Tips For The Best Food Photography

- Shreya Bhattacharya

AND WHAT’S THAT?

As the name suggests, this genre of photography is centralized to capturing stills of food and beverages in a creative and artistic way. It has been gaining popularity these days and is currently one of the most popular genres of photography.

To define it more formally, Food photography is a still life specialization of commercial photography, aimed at producing attractive photographs of food for a variety of uses including in advertisements, magazines, packaging, menus or cookbooks. Professional food photography is a collaborative effort, usually involving an art director, a photographer, a food stylist, a prop stylist and their assistants. In advertising, food photography is often – and sometimes controversially – used to exaggerate the attractiveness or size of the advertised food, notably fast food.

WHO ARE FOOD STYLISTS?

The role of the food stylist is to make the food look attractive in the finished photograph. The time and effort a stylist takes to carefully and artfully arrange the food, is the cause of differences between the way the stylist presents it and the way a home cook or chef may. Visual know-how is also a requirement, as is the knowledge of how to translate the perception of taste, aroma and appeal that one gets from an actual dish, to a two-dimensional photograph.

Food stylists have culinary training; some are professional chefs or have a background in home economics. In addition to knowledge of nutrition and cooking techniques, food stylists must also be resourceful shoppers. As creative professionals they envision the finished photograph and style the food accordingly.

ALWAYS CARRY A TRIPOD