Here are some things you need to think about when it comes to styling food for the shot:

1. What type of plate would go best with the food? White or color? For restaurants, usually you are shooting on white plates and bowls.

2. Table cloth or wood table? Again, white table cloths are the norm in restaurants but the shot might look better if you add some color or patterns?

3. Props? What's going to be in the shot along with the food? Utensils, other plates of food, flowers, drinks, bread, the restaurant out of focus etc. These items can make or break your shot. Or..perhaps you shoot really tight and don't see anything beyond the plate?

4. How to make the food look best? Under cook the meat so it doesn't look dried out perhaps. Adding some cooking oil to meats will help as well. Spraying lettuce with water makes it look much more fresh than dry lifeless lettuce. How is the food positioned? Moving a carrot half an inch or stacking the food a little higher than usual can help a shot as well. Think presentation!

So why does a restaurant need a food stylist working with the photographer on a photo shoot?  Simply stated, the stylist needs to create an illusion in the image that simulates the actual dining experience. The image needs to clearly convey a powerful message to the viewer and quickly convince him that he wants to eat there. One of the best marketing tools a restaurant has is fabulous food images. They need to be fresh, creative, well designed, and tantalizing images. The restaurateur needs to show his very best to his potential customers in his printed marketing materials, his menu, and online.

In today’s web savvy environment, many people rely on the Internet to help them choose a restaurant. They want to peruse the menu and actually see the food before making a decision. The content and quality of the images must make a profound impact to attract new customers and keep them coming back. So often the restaurateur assumes that the chef can style the plate for the photographer, but the stylist’s craft is much different than the chef’s. The chef knows the recipe, the preparation, and the plating, but he likely doesn’t know how to make the food look appetizing to the camera. There is great truth in the expression that “the camera never lies.” But truth be known, our eyes do! Food looks very different when photographed, and it takes skill and often many years of practice to create a plate that is beautiful to the camera’s discerning eye.

When a plate is delivered to the diner, he has all of his senses in play and the food has been freshly prepared. He may not consciously register the details like the sheen on the vegetables, the glisten of the meat, the way the sauce naps the plate because he is in the midst of a total experience and all his senses are heightened. When someone views a photograph however, every little drip, drop, crumb, and spec come into view. The colors and textures are right before his eyes, but he doesn’t have the benefit of his other senses. Nor can he take a bite. A good image needs to grab the viewer’s attention immediately and register the thought, “I want to eat that! It looks delicious!”

While dining, the food is served and the diner begins eating while the food is at its freshest. During a photo shoot the food will sit out while the photographer is preparing for the shot. Food loses a lot of its pizzazz and eye appeal very quickly sitting on a plate under lights. In the restaurant, the diner always views the plate from the same angle. He is seated, looking down at his plate, but the photographer doesn’t always shoot at the same angle. Food photography would be terribly boring if every image were set up at the same angle. When the stylist creates the plate, she has discussed the angle of the shot with the photographer and builds the plate accordingly. The stylist must make a number of adjustments to the plate to accommodate the angle.

The stylist needs to understand how the consistency, color and texture of the food changes as it cooks or sits out. Fully cooked red meat looks grey, brown, and shriveled in a photo. Chicken skin wrinkles and shrinks. Vegetables wilt, milk looks blue, fruit darkens, ice melts, sauces break, pepper looks like dirt, pasta falls limp, coffee has an oily film on the surface, and water leaks from tomato sauce. Think of the food stylist as the makeup artist for the food, using her well honed craft to create the perfect picture. Just as clothes and cars go in and out of fashion, so do styling techniques. Over-stylized dishes are a thing of the past. Look at a cookbook from the 60’s compared to one today and the differences are striking. Styling today is much more about creating a natural fresh food image.

Working on location or in the studio, the stylist comes to the photo shoot with a toolbox of gadgets and gizmos to create a camera-perfect plate.  Her kit will include tweezers, pins, cotton puffs, tiny sponges, paint brushes, sewing scissors, good knives, museum gel, sticky tack, every kind of adhesive imaginable, a fabric steamer, any number of thickening agents, stabilizers, cotton swabs, bamboo skewers, eye droppers, a hot glue gun, coloring agents, spritzer bottles, tiny spoons, x-acto™ knives, razor blades, and a hundred other items. Good food knowledge and formal food skills are also a must, as is a working knowledge of visual balance and a “good eye” for layout. Using all these skills, along with her repertoire of styling tricks, artistry, and attention to detail, the stylist creates the food that the camera loves.