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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Insights, suggestions and comments
that’s just disgusting!! i know that there are laws that should govern this, but i guess the cops are busy enforcing other laws… ;)
On the cotton balls, I heard it was done with tampons. They can be folded very neatly behind plates.
There goes my innocence.
now i’m NOT hungry. food photography would be too much of a science for me to ever enjoy doing.
Great story… very thorough definition of the sparsely defined trade! Gives me some good ideas too…!
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.
but not to any other family.. like the european?
Fascinating. And a wee bit repulsive.
I will never look at my Gourmet quite the same again.
Cheers!
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
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!
Colored smashed potatoes instead icecream so the light don’t melt it during the photoshoot…
OMG OMG OMG OMG, i will never look at food photography again. OMG OMG OMG
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.
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.
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
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
wow, i never knew! that’s so gross.
> 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” ?
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.
Many times a branding iron is used to get those perfect sear marks on steaks and others cuts of meat.
I have always been wondering about how they shoot those things
no wonder why my food photos don’t compare to the ones on glossy pages…..
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
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.
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/
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.
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.
hey. this site kinda makes me sick and i just ate and threw everything up.
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.
And yes, that includes motor oil, spray deodorant and and brown shoe polish…oh yessssss :) nice trick
All advertising is false advertising.
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
I found a Great Web Site for Fake Food! They carry an large variety. http://www.auntbubbiesfakefood.com
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.
Hey, this is really really interesting! If a little horrible… Good stuff
I am noticing many of you say that this is disgusting, dishonest, etc. I am a food photographer. The thing about photography that many people don’t understand is that things will often not photograph exactly as they look when you see them with your eye. This is partially because camera lens, especially professional lenses, have many pieces of glass that can create slight changes in an image. Professional photographers are hired to make the product look as perfect as possible. Due to the time it takes to setup for a photo shoot, get the lighting set correctly, etc, is is nearly impossible to use real, cooked food 100% of the time. If food photographers did so, there would be much more wasted food than there is currently. No one is going to ask or even recommend that you eat something used in a photo shoot because most everyone in the industry knows it was likely coated in something, etc to make the product look its best. Doing this doesn’t mean that what is pictured is somehow deceiving. If you go to a restaurant and are served something that looks much worse than what is shown in the menu, clearly you will send it back. And FYI for anyone who has never worked in marketing or advertising, this type of thing is done all the time, not just in food photography.
Geeeeez.. if THAT upsets you, do NOT read up on how Playboy tweeks their shots! lol…
OMG this is hilarious and gross at the same time. What a fun (and enlightening) post. :-O
I have my cert in food styling from the CIA in Hyde Park. Never ever was I taught to use motor oil, cardboard or shoe polish. Wow. It’s the sizzle that sells I suppose.
You’re spot on. Couldn’t have said it better.
I am surprised how many people are upset about all the tricks used to get tasty and appetizing photos of food. Is it really any different than shooting a glamor model with make-up and some post-airbrushing?
I thought it was great article. Food styling techniques are used mostly for convenience and time saving. However it is possible to make the food look great without it. When you dine out in a great restaurant and the chef styles the plate. The food looks amazingly beautiful and appetizing (and will retain that look for about 5-10 minutes. Check out all natural photography: http://www.sashagitin.com/food
Food is by itself looks amazing. However, sometimes it is necessary to make it look more appetizing. This is done for promotional reasons mostly. However, when someone has to do that. He must me sure that he knows what he is doing.
Jody’s commerical on T.V uses real, good, wholesome American food for their commerical but on the contraily their food looks gross on the commerical. But go there the food is GREAT!!^^
Some of us have been doing food photog. from back before digital and computers. It all had to be done in camera. Just as Candace explained camera/lenses can’t do what our eyes can do. Some things just don’t photograph well. As far as laws, they are in place. If you are shooting for a company that makes ice cream cones and they want a picture on their box with a kid eating an ice cream cone, you can fake the ice cream so it doesn’t melt in the heat or under the lights. But you could not do that if they were selling the ice cream. That’s when you have to use their real ice cream. My home economist/stylist had to work over a large Igloo cooler filled with dry ice and lots of perfect cones she made so we could keep replacing the ones the kid held as they melted. If you think all this is cheating, next time you have a professional portrait done, be sure and not wear any make-up or brush your hair and tell them to leave all your blemishes, dark under eyes, harsh wrinkles, yellowed teeth….etc. Maybe people will find you kind of gross and not want to get to know you, hire you, etc.
I guess when you first learn about the tricks used in food photography, it’s a bit shocking and gross! But, really people, open your minds. It is a business, it is about money! Think about how movies are made. Lots of fake stuff and behind the scenes tricks are used to create the finished movies that we enjoy. These food stylists and photographers are real artists! They are paid for their skills. The client, magazine or cook-book or whatever, has a publication or an actual food product to sell. Of course he wants it shown in the best possible way! A customer who is going to buy that package of food from off the store shelf, only sees the outside packaging and decides in 2 or 3 seconds. If it doesn’t look great, then he reaches for the “other brand” to buy and take home. It’s certainly a competetive market on the store shelf…or the magazine rack. Again, it’s all about money! It’s a business, so grow up all you weak-in-the-knees people!!
I’ve seen pig’s fat used to shoot a famous ice-cream product. The place smelled like bacon – a bit weird for an ice cream shoot – but the practicality of a long shoot under studio lights seemed enough of a reason for them to use it. The result, a very appetizing desert from a print perspective. None of this is surprising after that.
“Bart Simpson: Why are you dressing that horse like a cow?
Crew Member: Cows don’t look like cows on camera?
Bart: What if you need to film a horse?
Crew member: Usually we just tape a bunch of cats together.”
At least the uninformed might have a bit more insight as to why their own food shots are not getting results they’re looking for. Nice piece this.
And add in food coloring and soap/salt for beer photography, and acrylic ice cubes/splashes, soldering iron for the lines on the steaks, and lots of other crafty ways…
Thanks for the tips… I’ll definately be trying a few of them on my next food shoot. I always knew there were tricks like this out there so it’s great to finally learn a few.
Bon Apetite!
Oh good God dont turn food styling green like everything else. Even if we style green we still are not going to hand that food over to 3rd world villages when we are done. Green or not it gets trashed. I love the smell of capitalism in the morning.
Give me a break guys. You are telling me that you believe everything you see in photos? Food is not possible to photograph well without some ‘help’. It is unwise to make the food look something that it is not, litigation is sure to follow, but you should do anything you can to get the shot.
This is photography we’re talking about, not food…..relax
hahahaha As an out-sider looking in, I love this. Americans are so dramatic. I can’t believe someone actually threw up… I’m pretty sure that’s an exaggeration. Interesting article, but the comments are the best part. Gives a much more well-rounded insight into the topic. I’m going to blog about your blog. And I agree with a previous comment; no-one is actually asking you to eat it. Stress less. Come to Australia.
Sometimes I thing I’d rather eat the hairspray, motor-oil and glue food more than the actual processed garbage they’re serving on the menu.
man thanks for sharing the tricks on how to make food photos look real.don t worry about those stupid people who don’t know what they re talking about.
I enjoyed Jens comment. Australian’s are much more relaxed. And it’s also fair to say that I don’t know any of my colleagues in Australia who use the old “tricks of the trade”.
Great article!
Actually, I was looking for the recipe for fake ice cream.
Does anybody know?
this is very good help because i am doing a media project that i have to take pictures of food using media tricks! :)
ok seriously!!? how many times do we admire the cover of a magazine–admire the picture of someone whose so touched up that we prob wouldn’t recognize them if we saw them in person. I do beleive that you should be true and authentic and all of that–but give the people a break! Geesh!
Gloria nails it on the head. Even without considering the retouching process, the lengths which some go to in order to make themselves appear “picture perfect” makes these food photography tricks seem perfectly normal.
Really interesting article, but I’ll take natural styling any day!
The Menu doesn’t taste like the meal.
On the morality side: If it entices your senses the picture is a success.
“american families” should rather see fake food than consume it.
Thanks for the tips in a well written article
Anybody thats asks why i dont eat the food when i’m done with a shoot can just read this article.
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