Flat Lay Wine and Food Pairing Photography Tips

Jen and I love to throw parties, pair food and wine, and create festive table settings. Jen is a photographer, but I’m not, so I’ve been struggling to master some basics. She can’t be here at my house all the time to photograph my parties, food pairings or tablescapes.

I’m hoping to become a bit more self sufficient, and learn to take better wine bottle-with-food photos. Today I’m watching YouTube videos on the topic. I thought I’d share some of my finds for our fellow Woodinville and Seattle area bloggers and wine industry social media friends.

This video by Jana Williams doesn’t specifically cover wine bottles, but shows how to set up your camera for flat lay photography. We use flat lay to photograph tabletops, dining tables, place settings, and top-down dinner plate shots. You can use flat lay photography skills to photograph your wine bottles in unique ways.

This video helped teach me about lighting sources and aperture settings. This video is specific to Instagram.

Here’s Muchelleb’s video “5 Step Flatlays.”

Haleema’s video teaches beginners how to flat lay for both photography and for video.

I’m a daily user of PicMonkey, and I’m grateful for their helpful video on flat lay photography. You can read their accompanying post here.

My favorite photography-teaching YouTuber is “The Bite Shot.” This is her video on how to shoot food photos with your phone. Those of you doing social media posts for local wineries might find this helpful when suggesting food pairings for the wines you are promoting.