The text below was written by Erika Ottens from Studio Keistad

What's food photography or culinary photography?

Culinary photography is reputedly one of the toughest specialties in photography.

There is a sort of proverb stating "if you can shoot food, you can shoot anything." The main reason is that it is terribly difficult to take a picture in a very short time of a dish before it is ripe for the dustbin. For example, in about 3 minutes after you styled a dish with whipped cream, the cream already starts to melt. Other examples: drying dish, melting ice, vapor away from a dish, fat dripping out. Sometimes you only have 2 to 3 photos and then already you run out of time.

How is the trick done?

A perfect composition and the whole setup of studio lights for only 3 minutues of time to shoot?

The trick is a "stand-in", i.e. a fake copy of your subject.

First you get all the other things like tablecloths, napkins, glassware, flowers etc etc in the right place. Then the stand-in turns up. The standin is used to setup optimal lighting and compositions. When all is set the stand in is replaced by the real subject, called the "hereo" in exactly the same position.

The final image should be mouth watering, i.e. you want to crawl into the picture with just one goal: EAT!

Culinary photography grew out of the still life photography (like fruit plates, as ancient painters painted), and is from the 60's trend sensitive. It is no wonder that the stylists closely watch these trends and implement new ideas in culinary photography.

In culinary or foodphotography there are 2 main streams:

a. advertising photography, which must always be sharp and properly portrayed and product photography (Pack shot) you often see in the supermarket flyers back. The products were photographed on a white background.


b. photography for cookbooks and magazines, where a photographer has more creative freedom. See below examples.


Do you find it interesting to find out about this specialization?

Take a look at www.studiokeistad.nl or www.culishots.com

Here you will find more information about the various food photography workshops are regularly held. Naturally, during these workshops we also pay attention to tricks of food manupilation (foodstyling).