Storytelling With Food Photography

Visuals, such as photos, illustrations, and videos, make highly effective memory tools and especially useful for things like brand recognition.

Advertising agencies, magazines and big brands know that their audiences cannot ignore powerful images, that they can have a major impact, or even change our moods and emotions instantly. When creating images, its important to understand this, and in particular, why the market needs them and how we can translate those needs into the photography that we produce.

Whether you are a food photographer wishing to increase your clientele, or a blogger needing to attract and keep more followers, understanding these fundamentals will increase the power behind your imagery.

If you are a food blogger, then think of all the aspects of your recipe before you start the photoshoot.

You can ask yourself questions like:

• Where did your recipe come from?
• How did you develop it?
• Why do you love it so much?
• Who do you expect to eat it?
• Is this a family recipe or for a special occasion?
• What ingredients were used to make it?

Other prompts to use include:

• Describe the origin story of this recipe. What inspired you?
• Describe your target audience and why they would want it.
• Describe how this recipe is made and how it should be served.

If you do this before you even start to make the food, your layouts should then fall automatically in place.

The photos featured here are the images I took of a Sardinian-style minestrone longevity soup, inspired by the latest plant-based blue zones diet.

My target audience were health-conscious people who were following the longevity diet principles.

This recipe is prepared and cooked in large pots (photo 1) and often served in a large family setting (photo 2).

Photo 3 shows what the dishes look like when served with their usual accompaniments, crusty sourdough bread and roasted fava beans.

Photo 4 is your action shot and shows someone eating it, and photo 5 is the closeup of the dish, which your viewers need to see.

The purpose of food styling is to make a photograph look as authentic, enticing and delicious as possible.

This can be achieved in a very simple composition or even a complex one, but its success will depend largely on the cohesiveness of the overall staging.

Food should always look fresh and appetizing. The backdrop, props, garnishes, and the overall arrangement should not dominate or distract from the dish. The food should always be the hero of the shot.

When starting out, it’s best to start with simple designs, such as food served on a plate, and photographed close up with perhaps just a utensil and some garnish. Later you can work up to more complex compositions.

If you are selling your photography or photographing for cookbooks and magazines, then your styling will be critical to your success. But even if you are not, good styling can make food look more enticing to your viewers.

Before starting your photoshoot, prompt yourself to think about the origins of your recipe, how did you discover it, who your target audience is, why would they want it, how the recipe should be made and how should it be served.

Your answers will then determine how many photos you will need and how to stage them. Your layout styling should then fall automatically in place.

Allocating that extra time to clarify the purpose of each image and to plan your shots before your photoshoot, will go a long way to improving your styling, staging and photography as a whole.