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A food photographer arranges and styles food for photographs in magazines, cookbooks, advertisements, and packaging. They use lighting to highlight the dish’s features and must work quickly before the food degrades. They may also use techniques such as glycerin or simulated food to improve the appearance of the dish.
A food photographer takes pictures of food for magazines, cookbooks, advertisements and packaging. Your job is to photograph each food so that the resulting image suggests its smells, textures and tastes. To do this, he must arrange each dish in a visually pleasing way, position his lighting to emphasize the features of the dish he wants to highlight, and take a picture before the food degrades.
Before a food photographer can capture a dish on film, he must first style it. Food styling involves arranging the food to be filmed, as well as all background items such as cutlery, tablecloths, and glasses. Customers often prefer an artistic photo to a direct image of a dish. Thus, the food photographer is encouraged to be creative in his style choices, and he can come up with unexpected combinations, such as substituting a book or a palm leaf for a plate. Clients with big budgets sometimes hire a stylist to do this job, allowing the photographer to focus on their shots.
Bad lighting can make even the most appealing food look appetizing on film. Thus, an important part of the food photographer’s montage job is establishing the proper lighting. Generally, foods are lit with soft lights that showcase the dish without causing a glare on the food itself or surrounding props. The photographer must decide which elements of the plate he would like to highlight before placing the lights. An experienced food photographer can arrange his lighting so that highlights and shadows work together on film, highlighting attractive features like the curves of a strawberry or the juiciness of a hamburger.
One of the main challenges facing a food photographer is how quickly dishes lose their visual appeal. In just a few minutes, freshly cut fruit can start to brown, heavy sauces can start to separate, and those enticing wisps of steam can disappear. Preparation is one of the photographer’s most useful weapons in the battle against time. He usually sets up his scene using ready-to-eat foods, waiting until the arrangement is perfect before bringing out the actual dish, which he can capture beautifully as soon as it arrives at the table.
Another common technique is the use of various substances to slow down the breakdown of certain foods and improve their appearance. Glycerin is often sprayed on meats or vegetables to suggest juiciness or dew, for example, and hot, water-soaked cotton balls are sometimes hidden behind foods to create the appearance of steam. In some cases, simulated food is used in place of a genuine dish. This often happens with ice cream, which is replicated with a mix of powdered sugar and shortening that resembles the real thing but doesn’t melt. In the US, however, the use of fake or substitute foods in photographs intended for advertising purposes is prohibited by law.
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