Claire’s four-step guide to shooting food

1 Arrange the food

Build your setup next to a large window or natural light source. Think about your background and how the food will appear in the frame. I arranged these mince pies into a tree formation on four dark slate placemats. To bring in a touch of colour, I scattered some plastic Christmas flower decorations around.

2 Add atmosphere

To give our image a festive feel and to enhance the ‘Christmas tree’ theme, I added some fairy lights. Weave them in and around, like you would if you were decorating a normal tree. Make sure the lights are small in size and warm in colour to produce a glowing festive hue. Finally, a sprinkling of icing sugar helps to transform the scene.

3 Shoot from above

This type of shot works best from a bird’s eye view. I used an extending arm attached to the tripod to frame up the composition. Switch your camera to Live View to compose your shot. Experiment with removing a mince pie from the frame: the sprinkled icing sugar creates a silhouetted shape, which can also look effective.

4 Tone and feel

At the editing stage, tone and stylise your image. I used Lightroom to lift the shadows, boost Clarity and Texture, and warm up the overall effect of the image. I also made some isolated exposure adjustments using the new Masking tool to bring out some of the detail in the middle of the Christmas tree.