Martha Stewart needs help with food photography

Domestic goddess Martha Stewart is best known for her expertise in crafts and cooking. However, one thing she is now known for is bad food photography.

The 72-year-old business magnate has been sharing snapshots of her meals on her Twitter account (@marthastewart) to much disgust from Twitter users.

On Nov 17, she posted a photo of her lunch: An iceberg lettuce wedge with homemade Russian dressing. It may have tasted "utterly divine" in her own words, but from the photo, the lettuce looked like it was in the final stages of decomposition, with the leaves wilting under fluorescent lighting.

An earlier photo of the onion soup that was paired with the iceberg salad fared no better. One Twitter user @civilwarbore described it aptly: "That soup pic (sic) looks like a toilet bowl after an attack of intestinal flu."

Martha defended her photos in a tweet on Nov 18, saying "there seems to be some buzz about my food pic. Actually the onion soup was utterly delicious and the iceberg wedge divine."

There is no doubt in her cooking abilities, but maybe Martha might want to learn how to take better photos of food.

She isn't alone in this. Instagram user cookingforbae aggregates the worst possible food photos on the photo-sharing site and reposts (or "regram" for instausers) them.

It is a hilarious, and vomit-inducing, series of sad-looking dishes.

For those who are struggling with taking food photos, here are some tips:

1) Make sure there is good lighting. Try using a window or lamp to shine some backlight to give the photo some depth.
2) Clean up splatters on the sides of the plate for better presentation.
3) Vary your camera angle. Sometimes taking a photo from the top might cause shadows. Try taking a shot from a 45 deg angle for a change.

natlim@sph.com.sg