By Natalie Bell

Just march down the aisle of your nearest cavern of convenience and notice the vast array of edible images that leap from the shelves.

Whether it be a slice of saucy pizza showing off its perfectly pulled cheese strings, or some perky green peas prancing on plate – with no dimples mind you – someone, probably a food stylist, has had a lot to do with it.

Prepping food for the camera is more difficult than it looks and a good stylist will rely on a bag of tricks to get the desired effect. Think of it as food wrangling, a system of cosmetic short cuts in order to make the food “perform” for camera.

The stylist will ordinarily receive a brief from either an Agency Creative Director, Art Director and or a Film Producer. The brief entails a treatment of how the food should convey the concept.

So if you are selling ice cream, the image needs to not only look yummy and delicious but it must also encourage and inspire people to reach for it.

The food stylist, in my book, is often the unsung hero as the shot can only go ahead if she has produced all the elements to make the plate sing off the page.

So before framing up on the day to take the actual image, there will be loads of pre-production that would be going on. This might involve say, flying peaches in from Spain as the client has decided to shoot Peach Chutney in August and is relying on the food stylist to find some blushing beauties that will support the jar of chutney in the final visual.

There will be meetings to discuss the every aspect of the brief to ensure that the creative team (photographer, stylist and agency director) get it right on the day, because time is money.

 

Learn more about being a Food Stylist at our Food Styling Course in March 2019.  Click here for more info.

cheese pizza