Snap the perfect un-messy, messy photo 😙🤌

So you want to get that perfectly “lived-in” look in your photos? Like someone’s about to devour that double chocolate cupcake or like you just whipped up those peanut butter cookies in your home kitchen? Well, I gotchu! Here are three tricks to snap that the perfect un-messy, messy photo that gives that “lived-in” quality:

1. CRUMBS

Diamonds are a girl’s best friend, but crumbs are a food photographer’s! Shooting with crumbs shows that your food has already been broken into or that you maybe spilled a little while you were mixing up the batter (guilty 🙋‍♀️).

But it’s also easy for crumbs to get out of hand and just be *too much.* So instead of scattering your crumbs all over your scene, try choosing one area for your crumbs. Put them in an arc or a line or just in one corner. This way, your crumbs will be a part of the whole composition without getting too chaotic!

(For example, in this photo, all of the crumbs are placed in a line right in front of the muffins. That way the crumbs guide the eye across the image without overpowering the scene and making it look messy!)

2. PLATES

Plating your food and adding a bit of “mess” can really make your photo look like someone interacted with your food. But it’s SO easy to accidentally go overboard.

When using plates, remember to wipe the whole plate clean. Then, choose just *one* spot on the plate to be messy. Have just one corner of the cake broken apart with a fork. Have just one smear. Have just one crumbley bit of pecan pie.

When you have one spot that’s messy, while the rest is totally clean, it looks so much more intentional!

(For example, in this cherry pie, see how there’s only one streak of cherry juice on the pie dish? Cherry juice everywhere would have been too much and your eye wouldn’t have known where to focus!)

3. BITES

If you want to get that PERFECT bite in your chocolate chip cookie, brownie, lemon tartlette, what-have-you…you’re going to want to do it slowly..

I know this sounds silly, but when you take a bite of the food, do it at a quarter the speed you normally would. Bite down super slowly, then hold your bite for a moment, and finally pull away. I actually have a TikTok right here that explains exactly how to do it!

(See how the bite in this photo is just perfect? Showing a bite shot is great because it makes you feel like the food is so good that someone just had to take a bite of it!)

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There ya go, three ways to get a perfectly lived-in photo! Try these tips out next time you grab your camera and watch your photos come to life.