Therefore, food modeling is usually used for advertising purposes to reveal the aesthetic feeling of products and attract the attention of potential buyers. At the same time, in the photos of professional photographers, the complex composition of various foods and products has caused the connection with classical painting and still life art. Nowadays, food modeling has become a self-sufficient photography style, aiming at reflecting people's thoughts on the most delicious and exquisite food.
The task of food designer
Professional food designers will produce high-quality and vivid pictures to show specific food or cooking dishes from the most favorable aspects. Only well-made and well-thought-out food photos can make the audience have the desire to watch, buy and eat the product immediately. The main task of food designers may be to motivate the audience to buy products or to involve the audience in the cooking process itself. In any case, it is important to ensure that the products are provided in perfect light. In addition, the food in the picture should look much better than the original food.
Food stylist first considered the concept of advertising, creatively designed the pictures, and then carefully selected tableware and other accessories. At the same time, in order to place stress correctly, the shape, proportion, color and contrast of the object must be considered. Professional photographers rely on the help of assistants, who usually act as cooking experts and are competent in preparing specific dishes to be filmed. However, in order to make the products in photos more attractive and dynamic, photographers have many tools. Food designers are good at using tools such as spray guns, tweezers or oil brushes. Preparing food photography is very similar to creating still life in classical painting.
Food is the subject of photography.
For many people, shooting food and delicious food is not complicated. But in fact, "live" food is a very moody pattern, which is not so easy to handle. Literally, after a few minutes, the finished cooking dishes will settle, dry, change color and oxidize when interacting with air. As a result of these processes, the food completely lost its appetizing appearance and began to look very dim and crisp in the picture. This is why food stylist must use special methods to "revive" products when shooting, coloring, painting or spraying.
Photographers are often asked to take measures so that food will not lose its desired appearance before shooting. The most diverse means are used here. For example, the meat used in photography is always boiled a little, coated with soy sauce to degrease the broth, and then artificially added with fat points, and the seafood is treated with glycerin, which looks very fresh. Of course, without the love of delicious food, extraordinary patience and originality, the photographer's hard work is unimaginable.
Usually, professional food designers and photographers have good cooking knowledge. At the very least, he should have the necessary information about product attributes. Every food designer has his own secrets in cooking food and shooting dishes. For example, in order to create the illusion that hot food produces steam, some photographers soak cotton balls in water and then heat them in the microwave oven. In short, food stylists are very creative in shooting and using various means.
Natural food or genetically modified food?
Incidentally, professionals are still debating whether natural products should only be used in food stylist's photos, or whether any method can be used to make products look attractive. At this point, people can even distinguish two independent areas of food style.
Advocates of the first direction believe that you only need to use the products in the packaging during shooting. Only a few cosmetic operations are allowed to improve the appearance of dishes. After all, modern cooking provides many ways to give products one or another form, color and structure. Other photographers believe that in order to get the best advertising effect, any method is applicable, including using chemical products and artificial imitation. As the saying goes, in this case, the purpose is the means.
There are still more nature worshippers and pure natural products used in food styles. But in the professional circle, the photographer's ability to deceive the audience and convince them of the naturalness of the dishes in the photos has been greatly appreciated. Finally, today's food style is part of the advertising industry. In principle, it tends to decorate some advantages of commodities, while on the contrary, it hides their obvious shortcomings. There may be endless arguments about how honest consumers who decide to buy only quality products are.
Selection of lighting setting and photography mode
In nutrition, the main job is not only to prepare products for photography to make it look as attractive and appetizing as possible, but also to make correct lighting settings and choose some photography methods. There is no universal technology to produce food-style light-it all depends on ingredients, creativity and specific products.
Always pay special attention to lighting the background to avoid uncomfortable glare. Blurred light spots on the white surface help photographers deal with bright glare on metal tableware. Usually, food designers use soft boxes, various diffusers and reflectors to set the lights. The correct combination of direct light and reflected light can provide the greatest picture expression. When shooting food, the photographer's creative tool library is very extensive, and all kinds of styles, shadows, highlights, reflections and side dishes have experiments.
computer image processing
After taking photos with products, food designers usually need to improve their digital images with the help of photo editors. In this respect, he is no different from other types of photographers. Indeed, the attraction of the products and cooking dishes in the photos is by no means using Photoshop. Nevertheless, most of the successful work of food designers is closely related to the process of taking pictures, determining the composition and preparing the product itself. In the photo editor, if a small flaw is found in the picture, it is usually deleted and the image is slightly modified to achieve the effect that digital cameras or lighting can't achieve.
At present, food stylist works in sequence rather than alone in most cases, so it is necessary to process the images by computer to ensure that the final results can meet the requirements of customers. By the way, the photographers of food stylist are in great demand in the advertising market, and their works are highly paid.
However, although there are a large number of professional food designers, few of them can boast of their unique style, which means using unexpected actions in architectural composition and lighting. In order to take exquisite and unique food photos, photographers should not only have corresponding photographic knowledge and technical ability, but also have a certain talent to cooperate with products, a kind of "dish".
In the photos of professional food designers, food ingredients look like real art canvases; The food itself is really attractive. With the appearance of advertising photography, food modeling has occupied a stable position, and hundreds of photographers all over the world are keen on their work and love it. Almost every day, we can see their hard work and fruitful work in cooking magazines and books, in colorful packaging and in shop windows, which is admirable.