Dark And Moody Food Photography Tutorial

 We all know perfectly lit, accurately styled studio shots of crispy lettuce or shiny tomatoe when doing Dark Food Photography, for example from advertising or from food packaging.

For some time, however, there has been a new trend in food photography that is becoming more and more widespread: The photos are dark with atmospheric light accents on the food and exciting, rustic textures, they appear honest, spontaneous and in an appealing way a bit dark and shabby, like having dinner with the padrone at an old oak table in the back room of an Italian trattoria. There are several terms for this type of photography: Dark & ​​Moody, Mystic Light or Chiaroscuro, an Italian term that originally comes from painting and means "light-dark".

As rough and rustic as these photos appear, they are seldom a spontaneous snapshot and require special strategies in the choice of accessories, food styling, photography and image processing. This article is intended to provide a few tips.

So let's get to the Dark And Moody Food Photography Tutorial shall we?

Props, accessories, backgrounds

The choice of so-called props, i.e. photo accessories such as plates, cloths or cutlery, is extremely important in Mystic Light Photography. Since we want to keep the background dark and focus entirely on the dish, we choose dark accessories in muted colors. The eye is usually the first to fix the brightest area in a picture and that should be our food.

Then the dishes should look as used and authentic as possible, preferably a tad shabbier than we would find them to be appetizing in everyday life. You can find it here at the flea market, online auction houses or in grandma’s attic. The accessories can offer the eye interesting structures, such as slightly rusty metal that still catches some light.

Weathered wood is ideal as a background, for example an old table top from bulky waste or the discarded door from the garden shed. With a little skill, wood stain and a grater, you can also make a new standard floor from the hardware store look antique. Or you can choose a large old baking sheet with slight traces of rust as a background, which with its metallic-bluish shimmer represents a nice contrast to the usually warmer colored food.

Food styling

With Dark & ​​Moody Food photography, we definitely don't want the dish to appear artificial and sterile. Rather, one would think that one could sit down at the table immediately and grab it. We do exactly that with our delicious models: grab it. Crumbs, crumpled serviettes, used cutlery and half-eaten dishes create liveliness all over the table. You shouldn't overdo it, otherwise it won't look appetizing any longer. Controlled chaos is the motto here.

Equipment and setting

For food photography, it is advisable in most cases to work with a tripod. In poor light conditions, you don't have to increase the ISO sensitivity, which can lead to image noise, but simply extend the exposure time. With very long exposure times, a remote release or the timer integrated in the camera can help prevent shaking when the shutter is released. Manual focusing ensures perfect sharpness exactly where you want it - you can afford the luxury of food, as it does not run away (except for ice cream, perhaps) and stays wonderfully still.

My lens of choice for food shoots is the Tamron 90mm F / 2.8 Di VC USD MACRO. It is razor-sharp with a wonderfully creamy bokeh and brings the food close to the eye. At the same time, the 90mm focal length allows you to get everything in the picture even in a little cramped space or when taking pictures from a bird's eye view. The open aperture of F / 2.8 allows an atmospheric play with the depth of field, whereby I recommend to stop down one or two levels for optimal sharpness. If you don't have the opportunity to work with a tripod, the built-in optical image stabilizer can help.

My setting consists of two old wooden panels that were raised with the help of a polystyrene box to the level of the daylight falling through the window from the left. They are not completely orthogonal to the incident light, but rather angled so that the light comes from the side and back. It shines through structures like lettuce leaves and makes them shine. For the Mystic Light Photography I pulled back my curtain, which otherwise functions as a softbox, because the incident light can be a bit harder here. Which leads us to the next point, the light ...

Light

The light, the most important factor of all - no photos without light. The light and its manipulation is a fundamental key to Mystic Light Photography. Whenever possible, I try to only take food photos in natural daylight. I already mentioned the optimal angle of incidence from diagonally behind in the setting above, as well as the fact that dark & ​​moody photography, which is based on light-dark contrasts, also requires a bit harder light.

Now the main focus will be on the targeted manipulation of light using reflectors and light absorbers. In commercial food photography one tries to avoid dark shadows as much as possible with the help of reflectors - not so in chiaroscuro photography. Shadows are desired here and therefore the classic setting shown above, with main light from the left and fill light from the right, is not ideal here!

Here, for comparison, exactly the same setting and the same camera position, but the white reflector on the right has been replaced by a light absorber made of black foam rubber. The photo immediately gains depth and mood.

Now you can also set up another light absorber on the side from which the main light falls, in our case on the left. However, you have to proceed carefully so that you do not shade the entire food, but only selectively the background. You can do this by sliding the light absorber back and forth - you have to try something here until it fits perfectly, because every set is different. In the example photo above you can see very nicely how the tin can and the plate in the background are now in the shade, but there is still light on the bagel.

Incidentally, you don't necessarily have to buy an arsenal of professional collapsible reflectors. A piece of white or black-sprayed styrofoam, foam rubber or sturdy cardboard will do just as well.

Image Editing

When it comes to image processing, you proceed a little differently than usual in order to achieve the desired Dark & ​​Moody effect.

Basically, you should always take photos in RAW file format so that you still have all the options when editing and can get the most out of the images without having to accept a loss of quality.

In mystic light shootings, I slightly underexpose the images with a view to editing - with RAW photos you can still repeat some details from dark areas if necessary, but white overexposed, burned-out image areas can no longer be saved in RAW. We also want a shady and dark atmosphere for our background anyway.

What, on the other hand, shouldn't be shady and gloomy: the food. Mystic Light Photography is often confused with simply chronically underexposing one's photos. But we want a light-dark contrast, the food should shine appetizingly and not look as if it had been in the attic together with the plate for 40 years!

That's why I prefer to work very selectively with the correction brush in Lightroom: Exposure, if necessary also saturation and warmth, are raised a little and we then “brush” light and color over our food. With this light painting, almost surreal dramatic effects can be achieved that perfectly bring the food to the fore.

Another Mystic Light trick: a dark vignette is almost always good. It also creates drama and draws attention to the essential, the judgment.

If you don't shy away from a more conspicuous treatment, you can also try the following: Partial toning, that is, you selectively color the shadows rather bluish-cool and the highs yellowish-warm. In this way you can achieve a gloomy background without taking away the color and warmth of the lighter food and increase the contrast. However, the same applies to processing as usual: Don't do too much of a good thing. The food should be related to its surroundings and not look as if it had fallen from a UFO onto the table in the Italian trattoria.

In summary, you should achieve a nice mystic light effect with rustic accessories, lively food styling, a targeted manipulation of light and shadow and processing that enhances contrasts.

As in all creative disciplines, however, there are no real rules. Everyone has different ideas and usually several paths lead to the goal. This article should only serve as a suggestion to experiment yourself and perhaps rediscover food photography through the mystic light style. Have fun!

This was our "Dark And Moody Food Photography Tutorial" I hope you enjoyed! Don't forget to leave us your question down below in the comments. We would love to hear from you.