Aspects of Food Photography

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Aspects of Food Photography

Source: Christopher Mick

Within professional photography there are two big areas: first the photo journalism, secondly the advertising photography. While photo journalism is about objective representation of reality, the advertising photography wants to represent people and objects in an especially attractive way. The advertising photographer reproduces the world with his camera to stimulate consumption.

Within the advertising photograph there are again two areas: People photography and product photography. A mixture of both is fashion photography. To make attrative pictures of food is an area of product photography. Operational areas of the food photography are, e.g., cookbooks, magazines and all kinds of advertising media. According to the intended purpose lighting and perspective must be adapted. For a professional audience the suggestive representation with enticing decoration steps in the background, while technical details are more important.

Food stylists take over the arrangement of the dishes in front of the camera. Above all, ready made dishes lose fast their visual attraction, hence, timing and quick winding up of the shootings are conditions for successful results. Models and dummies of plastics often also find use in the food photograph if the reality cannot keep up with the desired result. In post production photographers work often with assemblies to put the food in the right ambience. By application of special software the ways of visual manipulation have clearly been improved during the past years. The photographers use tabletop solutions in which a mini-studio is built up on the working table with neutral backgrounds, complete light apparatus and camera tripod for exemption of single objects. This guarantees an illumination free of shade. In professional food-shootings are involved, beside photographer and food stylist, also an Art Director as a "photo director" and a prop manager. Food design has become a term for the staging of food in front of the camera, as well as for the transformation of nutrition ("Functional Food").

In former days dishes were illustrated for advertising purposes naturalistically: preferably in bird's-eye view, all ingredients clearly separated, so that the viewer could experience this as a potential consumer. This representation was rather one-dimensional. Later on decorations and lighting effects came to use. Today one arranges the food minimalistically and takes photos in the macroarea with selective sharpness and out of frame to create more drama. This strategy with more lustful elements is called by some critics "food pornography".

With their staging of food the photo artists Akiko Ida and Pierre Javelle go new ways: They combine for their picture series "Les Minimians" sceneries from delicacies with toys figures to so-called "Foodscapes". Here small stories are told. A step further goes the food designer Martí Guixé. He provides vegetables, fruits and cakes and pastries with funny additional functions and creates by that a crossing from advertisement to art.

Ralph M. Bloemer, InterMopro.com