The Lo-fi Guide To Shooting Food on Your Phone Pt 1 .
I know, writing a ‘guide’ in 2025 is simply an invitation to get crucified, destroyed and cancelled.
But I also know the world is filled with terrible food photos.
Yours are probably among them.
Remember how I managed to convince a multinational conglomerate that I’m an expert in this “food photography” field, and they allowed me to organise an ‘experience’ with a two-hat restaurant?
We had a mock lesson a couple of weeks ago.
Those of you who missed it didn’t miss out much.
A few beautiful people showed up, and we talked, laughed, and pointed at food. Everything but taking photos, and two weeks later, I still feel the aftershock of being a hack.
This is me trying to troubleshoot and make up for the lack of technical knowledge.
I think it’s a good idea to provide a takeaway pamphlet, a PDF even, to take home.
And I’m making the information public, and free, to you, my newsletter daddies.
The first rule:
Find the freshest ingredient.
I see many similarities between cooking and photography.
That is, if you have a piece of beautiful tuna belly or fresh tomatoes just plucked out of a virgin vine, your job is to sprinkle a little bit of salt, then get the hell out of the way.
Which is why I asked Kazuki-san to be my partner.
Have you seen his entrée?
There was a viral video of a 9-year-old ‘photographer’ photographing Tony Leung and Jason Momoa. The internet was all ‘wow so impressive’. Not to sound like a sour plum, but do you think you will take a bad photo of six-pack Ryan Gosling?
So, yes I cheated big time.
Having said that, not many can be neighbours with Kazuki, and we are all about lo-fi1 here.
So let’s get down to business.
We’ll start with the foundation.
Do you have a phone that takes photos?
That’s a good start.
The Grid
Turn this on. Settings > Camera > Grid.
For straight-on shots of bottles or making sure that the overhead dish pic is centred, the grid is your new best friend. Training wheels and helmets can be embarrassing, but you don’t fall with training wheels.
The Full Picture
Pick the highest quality possible that your phone will allow.
I shoot RAW + JPEG.
Why? Because if you start with a fuzzy, grainy, pixelated piece of low-cut meat, no amount of digital trickery is going to save it. We want something clear enough to see the grease, even the imperfection, the reality. It’s called RAW for a reason.
If you’re shooting video of that oozing egg yolk – because of course you are – aim for 1080p HD, or 4K. Downside? It’ll chew through your storage2. The true cost of good photos is phone memory. And in 2025, that’s a small price to pay.
For video, try a lower frame rate like 25fps to avoid banding and flickering lights. My Pixel can only go to 30fps. Your mileage may vary.
Don’t be a 4x4
Never shoot square. I’ve never seen anyone do that.
Even Instagram defaults to 4:5.
The aim is to provide more room when you edit.
Cook it medium rare to start, because you can’t uncook a piece of well-done steak.
Slow Down
Let’s avoid that “Portrait Mode” or “Cinematic Mode” like lukewarm ramen and stick to standard. The modes often make things look fake, over-processed, and the focus goes all wonky. We want crisp and lo-fi, not confused and artificial.
Don’t pinch to zoom.
Move the phone closer instead. Unless you’re going for irony. If your phone has different lenses – an optical zoom – that’s different. Maybe.
Lighting
If the lighting's a bit rubbish (CBD restaurants, I'm looking at you), I tend to tap the brightest bit of the screen and drag the little sun icon up or down to adjust. Don't overexpose in the camera; better to underexpose (darker). You can rescue a slightly dark image; a blown-out white mess is often terminal.
Or you know, find the table next to the window.
To Robocop, or not to Robocop
Shaky hands? Get a phone tripod or a stabilising rig. But then that’s not exactly lo-fi anymore, is it?
So I say no Robocop.
Right, that's your homework for Part 1.
Get these settings sorted, and maybe, just maybe, your photos will start to improve.
Next time, we’ll talk about actually taking the photo.
Lo-fi is a trendy way of saying ‘try not to look like you tried too hard, even though you did’.
I hear you can attach a portable HD to the iPhone to record ProRes. Or, pay the equivalent for cloud storage, you billionaire you.