3 different ways to plate and style Chocolate Pudding/ Mousse

How I styled the same chocolate pudding in 3 different ways.

When it comes to blogging, especially food, photography is taking centre stage these days. How much ever tasty the food has been, if it doesn’t look appetizing, you have lost your audience. We have to constantly remember that our viewers can’t taste it, can’t take in the amazing aromas, and are not even in the scenario we shot it. All that they can do, is see.

And when we try to build our feed/portfolio, we do want to incorporate as much variety as possible. Trust me it becomes difficult at times to envision a photograph of the food, and we tend to have creative blocks. Happens all the time to me.  You want consistency yet ye don’t want to be repetitive. It’s a thin line.

So, I curated this post to put forward a few ideas, that you can play with during photography. I clicked the same food in 3 different styles but keeping the same dark theme intact. It’s a great exercise to practice photography and styling both. The recipe to this super simple and yummy Chocolate Pudding is right here.

#1 The Chocolate Pudding in a Jar

I styled the first picture with the Chocolate Pudding served in glass mason jars, with honey roasted almonds. I used a more rustic theme, with the wooden box and spoons and incorporated my style of flowers & leaves into the picture. I tried mixing multiple shapes in here (round jars, rectangle box) which I rarely do but they turned out to look great. (And that’s why experimenting is important).

#2 Chocolate Pudding Glasses

In the second style I used a different type of presentation for the Chocolate Pudding and loaded them in simple and clean glasses with some whipped cream on top. I used a broad V shaped glass, you can definitely experiment with other shapes. I styled in the same dark theme with a simple cloth, chocolate powder, some spoons and holder bowl in the backdrop, DIY textured board and the same side light source.  This created a completely different look as it highlights the ingredients used in the pudding.

#3 Chocolate Pudding Bowl

For the third style, I wanted to make it look more approachable, less styled, and near to reality. And hence I used a dark textured bowl and used myself as the prop. I really like pictures with human involvement as they show the real essence of food being consumed. In the same dark theme, less light in the background and focusing on the food, this shot is inspired by the one Linda Lomelino clicked, whom I look up to for inspiration all the time.

Looking at pictures styled and photographed by other food photographers is a great way to learn and take inspiration from. The above three are just a small example of how you can photograph the same food in multiple ways and expand your horizons of styling and presenting.

Happy Styling 😊