Dark and moody Christmas photography

The brief for this kind of shoot was pretty simple, use my creative skills to produce a gallery of images that show the food off in a dark moody scene, which will be used for social media and website use. No expensive studio, no 6 six light setup. Just one light and my creative skills.

I wanted to give you a little insight into how I shoot when the brief is dark and moody.

Food photography gets interesting when you start being creative. Using dark backgrounds and props to set the tone, the results are so satisfying, especially at Christmas time (winter) when it works best in my opinion. The colours, the texture, and coziness all add to the cinematic depth. It’s perfect for bakeries, cafés, and dessert brands that need this sort of style for their campaigns.

It isn’t just trendy, it works.

I used one light source, being an off-camera flash, and plenty of blackboards to absorb the light and deepen those shadows.

Food photography isn’t about the food, it’s about the feeling it creates. When you control the light and shadows, even a simple brownie becomes a moment worth remembering.

To avoid being visually overwhelmed, I use structured layering: foreground, middle, and background.

This approach helps me build the frame and get the composition I am looking for. Yes, there is lots of tinkering around and moving this and that. But once you get there, the feeling of satisfaction is worth it. The sticky fingers aren’t great, though.

This is a short version of my thought process for this type of photography.

Writing these blogs isn’t one of my strong points, but we’ll get there. So if you made it this far, high five.