The Art of the Food Stylist

Recently through a new project I have been working on I had the opportunity to work with a food stylist,

My previous experience with food stylist was disastrous I remember a cheese straw shot taking about 3 hours and in 6 different locations around the building, yes the shot was great at the end of it, but I am guessing he was unlike me paid by the hour, lol

This project we had 14 items to shoot from Pizza’s to burger,

The interesting part for me was the knowledge of the stylist and the relationship the photographer and stylist had,

Basically the photographer only shoots once the stylist is totally happy, and I can’t emphasise the word totally enough

Once the shoot started and the photographer had set the light, off we went we started with the burgers, what was so so apparent from the off was both the photographer and food stylist knowledge and passion for food,

The food stylist wanted to know how as chefs we built the product, he would then carefully stack the product, carefully arranging the product around what was seen through the lens, once the shot was ready, he would then add a few crumbs of bread and some sesame seeds, to give the image a real product look, not to staged,

Then the syringe would come out to create the sauce dribble, the overall effect was fantastic.

Just when I thought we was ready to shoot the image the blow torch came out to melt the cheese and moisten the fat on the surface of the burger,

Then we would take the shot, little to the left, more light, aim the light here, this honing would go on for 5-10 mins then the overall shot from the initial shot was million miles away from the initial shot,

We actually shot 14 items in various positions in a 6 hour period far far better than my previous experience 

The role of photography in food from a retail angle is massive in one of our other operations once the Pizza had been shot professionally against a stock image sales rose 30-40% these are big numbers, most businesses change things to affect the sales by 5-15%, In this case the photography has had much bigger impact on the sales, Well worth doing,