Photograph Ice Cream

While photographing ice cream might seem simple at first thought, the reality is a little different. A food with many color variations that can make mixing and matching and good light and depth capturing tricky for the photographer, it also has the challenging habit of melting if you're not fast enough!

To help you succeed, here are some ideas for those of you who love to blog your ice cream recipes, or if you'd just like a wonderful summer theme focused on taking photos of ice cream, with the added benefit that you can enjoy these ice creams minus the calories!

Steps

Preparation

1. Be prepared properly in advance. Ice cream won't wait for you and melts fast, making it hard to photograph.. To avoid losing those precious moments when the ice cream still looks fantastic, it is important to prepare all of your equipment and props in advance for still food photography.
   • Have all of your camera equipment in place, including tripod (if using), special lenses, filters, etc. A tripod can be an excellent piece of equipment for indoor ice cream photography; you can set the camera in place at the angle that pleases the eye best, relying on props (such as yogurt containers, etc.) to serve as mock ice cream until you've adjusted the camera to the exact settings desired. Once done, grab your ice cream, remove the props and arrange the ice cream in the predetermined positions, and shoot away for the next few minutes.
   • Check that the lighting is just as you want it (see below for tips).
   • For ice cream that will be sitting in a bowl or other prop, place the prop into Make Ice Cream in the Freezer for at least 20 minutes prior to taking the shot. That way, you will have a very cold prop for the ice cream to sit on, providing you with extra time to make adjustments before the ice cream melts. This is especially important for warm locations or if you're taking the ice cream outside in the sun.
   • For photography on the go, simply have your camera ready for those candid moments of people with their ice creams.
2. Try to choose the cooler weather days, or cooler times of day, for photographing ice cream. Early morning and the evenings are suitable times, out of the sun's glare. For indoor photography, choose cool, air-conditioned rooms. Naturally, the fact that you might want different, brighter light on your ice cream subject will impact your decision on the time of day to shoot.
3. Work on the appropriate setting. Are you setting up the photo of a specific ice cream after making or purchasing it, or are you simply hoping to come across ice creams being held by people outdoors as you walk about? Obviously, if you're setting up the ice cream shoot from scratch, there is a bit more effort involved.
   • Do you want the ice cream in a bowl, in a cone, on a plate? Perhaps its original packaging is interesting enough to use as well.
   • Do you want someone holding the ice cream, a pet licking it, or some other action shot? Will you need to set the shots up, or are you looking for candid shots on a beach, at a park, or at a special event?
   • Do you want the ice cream to be the main feature or to form part of a set-up with other food? If so, the other food will need to be prepared and arranged in place before adding the ice cream at the last moment (see arranging props above).
   • Do you want to photograph the ice cream in a kitchen, a dining room, or perhaps al fresco in your garden? Each option has its own challenges of light, background, temperature, and accessibility that need to be worked out in advance.
   • If photographing people with their ice cream, consider whether you want to take photographs of children (always delightful but can be hard work to have them stand still) or adults, individuals or groups, and so on. Is the situation appropriate to take photos on the fly or will you need to ask for permission?
     • At a bare minimum, it is polite to ask "Do you mind if I take a photo of you/your kids eating that ice cream?" If the potential subjects ask why, you can explain in greater detail.
4. Choose the ice cream. If you're setting up the shoot, what kind of ice cream are you photographing?
   • Is the ice cream scooped, sandwiched, curled, whipped, soft serve, or coated?
   • Is it a sorbet, an ice lolly, a popsicle, a cone, or a sundae?
   • Is it coated in exciting and tasty sprinkles, chocolate, or other ice cream toppers?
5. Find a suitable background. The background may be determined by the reason for the photo shoot. If you're being paid to do a food shoot, you might be obliged to use their choice of dinnerware and such, but if you have a choice, there are some backgrounds that look great with ice cream. Here are some ideas:
   • A wood texture background will evoke home and comfort.
   • White background. White is a good stand-by background for many food types, as it doesn't crowd out the food and it provides plenty of background light to set off the food.
   • A garden with green colors, or flowers as the backdrop.
   • A dark background can set off the ice cream subject perfectly, especially when you see nothing but the ice cream.

Techniques

Photographing ice cream is a form of food photography, an area of photography with its own rules and specialties, with styles that come and go. Notably, the fact that ice cream melts features high on the list of potential problems, but given ice cream's glorious colors and textures, as well as its potential to evoke delight in the viewer, it's a photo subject worth coming to terms with. The following techniques should help you to perfect your ice cream photography skills.

1. Consider which lighting will best enhance the ice cream subject. Food photographers often prefer a single light source – it's cooler and quick to work with.
   • Aim for natural light wherever possible. If you can position the ice cream near a large window with a white gauze curtain or thin white sheet across it, this will create suitable, adequate indoor natural lighting. Dappled light (sun filtering through trees) can be an effective look but you will need to work quickly as the sun will move, as well as melt the ice cream.
   • Avoid using a flash unless you are really sure about what you're doing. A flash will often be too harsh for the delicacy of ice cream and can cast unflattering shadows. Try off-camera flash with a diffuser or reflector, balancing flash with ambient light (preferably sunlight to avoid color balance problems), or multiple flashes.
   • Avoid having too little light (or too little exposure). Underexposed ice cream will appear insipid, failing to capture the delicious subtleties of the ice cream flavors.
   • Set the white balance setting on your camera, particularly if not using natural light. The ice cream can take on yellow or blue hues otherwise. Automatic white balance rarely gets things quite right.
   • Consider using a reflector to bounce back light and increase the brilliance of the ice cream. Plain mirrors or white card can also do the trick. Practice the positioning until you get a sense for good placement (perhaps try with a prop to give yourself time!). Reflectors, white card, or mirrors can be held in place with clamps and supported against any item that is solid and able to be covered by a background cloth.
2. Aim to capture the ice cream's texture. Look to see how the light and shade fall across the ice cream to find the best angle for bringing out its texture and color to the best advantage. You might need to shift the positioning of the ice cream, or more likely, the position in which you are standing.
3. Take care with colors. Getting the color right matters with ice cream, to accurately portray the wide array of ice cream colors from the brightest to the most subtle, each color conveying the flavor and taste of the ice cream to the viewer. Some of the things to think about with color include:
   • If you are photographing a trio of ice cream flavors, be sure to select colors that match well. Scale them according to their contrast. Be careful that no color will simply fade into the background or be overwhelming against the other colors.
   • Use asymmetry. Angle the photo so that the darkest color resides in the most illuminated area, and the brightest color resides in the least illuminated area.
   • Check that accompanying props or food are neither stealing the limelight from the ice cream nor creating an overall dullness. For example, accompanying fruit, plates, packaging, and backdrops should be a good contrasting or compatible color.
   • A cheat that you can consider is recoloring or touching up the ice cream post photography. Use a good digital photo program for coloring in the ice cream shades differently until you're satisfied with the end result. This is a trick often used with plain vanilla, to provide a more exciting array of colors!
4. Use macro if focusing principally on the ice cream as the subject. Macro is ideal for food shots because it captures the appealing nature of the food by zooming right into the detail. If your ice cream has a lot of special features, such as chocolate chips, sprinkles, or glistening crystals, using macro will ensure that these details are brought out clearly.
   • Note that the current fashion in food photography (2010) is to use minimum focus; namely, to only have part of the food appearing sharp, and then the rest blurs off gently. To achieve this, use a wide aperture or long lens (with an extension tube if needed). As with all styles, this camera angle style for food may well come and go.
5. Take your picture. Take a lot of pictures of the ice cream within the few minutes you have. Try it from various angles and heights to be sure of getting the best angle in the limited time that you have.
6. Remember too, that if you can't beat the melt, make the most of it. There is always room for the ice cream disaster shot!

On cheating with ice cream photography

Most of this article is about taking photographs of real ice cream. However, there are times when this just may not suit your needs. If you need to take photographs of ice cream for a food shoot where the food is sitting under hot lighting for hours, borrow a trick from professional food photographers and make a little fake ice cream.

1. Try these "recipes" to see what works best:
   • Solid shortening, corn syrup and powdered sugar. Mix together to form a very stiff frosting and scoop into cones or scoop shapes.
   • Mashed potatoes, lard, Karo syrup and food coloring made into a mixture. Adjust for creaminess.
   • Sprinkle with fruit pieces, chocolate chips, and food coloring to make the "flavors".
   • Use paper towels torn into blob shapes to help gooey syrups stick to the top of your fake ice creams.
2. Be sure to dispose of these creations in the proper manner after finishing. They're hardly tasty and definitely not for consumption!

Tips

• If it's a warm day, melting ice cream looks best with children, as it's expected that children won't ever eat their ice creams before they melt!
• If photographing on a kitchen workspace, always remember to wipe away spills and grime before taking the food photo.
• Warm sunlight is always a cozy and inviting color.
• Have a soft cloth on hand to wipe your camera if needed, and several paper towels or baby wipes to clear away ice cream drips from hands, clothing, etc.
• Too much contrast will highlight one object and not the other, and too much shine causes detail to be lost.

Warnings

• Note that there are laws in the USA with respect to truth in advertising that impact food advertisements for food products that a consumer can buy and eat; usually, photos used for advertising such foods need to show the real food. Food photos for cookbooks, magazine articles, or food surrounding the focal food do not need to be real, however.
• Melted ice cream is a temptation hazard. Many a photographer has been known to give in to eating the ice cream rather than shooting it.
• If you've made the ice cream yourself, you may be tempted to keep eating it while photographing, out of fear it will melt or won't taste so great after the photos, making the whole process a lot more challenging! The answer to this is to leave some aside for eating and enjoying later, sacrificing some of it for the art of photography and reserving the rest for you.
• For arranged shots of ice cream, be prepared to shoot over and over again with new batches of ice cream, especially in warm weather. Have extra ice cream on hand.

Related Articles

• Take Better Photographs
• Photograph Small Things
• Shoot for Depth of Field
• Use a Tripod
• Compose Photos

Sources and Citations

See also

• Photograph Small Things
• Sell Photos
• Write Good Captions in Photojournalism
• Copyright Photographs