As we dive into fall, it’s official soup season! I love making and eating soups during the cold weather months, but they can be quite challenging to style and photograph. In this post, I am sharing my tips on how to turn a blob of beige soup into a dynamic and interesting image.
Present
Perhaps the most obvious tip when photographing soup is to consider the decor. You can have the best prop styling, but if there’s no decoration or some visual interest in the soup bowl, the shot can look flat. Even a few pinch of pepper can add a bit of visual interest; It’s not always complicated. For something more textured, I like to add microgreens, coriander, parsley, pine nuts, almonds, sunflower seeds, mixed nuts, or coconut cream. As long as it matches the flavor profile of the dish and matches the recipe, you’re good to go.
Consistency
If the soup itself is full of interesting shapes, vegetables, and grains, you may not need the garnish. The wild mushroom rice soup below, has a lot of visuals and textures in the bowl without the garnish. Consider what’s in your soup and how you plate it to show the consistency of the dish, so viewers can visualize how it tastes as they dip into their spoons.
Corner
Play with multiple angles when shooting. You can imagine your hero shot as a flat shot, but if you take the camera off the tripod and experiment with some shots or maybe switch to a Macro lens and jump right into the dish, you might surprise yourself with the results. Sometimes, my favorite images are from the extra scenes I take after the one I have planned in my head.
Multiples
We don’t always have to pour a portion of soup into a bowl. We can serve soup in several bowls to present a setting as if a group of friends or a family were sharing a meal. Splitting soup into smaller portions is a great way to make the picture more appealing, as opposed to a big bowl of soup that gets you in trouble!
Light and Color
Use your lighting and color choices to create mood in your soup images. We tend to think of soup as a super winter treat that’s fun to play with, but it can also be fun to make things fun. I used bubblegum pink bricks for this cauliflower to create a vibrant and non-traditional beauty.
Move
Consider adding someone’s hand dipping in bread, sprinkling pepper on their soup, dipping into their spoon or even serving soup from a pan to bring that dynamic element to your image. Telling more stories or creating more stories can put a ton of personality into a difficult dish to shoot.
Inference
Using movement, color, light, different angles and decorations are all great ways to give your soup a bit of a boost. I’d love to hear how you approach soup photography and what tricks you use!
