Free Food Stock Photos From A Food Enthusiast

If you're looking for simple stock images of food that can be used free of charge, whether it be commercially or personally, then you've found the right place. All that I ask is that you give credit or link to this page if you can.

The only pictures that are not eligible for this are the ones with attributions and links associated with them. These are the property of some fine folks over at flickr and while they allow others to use them, some may require attribution or have restrictions on them. I urge you to visit those pics to read the rules before using.

Intro photo by Keith Davenport / flickr.

Initially this stock photo had a cardinal feeding off of the seeds, but it flew off right when I took the shot. I cropped out the red blur in the upper left-hand corner and this is what I had left. I do wish I could have got the bird in there, but I think is a solid example of a food stock photo regardless of the fact. Oh, well.

When taking pictures of food by a window, the light can sometimes be too harsh on a subject. I usually hang up a frosted shower curtain, but with this image I decided to use an old throw to help diffuse the light coming in and incorporate it as part of the background.

I've found that most food pictures look better against a background that makes your subject pop. With this image I made use of the light coming in from a window to create the contrast at the top while the doughnuts blend with the brown-colored desk near the bottom. I was pleasantly surprised at the outcome.

Cropping an image can often make it have more of an impact if used for menus or advertisements. It's best to either cut out one side or another and not try to center the subject in any way.

I purposely wanted to focus on the walnuts in the foreground while only giving a hint of the measuring cup in the background. The only way to do that is to blur it.

Most stock photography sites want photos that are as sharp as possible (tack sharp) whether your submitting photos of food, meals or anything else. The use of a tripod is essential to help you achieve this.

I first tried to incorporate the pizza box into the shot, but it never quite looked right to me. I eventually realized that food stock photos focusing on the fast food industry often look much better when just focusing on the product and not the packaging.

There was definitely a breeze blowing, so I had to crank up my shutter speed to get this picture.

Getting good food photos against a white background is not as easy as it sounds unless you have enough lights. Lights not only need to be on the subject but on the actual background as well. This is so that you'll actually get a picture of a white background (not grey or yellow or blue).

I've got several photography books on my shelf, but I find myself using this one more than any of the others. There are several other volumes in this series, but if you want the most bang for your buck, then get this one. I do own the others, though.