Style and Substance: Styling Food for a Photoshoot
Understanding of food - not just photography
Whether you’re investing in food photography for a new menu or for food packaging, the images you choose need to convince people to choose your food product rather than your competitors’. In order to create the type of food photography that will sell thousands of recipe books or units, you will need a professional team not only take stunning photos, but understand food as well.
When your food is being styled for a photoshoot, how your food looks is the most important factor, rather than how it tastes.
With that in mind, They are required to style your food product in order to take the very best photographs.
So this all means there are various parts to a professional food photography team beyond the photographer - other essentials are....
The Food
A home economist (often also called a food stylist) - they are skilled at making the food look perfect for the photo. It is not about taste for the photo. The best home economists understand the angle and lighting the client and the photographer have chosen and build the food with that in mind.
The Look
Then there is the Prop Stylist. As the name suggests they are more concerned with the props - the objects that make up the scene. They will take on the brief and source plates, glasses and backgrounds etc that fit in with the look and colour scheme chosen by the client. The also understand the scale of the objects needed. For example when photographing a supermarket ready meal a small plate is used to make the portion look bigger.
Post production
My experience as a food photographer means the lighting, camera, lens and choice of food stylist will mean that post-production editing is minimal but any tweaks will be taken care of for you too.