There was a time when people used to do prayers before their meals. In the modern era, the scenario has entirely changed. Nowadays, people click photos of their food before eating and upload them to social media websites. Instagram, a popular social media site, has brought food photography to new heights of popularity. Food photography has turned out to be as common as selfies. This soaring craze of food photography is not just limited to the general public. Several restaurants and cafes are making use of food photography to attract customers. Now, when this food photography is been done for commercial purposes, it has to be done professionally. Here comes the need of a professional food photographer.
A good food photographer understands the critical aspects of photography from the right angles to styling, editing, and how to manipulate light to make food look great for the camera. A commercial food photographer produces eye-catching food photographs that can be used in menus, banners, advertisements, packaging, cookbooks, etc. Professional food photography is a collaborative project involving a number of people such as a photographer, art director, food stylist, prop stylist, and other associates.
In commercial food photography, food styling plays a crucial role. Food styling is an art that requires creativity in arranging food. It is mainly done for the production of food photography in books, websites, menus, cookbooks, magazines, advertisements, etc. Upscale restaurants use food styling as a common practice.
A culinary professional who prepares the food for photography or videography is called as a food stylist. A food stylist understands that preparing and styling food for the camera is different than the traditional methods. Food styling is about knowing the rules of composition and the tricks to make food look good on the camera. It’s about understanding how your brain perceives the color, texture, lines, shapes, etc. to create a well-balanced image.
Food Stylists make use of several props and techniques to make food photogenic. Food stylists work hand in hand with food photographers. Teena also works with media agencies and on commercial projects as a Food Stylist.
The key goal behind food videography is to make food videos go viral and commercially successful. In today’s visual world, when it’s challenging to grab the attention on social media, recipe, and motion videos stand out, thus leading to more engagement and visibility. This kind of content works well for Social media marketing.
Food videography is not as simple and straightforward as food photography. It requires a good amount of research and the right video content strategy. Here are four key areas that I consider crucial for the success of every food video.
1) In the first stage, before creating motion videos for clients, we make sure to know the ultimate goal, target audience, competitors, and the expected result.
2) The second stage is creative development in which we develop the story, script, and recipe of video. This is entirely based on the insights we get from the research.
3) The third area is the magical stage of video production. Here, we cook food, do the shooting, and editing to make videos look amazing. Food stylists play a very crucial role in the stage. The decorate the food with their creativity to make the dishes ‘viralicious’.
4) In the final stage, we upload the video on social media with relevant tags and keywords for search engine optimization.
People don’t just enjoy good food but the ambiance and the feel of a place. It doesn’t matter if it’s a luxury restaurant or a small eatery, it’s always good to convey to your customers the look and feel of your place.
Usually, people consider restaurant photography as clicking pictures of food. But, in fact, it is way beyond clicking food photos. The right photography of restaurants can actually boost the business. Whenever you hire us for restaurant photography, we ensure to capture the photos in the below aspects.
1) Capturing the Ambience – We make sure to include shots of the restaurant when people are dining. This helps people to get an idea about the atmosphere and character of the restaurant. A shot with people filled in also makes an impression of how popular and busy the restaurant is.
2) Highlighting the Food – Food photography is at the core of restaurant photography. People come to restaurants to enjoy food and drinks. So, food has to be on the focus. Restaurants use food photographs for print menu, online menu, advertisements, packaging materials, websites, and for various other purposes. Therefore, we make sure to shoot incredibly awesome clicks of food with clean backgrounds, proper lightings, and creative angles.
3) Inside the Kitchen – People care about their hygiene while going to restaurants. When you show them your neat and tidy kitchen; they feel more confident about the eatery. We prefer to click photos inside the kitchen with cooking staff. Mostly, we shoot candid photos of kitchen staff but a posed photo also sometimes works well.
Recipe development is a key constituent in how food magazines, cookbooks, and websites are made. It is about making a recipe from a thought or “from scratch”. The ultimate goal of recipe development is to reproduce a dish with no recipe or to enjoy the bliss of being artistic with food.
Times have changed, and everyone likes to experiment with different cooking styles. If you have a food-related product, then providing recipes on your social media accounts and website is a great way to showcase your brand and attract loyal followers.
Falling under commercial photography, product photography is about representing a product in a precise and attractive aspect. Majorly, product photography is done for catalogs, brochures, and websites, with a percentage of product photos also being used in marketing and promotion.
If you are small to medium-sized (SME) business and don’t have a big budget to hire a team and rent a studio, we can provide affordable and beautiful professional images.
