Food Instagram stars reveal the two things you should never do when taking pictures of your food
But chances are, you can tell the difference between a brunch photo that your coworker posted to Instagram and a brunch photo that a food Instagram star like Brunch Boys posted to Instagram.
So why do food Instagrammers' photos stand out? We asked Jeremy Jacobowitz of @brunchboys and Mike Chau of @foodbabyny and @mikejchau for their best tips.
Here are two tips:
Never use flash
Chau says that flash is a "definite no-no," and that it not only lowers the quality of the photo, but that it also makes food look less appetizing. So what does he do when he's in a dark restaurant? "Sometimes I don't even bother if it's that bad because I don't like to make a scene," Chau says. "Whereas sometimes if it's not too crowded... I will use a light, like a flashlight from the phone, which is good enough usually to get a decent picture to post."
Don't post horizontal photos
Jacobowitz has no horizontal photos on his Instagram account. "My pictures are vertical because it takes up more of the screen when you're looking at it," he explains. "So if you're scrolling through Instagram, and my picture takes up your entire phone because it's vertical, rather than a horizontal photo that takes up a quarter of your phone, what's going to grab your attention more?" When a food he's photographing isn't vertical, he'll either shift to a position where he's on top of the food, or he'll play around with how the food is presented to make it work.
In the end it all comes down to getting the best-looking photo as possible. Chau says the post has to be "pleasing to the eye." "A lot of times I've realized people don't even read captions at all on Instagram. They just scroll through quickly, and if something happens to be really eye-catching, they just gravitate towards it."