If you’ve ever done any research into food photography and styling, then you know how few and far between the guides are. There are a couple of books that focus on lighting and some of the basics of photography when it comes to food… almost a laughable number given the overall quantities of books on general photography and photography software. For food styling, there has been even less. However, I just received my copy of Food Styling for Photographers by Linda Bellingham and Jean Ann Bybee and I’m thrilled to see this kind of information more readily available to photographers and people considering food styling.

Food Styling for Photographers does a great job of giving photographers an idea of what they may be getting themselves into if they do decide to pick up styling. Starting from the shopping trip, to prepping the table setting, to preparing some of the harder to style foods, the book is comprehensive and easy to understand. There is a fantastic section on stylists tools, including brand name suggestions on everything from griddles (Presto Tilt & Drain) to paper towels (Bounty). The vegetable chapter has a neat trick for how to fold a corn husk, and the chapter on desserts (which yes, contains the expected fake ice cream for hot lights) has a great suggestion for using toothpicks to get neat stacks of freshly baked cookies. There are also some tricks that made me giggle… like using cardboard between layers of a cake to help it keep its height, or using Soil Moist granules to make a drink that looks like a frozen margarita.

For food bloggers interested in learning more on styling, be aware that this book is aimed at people who will not be eating any of the food being prepared. There are still good tips, even a few that say “follow the recipe” to make the food look beautiful (I had to laugh at the food styling for biscuits paragraph that simply says pop them open from the can and bake them!). The most useful chapters if you want to eat the food afterwards are likely the on making a salad and on garnishing, like how to perk up the green tops on strawberries and tomatoes. That said, the authors’ number one rule is never to eat the food from the set. But, even if you don’t use any of the styling tips, there are great shots of the lighting and setup of most of the images in the book, along with photographers notes which are incredibly useful.

Technorati Tags: food styling, food photography

Last time Adorama had a Food Photography workshop, I found out too late to let you all know. This time, I’m on it… although there isn’t much time to get signed up. The next talk, given by Lou Manna, author of Digital Food Photography, will be held November 18th. The cost of the class is $250, and it will be held in Lou Manna’s studio in New York. For more information, see the Adorama Workshop site.

Even more exciting, I think, is Sun, Surf and Style, a three-day live tabletop and food styling workshop in San Diego, California from February 8-10, 2008 by food stylist Lisa Golden Schroeder and photo stylist Susan Linnet Cox. This three-day interactive workshop features a “jump start” day focused on getting started in the business of food styling and propping, plus two great days filled with styling demos and test assignments with a professional shooter, New York food photographer Gregory Bertolini. The class will be held in a professional photography studio, fully equipped with a commercial kitchen. There are only 13 slots open for this class which is $900. More info and registration can be found here.

If you are looking for some instruction but can’t travel, you might check out Food Styling 101, a 4 week online class on Photo Styling Workshops. The next round starts on Nov 13th. Also check out Self-Promotion and Marketing for Food Stylists.

Also, if you haven’t stopped by Michael Ray’s food photography website recently, he has a new post on food photography and lenses.

I had two different ideas for this month’s challenge. But an article on plating in today’s Seattle Times pre-empted them both, and inspired me to create this month’s Plate it Up! theme. The article is about transforming a boring plating into something that has more appeal. Despite the title of the piece, which implies that it will be mainly about garnishing, the tips include do’s and don’ts about how to layout the food, how to think about color, and (a little) on saucing. It’s a short read, but a good one to kick off the challenge. Go read it now, so the rest of this post makes sense.

Back so soon? Did you read it? Good.

First off, I’m curious as to what you thought of the example photo. Did the after photo look better to you? And if so, how much better?

Secondly, here’s where you really come in… what would you do to the plate to make it even more appealing? Show us with this month’s post. No, you don’t have to plate the same dishes… but do try to combine different dishes onto one plate, and make the most of them. This is something I tend to avoid doing… and one of the things I’ve noticed about most cooking magazines and cookbooks… the photo shows just one cooked item, not an item, plated, as you probably would if you were actually serving at home or in a restaurant. I know one reason that they do this is that if they don’t give the recipes for everything on the plate, they get letters asking about it (even if it’s just a salad!) Another reason? It’s hard to make it look good.

But, that’s what you are going to do this month. Plate up multiple (at least 2, but 3 is better) dishes onto a plate. Think about avoiding monotony… but also keeping it simple. Like hairstyles, a little flare is good, a bouffant isn’t.

The usual rules and are up on the Flickr group… the things like be constructive, take the photos during the month if possible, 3 photos per person and the last day will be around October 31st, give or take a few days.

Technorati Tags: Food, Food Styling, Meme, Photography

As the holiday season approaches, food styling needs start to kick into higher gear. Food is such a critical part of the holidays, and making food look good, even more so. It’s all turkeys, stuffing, cookies, cakes and pies. Especially pies. I recently shot a pecan pie for a regional magazine. The pie was baked in a local bakery, and I had the whole pie to work with to get a shot of a single slice, on a white plate, on a white background to allow lots of room for text to be placed all around. Styling pie is not particularly easy, and this particular pie, while mind-blowingly delicious, didn’t make it easier. When styling pie, you really want something that can hold it’s height fairly easily, with a nice thick bottom crust. This pie loved to sink and while the outer crust was incredibly thick, the bottom was almost nonexistent. Still, I thought it might be nice to show you a little walkthrough of the shot.
Continue reading →

I just had an “ah-ha” moment about prop rental. If you live in Los Angeles, Chicago and New York, you can probably skip this post. You already have great stores that specialize in prop rental, like Creative Elements. But here in Seattle, I haven’t been able to find anything similar. Until today, when I stumbled on not one, but several real estate “staging” services. You know, when you view a house that has already been moved out of and it looks like you just walked into a Pottery Barn photo shoot? There are people who’s job it is to do that (hmm… maybe a second career choice is on the horizon for me! Think of the props I could buy!). Recently, I toured a home that was just up the street. The kitchen was drool worthy, but a large part of that was the cabinets, all with sparkling clean glass windows and filled with a complete set of all white dishware, including cake plates and milk pitchers. There are homes all over the city, on the market, being staged.
Continue reading →

Leaving Boston on Monday evening, I felt like I had just spent 4 days pouring over my favorite foodie magazines… I was awe-struck, overly full of ideas, and antsy to start getting back into the kitchen and putting even just a little of what I had learned to use. My head still feels a bit like an over-stuffed sausage, but it seems time to start to give you a taste of what went on at the conference.

My personal adventure started a bit earlier than the conference because I am a spaz, and apparently can’t read a schedule. The conference started on Friday, and I knew that I really was not capable of sitting through an afternoon of talks after taking a red-eye flight, so I booked myself on the Wednesday night redeye instead, expecting to have the Thursday to recover before the workshops began. Silly me… the only thing happening on Friday was registration, something that I could have done half asleep. Thankfully, Bea and P were incredibly kind with my extra imposition, and I got to hang with Bea as she whipped up some of her famous tarts. All I can say is that as great as they look on her blog, they even taste better. Bea and I also got to go do some prop shopping, starting at a fabric store, where we both picked out several new and fabulous textures and colors for backdrops and linens. After my recent trip to LA, and a suitcase bulging with goods I got from Surfas, I knew that I’d better keep my finds to fabrics that would pack well.
Continue reading →

How many people do you know that drive around LA with dead scorpions and a buckets of paella in their cars? If you know a professional food stylist, chances are, you just might know at least one. Last weekend, I got to sit in on Food Fanatics‘ Master Food Styling class, a great hands-on class by two professional food stylists, Denise Vivaldo and Cindie Flannagan, who have been in the business for years and years. The class was a virtual dumptruck of food styling info, from common styling techniques (which we got lots of time to practice ourselves) to thoughts on the food styling business and digital photography, to story after story of food styling challenges, mishaps and other, sometimes bawdy, adventures. I can’t remember the last time I was in a class for two full days that never bored me, but this was one of them. From the 9am start to Q&A over wine at 3 in the afternoon, the class is a non-stop riot of laughing and dirty hands. If you get a chance to spend sometime with Denise and Cindie, don’t miss it.
Continue reading →

This month, let’s focus on a styling technique… specifically garnishes. Little garnishes can make a simple scene elegant, but lots of garnish can quickly turn it into a chaotic mess. A garnish should always relate back to the dish, and help clue the eater (or the viewer) into some subtle flavor, aroma or color.
Continue reading →

I have a problem. I have a little thing called a prop addiction. I’m constantly finding my next must-have props in vintage and thrift stores, at the grocery store, in sales bins at Pottery Barn or Crate & Barrel, and most recently on ebay. Now, you might think that the problem is the fact that I am buying too much. Some might argue that. Not me. My problem is that I simply don’t have nearly enough room, and the stacks are growing ever more precarious. It’s not too much stuff, it’s simply a lack of storage space. At least, that’s what I tell myself. I’m hoping one day I’ll get to be like this shop in Chicago. My family may not be able to move in our house any more, but man, we’ll have some nice props. The photo above features two of my new ones… the palest-yellow oval dish, on sale at Whole Foods and the shabby chic breakfast tray was from ebay.
Continue reading →

It’s been a while since I did much searching for these, but there are several classes coming up in the next 6 months that you might be interested in checking out:

Denise Vivaldo and Cindie Flannigan are hosting several upcoming classes in the LA area: May 12 -13th is the next Master Food Styling class, a hands-on, coached weekend in the kitchen. If you can’t make that, look for the Food Styling Workshop, a 3-day intensive class, October 26-28th. For more information, plus what looks like some upcoming International classes, see the Culinary Entrepreneurship Program website.

If you are in the Kansas City area, you might be interested in the Styling Workshop at David Morris Photography. This 2-3 day workshop (April 26-28, 2007) is focused on jumpstarting novice stylists and boosting experienced stylists’ value in the workplace. For more details, send see the Foodesigns website.

And, if you were interested in the upcoming food styling and photography conference at Boston University, there is more information up on their site now. Looks to be an exceptionally valuable few days, June 1st - 4th.

If you don’t have time for travel, there are online food styling courses at PhotoStylingWorkshops.com. The next round of Lisa Golden Schroeder’s online class, Food Styling 101, starts on April 17th.

The French Culinary Institute in New York is offering a 2 session course in Plating and Styling in late July/early August. It’s quite pricey at $695, but looks like it offers some good basics, and the Saturday morning schedule works for most folks… and it’s still not as expensive as the CIA ProChef courses in styling, taught by well-known stylist Delores Custer. Upcoming sections are Mar. 19 - 23, May 7 - 11 and Sep. 24 - 28, and are about $1200 each. The classes are held in Hyde Park, New York and not only do you learn food styling, but you spend time working on building a portfolio and have CIA food photographers shoot your work.

Of course, if you are just starting out, any cooking class is going to be helpful to your food styling, since the root of all food styling is being a good cook!

Technorati Tags: Food Styling