Hello Chef! It's great to have you here and we're really looking forward to seeing your wonderful food on New Zealand's first online Home Chef marketplace. To help you get off to the right start we have created a step by step guide to setting up your Gobblah kitchen as well as tips on how to best present your food.
As part of the on boarding process you will be required to submit information such as:
Kitchen Address
Bank Account Number
MPI Food Provider Registration Number (if applicable)
Digital copy of Registration Certificate (if applicable)
Quality digital images of the food you will be selling
Please make sure you have these handy before starting the process
Images
One of the most important parts of setting up your kitchen is making your food look as attractive as possible. With a few simple tips this can be achieved quite easily with your mobile phone camera.
Light This is the most important aspect in getting your images looking good and you need lots of it. Don't shoot in a dark area and definitely DO NOT use your camera's flash, this will create a very artificial spotlight effect and will alter the colours a lot.
Setting Make sure the area surrounding the food is clear of clutter and that any plates or dishes that contain your food is spotlessly clean. Preferably place the food on a clear neutral surface like a bench top or table. Arranging your food attractively is also key. Make use of finishing touches like garnishes where appropriate or other dishes with condiments/ingredients that offer context to the food.
Camera settings and composition A lot of modern phone cameras have modes that are automatically set up to shoot food well. If you have this then it's a great place to start. If not then being able to manually adjust your phones aperture will assist greatly in creating a thin plane of focus that will really highlight the key areas of the food while blurring out elements in the background. Dialing your aperture to a low number like 1.2 - 1.8 will create this effect, higher numbers will bring more area into focus.
With this image of lemons you can see the effect a wide aperture (smaller number) has on the focal plane. It brings a small portion of the image into sharp relief while blurring out background elements. This effect is very useful in food photography.
Once you understand the basics of smart phone photography you will be able to present your food in the best possible light. This will be a key factor in Food Lovers choosing to try your wares.
