If you’re like me, a major part of most holidays is the mood you set in the home, and much of that revolves around the dinner table. These photos are from this year’s Thanksgiving breakfast, but the principles apply whether you’re photographing your Christmas meal, New Years dinner party, or any other formal dinner.
Avoid full table shots. Instead, take a combination of close-ups and partial table pictures to show the ambiance of your Christmas (or other holiday) table.
Lean down to the level of one of the place settings to get a view of the dinnerware and the table beyond. Set the camera at a fairly low f-stop to focus on the place setting near you while the rest of the table is just slightly out-of-focus. For this photo, the f-stop is 3.2.
Getting an extreme close-up like this gives you texture.
To show the look of the overall table, you only need to photograph a part of it. Put the centerpiece to one side of the frame and get just a few of the place settings at the other side. Stand on a chair to get an above-view.
Now move in closer to the place settings to get a view of the dishes, the napkin rings, and the textured place mats. Notice the line that the edge of the table makes, the negative space on the other side, and the line of the plates and cups or glasses. Make sure the lines and negative space are attractive.
There is a common thread in all but one of these pictures. Do you see the L-shape? I usually place the tallest item (in this case, the over-sized vase) to one side, making the vertical line of the L. All the others stretch out sideways, forming the horizontal line. The photo above is a backward L, which is okay, too. An L-shape is an aesthetically pleasing ways to compose a photo.
Last of all, don’t forget to highlight the most romantic part of any formal setting: the candle light and its reflection on all the glass pieces.
Take lots of pictures and put the focus on different pieces to see what kind of effect you get. In the next post we’ll talk a little more about camera settings so that you can get perfect lighting around your candle-lit table.
