Despite having crockery units with all sorts of crockery items, it often becomes hard to find the right items for your food photography. There are no rules when it comes to taste and styling. However, there are certain guidelines for selecting crockery for food photography. You can achieve more polished photography with rightly chosen crockery. The crockery you select greatly influences what you want to convey to your audiences. Also, some crockery simply makes your food stand out, whereas some don’t look so good. Therefore it’s essential to understand how to select the right crockery and take your food architecture and aesthetics to the next level. Whether you’re building a crockery collection or wanting to add new items, Building up your own collection of crockery items could also be very expensive and exhaustive.
Here are some tips to ease up your selection-
- Keep it simple-Keeping your crockery minimalist or neutral means you can focus on your main purpose, that’s, your culinary creations. Crockery should complement your food preparations and not overpower them. You want your food to do the talking, and keeping it simple can help create a great style. So try to choose simple crockery than fancy items
- Choosing a small-bigger is better, but when it comes to food blogging, less space and food looks better. The size of your crockery matters a lot. Certainly, a big dinner plate with a small portion of food on it will not look good and tempting. Also, a complicated, overfilled plate will not look appealing at all. You can avoid a sense of emptiness because of the negative space around the food portion when you use a smaller plate. A simple and small plate or bowl can be easily styled and shot in close-up with a tighter frame. Moreover, you will have fewer portions of food to position and garnish as well. Dessert plates, salad plates, or appetizers can be good options to go for. With small plates and bowls, creating the look of a full plate with a small portion of food is easily possible. Also, investing in larger crockery items can be a costly affair, and you will need food in large quantities to plate on it. Furthermore, smaller crockery items can be used for several items, including ingredients, sauces, desserts, chutneys, etc. you can check out several available varieties and experiment with different sizes to get the best shot of your food preparations.
- Go for plain- When it comes to selecting crockery, plain options with no ridges can work well. Intricately patterned plates or multicolored bowls, though they seem attractive to buy, such attractively designed tableware including katoris, serving bowls, soup bowls, etc., is not a good option for food photography. You want to highlight your food, but crockery with strong colors, ridges, and patterns may distract your viewers with a focus on crockery rather than your food creations. Choosing melamine crockery with a matte finish can be a great choice. Melamine dinner sets are almost unbreakable. Moreover, melamine crockery gives a high-grade look as it resembles to be made up of porcelain or slate. Instead of glossy plates that will reflect light and create hurdles in photography, it is better to go for matte finish crockery items.
- Select soup bowls wisely– A huge variety of soup bowls featuring pretty handles, rims, and edges that turn in is available in the market. They are surely eye-catching, but when it comes to food styling, such kind of attractive options can hurt photography as less food surface is visible. Moreover, inward-turning ridges can create shadows, which can be a big hurdle to deal with. Plain bowls with vertical or slightly outward turning lips can be a great option. You can even choose saucer plates for styling soups or saucy dishes.
- Rectangle/Square plates- Sometimes square times can be hard to shoot, so buy them wisely. Rectangular plates can be a good option for mini desserts or plating dishes where you want space in between.
- White crockery- White crockery can work well for almost every food preparation. Coloured crockery can sometimes go wrong and overshadow food items. It can be difficult to match everything well too. On the other hand, having a solid collection of white crockery will make you always get something to style your new dish uniquely. White crockery items are, in fact, no-brainer items as they are easy to style. A plain white plate gives a styling palette that highlights your food preparations. Shop for white and neutral crockery items that will always make your food hero pop.
- Dark crockery– For some food items with bright or light colours, bold coloured crockery can work wonders. Such dark-coloured crockery can also help create an atmosphere or dramatic/ rustic feel. Less colourful food or curries plated on brighter, colourful plates will surely take the food to the next level. So it is better to have a few distinctive bold coloured pieces in your collection. Make sure that the colour works well with your food dish. Remember, the point is to pull the focus of viewers on the food and not the plate.
- Unique pieces- surely, your collection should have basic crockery but always keep your eyes open for distinctive pieces that grab attention. Look for pieces in shops around, or you can even buy unique crockery online.
To conclude, selecting crockery to showcase your wonderful culinary preparations is a bit tricky, and several factors need to be considered, including size, colour, texture, finish, etc. there is no point in ending up buying crockery that you will rarely use. So, be purposeful with the items you select to represent your food. Above mentioned tips will surely help you select the right options to have in your crockery collection, find the perfect crockery to style every new dish you prepare, and make your food – the star of the show.
