Having a beautiful portfolio plays a huge role in being a successful food photographer. It’s the best way to show off your work and inspire people to reach out and hire you. Let’s dive into some food photography portfolio tips to help you stand out from the crowd.

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Food Photography Portfolio Tips

There are two parts to having a strong food photography portfolio. The first is having gorgeous images organized in a beautiful food photography portfolio template. The second is making sure that people actually see your portfolio. This post focuses on how to create a photography portfolio site that stands out. And, another post I recommend reading next is How To Make Your Photography Website Show Up On Google.

When you have beautiful food photography portfolio AND it’s showing up in Google searches, it’s a golden moment for you and potential clients.

Now, let’s dive into the photography portfolio tips!

READ MORE ABOUT: HOW TO MAKE YOUR PHOTOGRAPHY WEBSITE SHOW UP ON GOOGLE

1. Choose A Beautiful (And Customizable) Website Template

First things first, having a photography website that looks beautiful, clean and easy to use is super important. There are a lot of beautiful website templates to choose from these days, but I highly recommend checking out Tonic Site Shop. Their templates are absolutely stunning and I think they’re a perfect fit for photographers.

Initially, I started using their templates just because I loved the look of them. But, there’s actually more things to take into consideration when it comes to choosing a beautiful website template including:

• Easy to customize for desktop
• Easy to customize for mobile
• Easy to edit fonts, colors, images, etc.
• Includes a blog for long-form copy
• Easy to add GA4 for tracking
• SSL certificate included in hosting package
• Easy to add important SEO data for Google
• Awesome customer service and quick response times

In a nutshell, Tonic Site Shop’s templates are pretty AND smart, because they cover all the bases. 😉 When you have a beautiful, easy-to-use template to work with, everything else you need to do falls into place easily.

I have a discount code that will get you 15% off of any of their gorgeous templates, which is around a $200+ savings. Copy this code and paste it within the coupon box at the checkout: REGANSENTME

2. Organize Your Images

Next, you’ll want to be sure to organize your images so your potential clients can easily browse through your work to get a good sense of your style. In my portfolio, I have my images organized and separated by category including, Dark, Light, Drinks, Action, Spaces & Published. Stay true to your niche and focus on highlighting images that reflect the type of work you want to get. Check out some of my food portfolio image examples below.

3. Show How You Work With Light

Being a photographer involves knowing all about light. Highlighting a variety of images using different types of light is a great way to show off your craft in your photography portfolio. Show a mix of soft light and hard light. Show a mix of natural light and artificial light. Even though some clients may not know the difference at first glance, you’ll be able to talk about different lighting examples by showing specific image examples from your portfolio website.

4. Show Off Your Personality

Use your About Page to your advantage and share a little more about yourself. You don’t need to write a novel or share your life story, but this is a good opportunity to let your clients know more about YOU. How did you get into photography? What do you love about it? What do you hate about it? How are you different? What are you up to when you’re not working?

If you need a little inspiration for discovering your brand and how to talk about yourself, check out the book recommendation below. It’s a deep dive into how your business can stand out from the crowd and I found it to be incredibly insightful and helpful.

BOOK RECOMMENDATION: BADASS YOUR BRAND BY PIA SILVA

5. Make It Very Easy To Contact You

One of the biggest food photography portfolio tips is to make it very easy to get in touch with you. It won’t take a potential client very long to decide if they like your work, but don’t make them struggle to contact you. Include a “Contact tab” in your main navigation, in the footer of your website and if you can, on each page of your website.

My recommendation is to try not to use an email form. Sometimes forms fail to get the inquiries to you (I learned that the hard way) and people generally don’t like filling out forms if they don’t have to. Keep it simple and include a clickable link to your email.

6. Add A Blog

I recommend that all photographers have a blog on their website, but very few actually include one. The reason I recommend it is because it makes you look like even more of an expert in your industry. Not only can you show off beautiful images, but you can talk about how you did it. And, believe it or not, people are searching for a lot of “how to” topics when it comes to photography. People want to know how you do what you do, so why not talk about it?

Another reason I suggest adding a blog is because Google loves long-form copy and a blog is a great way to include it on your site. When people are searching for photographers, and you have more copy on your website (like in the form of a blog), Google will be able to find and rank your website in searches.

As I mentioned earlier, when you have beautiful food photography portfolio site AND it’s showing up in Google searches, it’s a golden moment for you and potential clients. A blog is a great way to help your portfolio site show up in searches.

But, there are also other things Google needs from your website in order for it to be rankable, so be sure to check out my blog post: How To Make Your Photography Website Show Up On Google.

Reach out with questions anytime and be sure to follow me on Instagram!

Happy Creating!

This post may contain affiliate links which means if you click or make a purchase through my site, I might make a small commission (at no extra cost to you). I only promote products and equipment that I actually use for my photography business. Your support helps me continue to produce educational content about photography. Thank you! 

All images ©Regan Baroni 2024.