The dirty tricks of food photographers
We’ve all seen the seductive photos of vividly colorful fresh vegetables, sumptuous cherry pies, and golden-brown roasted turkeys. These pictures, often found in glossy cookbooks and magazines, make us believe that if we follow the recipe we, too, can create such delectable dishes. And many of us can. Well, almost.
A peek behind the kitchen door would reveal the sometimes bizarre tools of the food photography trade that transform fresh baked brownies and juicy crown roasts into science fair projects masquerading as culinary delights. Food is among the more difficult of subjects for photographers. The laws of nature guarantee it: Hot foods cool, moist foods dry out, frozen foods melt especially fast under hot lights, vegetables wilt, and fruit turns brown. But determined food photographers rise to these challenges with their extraordinarily inventive bag of tricks.
And yes, that includes motor oil, spray deodorant and and brown shoe polish…
There are a couple schools of thought regarding food photography: Purists only use real food, and others of a more, um, practical bent resort to using imitation food at every opportunity. If a photo is destined to become part of an ad campaign, rules require the subject food product to be the “real thing.” However, imitation strawberries in a slightly out-of-focus background and acrylic ice cubes in faux lemonade are acceptable (to take-the-easy-way-out non-purists, that is).
In addition to the requisite photography equipment, food photogs need supplies from hardware, grocery, fabric, drug, and art supply stores to accomplish their food photography feats.
Here’s some of what you may find on their shopping lists, and at least one reason each has its rightful place in the photog’s apron pocket:
Blowtorch, for browning the edges of raw hamburger patties, the goose-bumpy skins of nearly raw poultry, and hot dogs. (Caution: simmer hot dogs for a while before torching, unless your goal is an action shot of a pink-meat food explosion.)
Motor oil, as a stand-in for unphotogenic syrups.
Glycerin, along with various sizes of artist’s paintbrushes (to make seafood look like it was just caught that morning) and a misting bottle (to spritz lettuce salads, giving them that just-picked-and-rinsed look).
Cotton balls, which, when soaked and microwaved, perform quite nicely in creating the illusion of steaming-hot foods.
Spray deodorant, which gives grapes that desirable frosty veneer.
Hairspray, which can give (the appearance of) new life to a drying-out slab of cake.
Spray fabric protector, to prevent the motor-oil syrup from soaking into the pancake, which has bursting blueberries artfully pinned to it in an aesthetically pleasing, yet random, scattering (still hungry?).
Toothpicks, to hold unruly sandwiches together and tease out perfect crumbs from hot (wink wink) muffins.
Tweezers, for looping noodles in the stir fry and rearranging miniscule yet crucial crumbs.
Large syringe, to emulate the effect of a padded bra by squirting mashed potatoes under the skin of poultry before it is torch-cooked to give it a deliciously voluptuous appearance.
Brown shoe polish, so raw meat appears to be just-out-of-the-roaster succulent.
Smoke pellets or incense sticks, which can stand in for steam as long as they are lightly fanned so their smoke disperses, avoiding the appearance of a lit cigarette laying behind the pot pie.
White glue, used instead of milk for cereal photos and for pie repair (that would be the pie actually filled with mashed potatoes, where a serving-sized piece is cut out, with the resulting opening’s edges slathered with lemon custard or rhubarb-strawberry filling).
Paper towels, which, when artistically torn into blob shapes, can make gooey syrups stick to the top of ice cream, which may really be a concoction of powdered sugar and shortening.
Sturdy cardboard squares, used to make little raw (except for the blow-torched edges) ground beef-patty-platforms (with the help of the toothpicks) to keep the fatty patties from mooshing the frilly lettuce. A few strategically placed hat pins and voila! The world’s perfect hamburger. (Note: Bun selection is a critical part of the set-up process; photographers have been known to glue sesame seeds in too-bare spaces.)
The art of food photography lends credence to the philosophical maxim: Perception is, indeed, reality. With a little practice - along with a super-sized portion of patience - you, too, will develop clever shortcuts and illusory sleight-of-hand moves of your own that you can pass down to the next generation of aspiring food shooters.
This article was written by Marjorie Burke for Photocritic. If you fancy writing a guest article, get in touch!
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Categories: Do It Yourself | Guest writer | Inspiration | Photo Theory | Photo tips
Tags: Food photography
This entry is © Haje Jan Kamps / Photocritic.org, and was posted on Thursday, February 28th, 2008. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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#1 - February 28th, 2008 at 00:47
that’s just disgusting!! i know that there are laws that should govern this, but i guess the cops are busy enforcing other laws… ;)
#2 - February 28th, 2008 at 11:43
The dirty tricks of food photographers
… Yes, that includes motor oil, spray deodorant and and brown shoe polish…
#3 - February 28th, 2008 at 11:51
On the cotton balls, I heard it was done with tampons. They can be folded very neatly behind plates.
#4 - February 28th, 2008 at 14:12
There goes my innocence.
#5 - February 29th, 2008 at 02:31
Los sucios trucos al fotografiar comida (inglés)
Todos hemos visto seductivas fotos de comida, estás fotos nos hacen pensar que todos podríamos conseguirlo siguiendo la receta, sin embargo, hay trucos..
#6 - March 1st, 2008 at 18:22
now i’m NOT hungry. food photography would be too much of a science for me to ever enjoy doing.
#7 - March 10th, 2008 at 01:15
Great story… very thorough definition of the sparsely defined trade! Gives me some good ideas too…!
#8 - March 10th, 2008 at 16:07
Any photographer who does this to food should be arrested and put in prison. IT MUST BE MADE ILLEGAL! STOP THIS SCOURGE BEFORE IT DESTROYS OUR SOCIETY. FAKE FOOD IS A THREAT TO THE AMERICAN FAMILY.
#9 - March 10th, 2008 at 20:21
but not to any other family.. like the european?
#10 - March 12th, 2008 at 02:19
Fascinating. And a wee bit repulsive.
I will never look at my Gourmet quite the same again.
Cheers!
#11 - March 12th, 2008 at 17:57
thank god not all food photography is the same and not all food stylist use the same old tricks that are disgusting, unhealthy and unethical. Food Photographers and food stylists who have pride in their job and respect the food they create can get along just fine without those tricks. there is a new trend on the horizont for green styling, senisitive styling and natural styling. Some can be learned in the new outdoor food styling seminar coming up in June of this year in Green County Wisconsin.
Please feel free to visit the website and find out more.
Don’t judge all Food photographers and Food stylist
#12 - March 13th, 2008 at 02:27
Nothing wrong with these techniques at all. It’s simply what it takes to make food look like it should while working with the camera, lighting, props, et al, not to mention the time it takes to get just the right shot. Real food tends to ‘fade fast’.. steam never lasts long, ice cream melts, produce wilts or turns brown, glistening roasts dry out. If the final product (photograph) looks realistic and appealing, then the photographer has done his or her job, regardless of how its done - and it’s not an easy job to do well!
#13 - March 14th, 2008 at 03:00
Colored smashed potatoes instead icecream so the light don’t melt it during the photoshoot…
#14 - March 15th, 2008 at 16:32
OMG OMG OMG OMG, i will never look at food photography again. OMG OMG OMG
#15 - March 17th, 2008 at 13:01
Ok what di du say is correct, but not always…I don’t use tricks, ’cause I prefer to take a shot of what you eat. If the chef is a grate chef you don’t need triks, just a correct light.
#16 - March 17th, 2008 at 15:24
Oh people c’mon, stop being such a buch of lame asses and grow up will ‘ya!?
1- You ain’t gonna eat that food it is only for DISPLAY PURPOSE!
2- You must be tremendously naive to belive that one day your cookings would look as tasty as the pictures.
3- You can search for information about a good diet on the internet. Just f*cking google it for christ sake.
4- “Internet people” are oh so picky! Go out a little more and start caring about things that really matter.
#17 - March 18th, 2008 at 11:54
This is amazing! I like photographing food (http://gallery.sidkhullar.com), but never, ever thought of these! It feels a bit wrong to ruin perfectly good food, but ok I guess if seen objectively.
Sid
#18 - March 19th, 2008 at 19:14
Aha! That makes sense - I always wondered what I was doing wrong with my food photography that kept it from looking as tasty as the pro’s. I’m not sure why I expected food photography to be any more real than other forms of photography, but I guess I did. Great job, this article is a really great reminder that we can’t always trust our eyes to lead our stomachs.
-tif
#19 - March 19th, 2008 at 23:40
wow, i never knew! that’s so gross.
#20 - March 20th, 2008 at 08:05
> 2- You must be tremendously naive to belive that one day your cookings
> would look as tasty as the pictures.
Hmmm.. ever been into a MacD’s and wondered why your burger looked, er, “different” ?
#21 - March 21st, 2008 at 14:14
It seems like an awful waste of food to me. I bet they could feed whole 3rd world villages on the food they have to throw out because it’s tainted with motor oil–what a pity.
#22 - March 25th, 2008 at 01:06
Many times a branding iron is used to get those perfect sear marks on steaks and others cuts of meat.
#23 - March 26th, 2008 at 03:52
I have always been wondering about how they shoot those things
#24 - March 26th, 2008 at 04:41
no wonder why my food photos don’t compare to the ones on glossy pages…..
#25 - March 26th, 2008 at 23:48
Holy Cow! Who give a crap? It’s not like you’re eating the fake food. Photographers always use props and techniques to defy what is >>actually
#26 - April 1st, 2008 at 13:48
Really people, you mean you DIDN’T think about how food was photographed? Just imagine how appetising a shot of a dried-out piece of steak would be? THAT would be really disgusting to look at, nobody would ever eat at that restaurant again! Thanks to food stylists, food looks juicy and wonderfully good.
Putting strange substances on food while photographing is no more a waste of “perfectly good food” as is cooking ten to twenty different real eggs (and discarding) to get the perfect one.
Americans should not speak about waste really…considering that they probably waste more food (and other resources) than the whole world put together.
But, does anybody have any tips on how to photograph a fried egg well? We have real trouble achieving that, after two minutes it glazes over and looks really disgusting.
#27 - April 16th, 2008 at 10:55
a while ago I photographed cakes. Actually it was my first payed photo shoot. Here-s the result: http://blog.bycoddot.com/my-work/freelance/2007/04/17/heaven-delight-cakes/
#28 - April 25th, 2008 at 19:49
Haha - I just found this randomly linked in the Consumerist, in an article posted last month. How funny for me to come across that. Congrats on the linkage.
#29 - May 2nd, 2008 at 17:08
I’m a professional food stylist and food photographer and I can proudly say that I do not use fake tricks to make anything I shoot look better. Food is extremely beautiful all by itself without the need to douse it with disgusting additives like motor oil and hairspray. Everything that comes off my set is REAL and EDIBLE right off the set.
As was mentioned by someone else in the comments here, there are many food stylists who take pride in natural styling without faking it. I am one of those types of stylists, I take immense pride in the fact that what you see is what you get and there is nothing harmful or unedible in my work. I plan to keep it that way.
Alot of the horror stories of food styling you hear about come from days gone by, sure SOME food stylist still use these techniques but certainly NOT all.
It would be nice to see an article featured on the flip side of the coin concerning food stylists who do it all natural. But the horror show posted here is going to get you more reader’s rather than covering all the angles I suppose.
#30 - May 5th, 2008 at 16:11
hey. this site kinda makes me sick and i just ate and threw everything up.
#31 - May 22nd, 2008 at 16:47
I agree with Kelly. I have worked with food stylists for a publication company and we only used natural styling. We wanted to enjoy what we made after the photo shoot, not toss it away. And we also didn’t want to deceive the readers. A great photographer paired with a great stylist will now how to make the food look delicious without the synthetic products.
#32 - August 1st, 2008 at 18:51
And yes, that includes motor oil, spray deodorant and and brown shoe polish…oh yessssss :) nice trick
#33 - October 23rd, 2008 at 03:22
All advertising is false advertising.
#34 - November 24th, 2008 at 19:42
I took a GREAT class over the weekend. You guys might be interested in attending. The link is
http://www.digitalfoodphotos.com/blog/?page_id=57
#35 - November 29th, 2008 at 03:27
I found a Great Web Site for Fake Food! They carry an large variety. http://www.auntbubbiesfakefood.com
#36 - November 29th, 2008 at 09:48
Does the food in the photo look tasty and make you want to eat it? That is the job of a commercial food photographer, food stylist and prop stylist. Anyone who claims otherwise is being naive at best. How that is achieved is left up to you, but if it looks like crap then clinging to some notion of it being ‘Natural’ is not going to make your clients happier. You are selling an image of food, a perception. You are not selling the food that is going into someones mouth. If it is not about the image then why would anyone need to pay a professional photographer OR a food stylist. They could get Uncle Willie to take a snap with his cell phone camera. Let’s temper this ‘holier-than-thou’ attitude with a slice of reality.