Have you ever looked at an advertisement for food and wondered just how it is that people
can get such perfect pictures of a meal? After all, whenever you're taking a photo of your
meal in a restaurant, you can never seem to get it right. How do food photographers do
it? How do they make everything look so delicious in every photo they take? The truth may surprise
you, So let’s get right to the top ten untold truths about food photography.
Everything is served on white plates
When you’re serving someone a meal, they generally don't care what kind of plate it
is served on, as long as the food tastes good. Whether it’s fine china or paper, it doesn't
affect the taste so who cares? Well, it’s an entirely different story for food photography.
See, food photographers will generally only photograph food on white plates. Why? Think
of every food photograph like a painting: generally an artist isn’t going to start
their latest masterpiece on anything but a blank canvas, and that’s what a clean, unmarked
white plate represents. It doesn't distract from the star of the show, namely the food
being photographed. Think about it this way: have you ever eaten at a restaurant where
they didn't give you your food on a white plate? The principle is the same. Food served
on something that is clean, white, and free of any distinguishing marks is always going
to appeal to your visual sense more than food served on a colored plate or one with ornate
markings. "What about white food?" you may be asking. The answer in that scenario is
to just switch to an off-white plate. In addition, the smaller the plate, the better the photo,
since the food will look bigger, heartier, and more filling. In addition, matte-finished
plates, as opposed to glossy, are preferred because they cut down on the amount of shine
that will show up in the photo.
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Pancakes have cardboard in the middle
Have you ever looked at a photograph of pancakes and thought to yourself, "man I'd really like
to dig into those scrumptious looking flapjacks!" You probably have, since as we all know, a
stack of pancakes looks pretty inviting in a food photograph. However, if you tried to
eat that stack of pancakes, you might run into an unexpected and rather unpleasant surprise:
cardboard. That's right, food photographers will often use pieces of cardboard to keep
pancakes separated and standing up straight in photos. It's just one of those small tricks
that make the food look so much better than it would in real life. Let's face it: a stack
of pancakes is pretty awesome when it's sitting in front of you at a restaurant, just waiting
to be covered in butter and sweet maple syrup. However, they don't always look that great
in profile. That's because the pancakes are fairly soft, and will sort of sag as they
sit on the plate. It doesn't make much of a difference when you're about to eat them,
but in food photography, food has to be looking its best. That's where the cardboard comes
in. The look of pancakes in advertisements is often one of uniform and parallel stacking,
a look that is not often achieved in real life. The cardboard helps with this, as well
as bulking the stack up slightly to make it look taller. They are also sprayed with Scotchguard
so that syrup doesn't soak into them but instead slides off for that photo perfect look.
Whole turkeys are raw on the inside
You've probably also seen an advertisement featuring one of those perfectly cooked, deliciously
browned whole turkeys sitting on the dinner table, waiting to be carved up and served.
Well, not so fast. Before you get out the electric carving knife and the serving fork,
you should probably know that that turkey would actually be pretty terrible in real
life. In fact, it might even kill you. That's because whole turkeys that appear in food
photographs are often colored with shoe polish and other harsh chemicals to give it that
brown color. In addition, the bird is probably mostly raw on the inside. This is to help
it maintain a certain shape for the photo, and also because no one is going to eat it
anyway, and have you ever cooked a turkey? If not, then you should know that it takes
a while. That's time food photographers aren't often working with, so they just keep the
bird uncooked and rely on the household chemicals to give it that cooked appearance. They may
also hit it with a blowtorch just to sear the skin slightly and give it that more cooked
and crispy appearance. Another gross thing about photographed whole turkeys is that they
are often stuffed with paper towels. This is also to bulk them up and help them look
bigger.
Fruit is colored with lipstick
You might think that only human models would wear lipstick in an advertisement, but you
would be totally wrong. That's because the fruit in food photography is often colored
with lipstick. Why? Well, think about it. When you buy a pint of strawberries, they
probably look pretty tasty, but from a food photographer's point of view, there's a lot
that has to be changed. For one thing, the delicious pint of strawberries probably has
a few spots that aren't quite red enough for the camera. To the average consumer, that's
no big deal, but when the fruit has to look its best, it's a huge problem. Enter the lipstick.
Lipstick is used to coat those paler spots on fruit and give the fruit more uniform appearance
and color. It may seem strange but don’t forget, this food is not getting eaten. It’s
getting thrown right in the trash once the shoot is over. So making it look good rather
than taste good is obviously the highest priority. In addition to the lipstick, food photographers
will also utilize a bath with lemon juice to keep any cut fruit or berries from browning
due to oxidation. They may also use a product known as 'Fruit Fresh.' This can actually
be bought at grocery stores, so if you ever want to take a nice photograph of some berries,
consider picking up some of this stuff before your shoot.
Ice cream is lard and powdered sugar
Photographing ice cream would be an almost impossible task. Think about it: you have
to set up the shoot with hot lights, then take a bunch of pictures before you get the
right one. That ice cream will have melted long before the job is done, leaving food
photographers with a sticky mess that is not going to look good on camera. Not unless the
advertisement is for melted ice cream, but that would be crazy. In fact, any food that
melts is often a hurdle that food photographers have to get around in their job. One of the
many secrets about photographing ice cream is that food photographers will use mashed
potatoes. While this is true, there are alternatives that make the ice cream in photographs look
more like, well, ice cream. One way of achieving this without having to mash a bunch of potatoes
is to use lard and icing sugar. This combination becomes as scoopable as ice cream and won't
melt as quickly under the hot lights. Powdered mashed potatoes might also be mixed into this
ice cream stand-in to give it more structure, but ultimately the mixture of lard and icing
sugar (and sometimes store bought frosting) are really what make the perfect ice cream
photo. Then, of course, any colors or other features are added to the mixture to give
it that delicious ice cream appearance.
Cakes are spray painted
A beautifully decorated cake is one of the most visually pleasing things out there. When
you're at a birthday party, and the cake is brought out, and it's looking so good? That's
the sign of someone who really knows what they are doing in the kitchen. However, photographing
cakes is an entirely different story. See, food photographers don't always have a lot
of time to dress up a cake and make it look good. So what do they do? They spray paint
it. That's right, those delicious, decadent cakes you see in advertisements are in fact
slathered with highly toxic spray paint. You definitely wouldn't want a slice of these
with your coffee. The reason that spray paint is used is to give the cake more of a color
pop than colored icing would give it. Spray paint can also be applied in an even layer
and doesn't really get as gloppy as paint that is brushed on. Painted cakes are just
another secret of the food photography business, and it's an integral part of taking good pictures
of desserts. Some cakes also feature cream- and instead of whipped cream, which can melt
and get runny for a photo, food photographers will use shaving cream instead.
Melted cheese is simmered in water
There's something instantly appealing about seeing a bright yellow slice of cheese that's
perfectly melted on top of a burger. McDonald's already knows this, which is why their burgers
always look so good in the advertisements. However, there is a secret that food photographers
have in regards to taking the perfect cheeseburger picture. That cheese did not melt on the burger.
Why? Because by the time the photo is being taken, that burger is cold as ice. So how
does the cheese melt? It's actually a really simple trick. Before the photo is taken, the
food photographers simmer it. Because the cheese needs to look shimmering, gooey, and
delicious, they will actually stick a slice of cheese in a pan of simmering water to start
the melting process. The food photographers then scoop the cheese out and put that already
melting cheese on the burger, allowing it to cover it like a delicious cheesy blanket.
This is how food photographers create the cheeseburger pictures that make your mouth
water and activate the part of your brain that needs to get to the burger joint now!
It's an interesting trick and one that is highly effective. Have you ever second-guessed
the melting cheese in a food photo? Probably not, which means food photographers are doing
their job right.
Sometimes nature isn't pretty enough
Food photographers are also often tasked with taking pictures of things like fruit trees
or vegetables growing in a garden. While these sights are pretty beautiful to the average
person, to a food photographer, they just look lackluster. This is especially true when
you're trying to take a picture of, say, a lemon tree and there just aren't enough of
those beautiful, round, yellow lemons hanging from the branches. So what is a food photographer
to do? Well, some of them will go as far as taking a needle and thread and actually sewing
more lemons to the branches of the tree to get the perfect picture. That's the kind of
Frankenstein procedure you've probably come to expect from food photographers after hearing
the other points in this list, but it doesn't make it any less crazy. After all, nature
is so beautiful, why do you have to improve on it? Well, no one ever said that food photography
was easy, and no one wants to admit that when we see a picture in a magazine, we're not
exactly clamoring for reality. We want to see something that excites us and makes us
hungry. Throwing a few extra lemons on the lemon tree isn’t hurting anyone, least of
all the tree itself, so why not just make the tree look a little better?
Ice is made of plastic
Those ice cold drinks in advertisements always look so refreshing, don't they? You just want
to reach into them and pull one out on a hot day. Well, as you've probably gathered from
the other points on this list, not everything is as it appears in food advertisements, and
the drinks are just another thing that is super staged. One of the biggest fake outs
in photos of icy cold drinks is the ice itself. We've talked about how things melt during
a photo shoot, and no other food is as notorious for melting as ice. So, to get around the
melting problem, food photographers use plastic or acrylic blocks that look like ice. They're
definitely not keeping anything cool, but they look good on camera. On top of that,
the actual drink itself is most likely a thick gel that is colored to look like the drink
it's portraying. This is to hold the "ice" in place and also to give a more vibrant,
uniform look to the drink on camera. Finally, those refreshing looking drinks always have
that little bit of condensation on the outside, but how can that be when there's no ice in
the drink and nothing is actually cold in the photo? Well, the glasses are actually
just finely misted with a mixture of water and corn syrup in order to get that cool,
refreshing look we all know and love.
You have to take a lot of photos to get the best one
As with any sort of photo shoot, the simple truth of food photography is that you can't
just take one perfect picture. Food photographers are constantly making minor adjustments to
their subjects and taking a bunch of photos to reflect those changes. Often, food photographers
will take a photo, then have to add something, move something, or change the angle to get
everything exactly right. The advertising industry is not one that runs on coincidences
or lucky shots. Everything is planned and executed with absolute perfection. Food photographers
don't leave anything up to chance. If they need to adjust something in a photo, they
will take a new photo. At the end of the day, they will meticulously sort through those
photographs, select the best one, then begin the editing process in a program like Photoshop.
It's a hard life being a food photographer. The hours are long, and the work can often
be very difficult. Not to mention the fact that working around all that food has to make
you hungry during the day. However, as we said before, none of this food can be eaten
at the end of the day. So the next time you see a great photo of a burger or an icy cold
margarita, just remember all the hard work that went into making that photo possible.
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