use our hands to prepare it, pass it to other people and eat it. Why not show the role hands play in food when you are traveling and eating?

Photo by Author: Instead of asking everyone to smile while I took the picture, I just waited for someone to pass something to someone else and then focused in on that.

Photo by Author: Is there anything quite a sweet as a grilled pineapple lovingly cut up right in front of me?

Photo by Author: Once while in Turkey I was invited to a friend’s summer house. The summer community had a BBQ and served Kokorec, a spicy dish made from intestines wound up, grilled and chopped. It may sound dubious but I love it. The whole community came out and helped prepare the feast.

Look for Foods that are Different

I am not really interested in seeing a picture of your Macdonald's hamburger in Paris, unless you are trying to highlight something unusual and interesting about it. I would rather see things that are a little different.

Photo by Author: KFC seems pretty normal but in Japan it as a whole different meaning. In Japan it is traditional to eat KFC on Christmas. This restaurant was in Tokyo Dome.

Photo by Author: Ever since I read a book called the Soul of an Octopus and watched the documentary My Octopus Teacher I am a little hesitant to eat them but they are really popular in Japan

Photo by Author: I collected these mushrooms on the instructions of my host while WWOOFing in England. They were delicious even though they looked strangely flesh-like.

So, I hope I have inspired you to have fun taking pictures of food on your next vacation. I would love to see what you eat, who you eat it with and what it looked like in the place you were eating. Happy travels!