Therefore, food modeling is usually used for advertising purposes, which reveals the aesthetic feeling of products and attracts the attention of potential buyers. At the same time, in the photos of professional photographers, the complex composition composed 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 to reflect people's thoughts on the most delicious and exquisite food.
The task of food designers
Professional food designers will produce high-quality and vivid pictures to show specific foods or cooking dishes from the most favorable aspects. Only well-made and well-thought-out food photos can make the audience have a big bite in their desire to watch, buy and eat the product immediately. The main task of a food designer may be to motivate the viewer to buy products, or to involve him in the cooking process itself. In any case, it is important to ensure that the product is provided in perfect light. Besides, the food in the picture should look much better than the original food.
Food stylist first considered the concept of advertising, created creative designs for pictures, and then carefully selected tableware and other accessories. At the same time, in order to place the accent correctly, the shape, proportion, color and contrast of the object must be considered. Professional photographers rely on the help of an assistant, who usually acts as a cooking expert and is competent in preparing the specific dishes to be photographed. However, in order to make the products in photos more attractive and dynamic, photographers have a lot of 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, taking pictures of food and food is not complicated. But in fact, "live" food is a very moody model, and it 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, brushing 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, meat used for photography is always slightly cooked and coated with soy sauce to defat the broth, and then fat spots are added manually to process seafood with glycerol to make it look fresh. Of course, without the love of food and food, extraordinary patience and originality, the photographer's hard work is simply 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 photographing dishes. For example, in order to create the illusion of steam from hot food, some photographers use cotton balls to soak in water and then heat them in the microwave oven. In short, food stylist is creative in shooting and using various means.
Natural food or genetically modified food?
Incidentally, the professional circles are still debating whether natural products should be used only in food stylist's photos, or whether any method can be used to make the 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 package during the shooting process. Only a few cosmetic operations are allowed to improve the appearance of dishes. After all, modern cooking provides many ways to give products one form or another, color and structure. Other photographers believe that 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 the use of pure natural products in food styles. However, 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 a part of the advertising industry. In principle, it tends to decorate some advantages of goods, while on the contrary, it hides their obvious shortcomings. There may be endless arguments about how honest consumers are who decide to buy products only by buying quality products.
Selection of lighting setting and photography mode
In dietetics, the main work is not only to prepare products for photography to make them 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 generate light in food style-it all depends on ingredients, creativity and specific products.
Always pay special attention to the lighting 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 maximum frame expression. When shooting food, the photographer's creative tool library is very extensive, and various styles, shadows, highlights, reflections and side dishes are experimented.
computer image processing
After taking photos with products, food designers usually have 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, a large part of the successful work of food designers is closely related to the process of taking pictures, establishing composition and preparing the product itself. In the photo editor, if small flaws are found in the picture, they are 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 instead of by itself 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, today, photographers in food stylist are in high demand in the advertising market, and their works are highly paid.
However, although there are a large number of professional food stylist, few of them can boast of their unique style, which means using unexpected actions when building composition and lighting. In order to produce exquisite and unique food photos, photographers must not only have appropriate photographic knowledge and technical ability, but also have a certain talent for cooperating with products, a kind of "dish".
In the photos of professional food designers, food ingredients look like real art canvases; The food itself is literally attractive. With the advent of advertising photography, food modeling has occupied a solid position, and hundreds of photographers all over the world are keen on their work and love it. We can see their hard work and fruitful work almost every day in cooking magazines and books, colorful packaging and shop windows, which is admirable.