A Look at Different Types of Food Photography Backgrounds

There are loads of different options when it comes to food photography backgrounds. However, they can often come from places that you wouldn't necessarily know about. Let's have a look at the most common ones that I use in my studio.

I have been a professional photographer for around a decade now, and I specialize in food. Alongside the actual food, we need a host of props and backgrounds. My studio has more space set aside for prop and background storage than it does for cameras and lights. Having beautiful food is one thing, but the perfect background and props can really make the difference between an ok and an amazing image. 

A lot of the choices for backgrounds come down to logistics and aesthetics, as I discuss in the video. I personally use all of the different types of backgrounds listed here, but always for different reasons, whether to make sure that my work stands out against other photographers, making sure that it is affordable, or simply from a logistics standpoint, making sure that we can get them to the location. 

We have traveled to foreign countries with monstrous amounts of props and backgrounds in the past when budgets have allowed, but we have also gone to very local shoots with tighter budgets and fewer hands on deck where printed paper rolls are the order of the day. 

What are your favorite things to use as backgrounds?

Scott Choucino's picture

Food Photographer from the UK. Not at all tech savvy and knows very little about gear news and rumours.

Log in or register to post comments
3 Comments

Surprised floor tile isn't used too.

Great video. Thanks!

Interesting, thanks. Dark wooden background seems to be perfect to me and sometimes I even replace the original one with it if I'm not happy with the photo. Thanks god we have photoworks' background replacing tool to save us from retaking one and the same photo again and again. Gotta try paper, too.