Colette & Lola by Himawan Sutanto and the Foodtography
Playing with your food might have gotten you scolded when you were a kid, but these professionals have embraced the art of horsing around at table to make their food photos look good enough to eat.
Chefs might write the recipes and create the delicious food, but the drool-worthy photos on the menus, books and magazines are the works of art by a special team of food photography. Just like in fashion, the key to the final look is the painstakingly time-consuming efforts to style the food until it delivers an image strong enough for the viewer’s sight, which in turn will convince the other senses that the food will taste, smell and feel like it appear to be. These efforts include the setup of the food placement and garnishing, the staging of the props in the surrounding area and the appropriate lighting to wrap the overall story.
Specializing on food photography and related subjects, Himawan Sutanto from Foodtography has a team that includes food stylists. Even he himself owns a set of necessary tools, from tweezers to shift the smallest pieces and simple toothpicks to make them stay at their designated spot to brushes for applying layers of glistening sheen or arranging salad dressings. These tricks of the trade and his past experiences are his guidelines, as food photography is some sort of practical art infused with technique and science. There’s only one rule, looks are more important than taste when shooting the photo.
When shooting for eateries or cookbooks, clients have different approaches and demands on how they want their food to look like. While some aims for the clean, symmetrical precision, others want intentional mess to breathe life into the photos, like how chocolate sauce is in the process of being poured onto the plated dessert, raw ingredients spread out around a bowl of noodle, or how one of the dumplings in the set get sliced open to allow the filling to ooze out. It’s up to the creative team to reach that point of attractive, lively mess that can enhance the food as the star of the photo rather than taking the viewer’s attention away from it.
Most commercial food shots for advertisements and packaging need extra drama, perfection and endless patience. Shooting a cold drink, for instance, require artificial ice cubes as real ones would melt quickly. Snacks might be entirely made of resin with realistic paint job to achieve those ideal shapes. Advanced digital imaging is a necessity because most of the time the elements are photographed separately.
All those hard work limit the number of dedicated food photographers to only a handful in Indonesia. But Himawan enjoys what he does, especially when he finds new challenges and learn new things. Such passion is what one needs when their creativity is always put up to the test, because sometimes the clients only need to feel whether their mouth water to decide how satisfied they are with the photos.
Beyond Natural
Ricettario: A Balanced Diet by Elena Mora and Karsten Wegener
Alongside the more common commercial projects, food photographers and stylists sometimes meet their challenges with whole different ideas. A stunning example is the IKEA cookbook titled Hembakat är Bäst, which translates to “Homemade is Best.” Created by Swedish design and marketing agency Forsman & Bodenfors, the cookbook is photographed by Carl Kleiner and styled by taking inspiration from high fashion and Japanese minimalism to echo IKEA’s simple and modern design style. The ingredients are laid out in a separated, neatly organized manner, forming unexpected shapes and textures on their own while creating a solid photo as a whole. Even the finished product is photographed in similar manner without any plating or additional props.
Some others create projects for themselves, taking out the commercial aspect and unleashing limitless creativity. Photographer Nicky Walsh and chef/creative Max Faber collaborated on the “Bauhaus” project for no particular client but themselves. Posted on their shared portfolio blog, the set of photos displays brilliant, Bauhaus-inspired styling of food combined with props and backgrounds of different materials and textures. They’re so effortlessly simple that in the back of our minds we ask ourselves ‘why didn’t I think of that?’
Another playful personal project comes from food stylist Elena Mora who teamed up with photographer Karsten Wegener in a series titled “Ricettario: A Balanced Diet”, literally balancing the ingredients of some particular dishes including Pizza Margherita and Apple Cake into surreal, gravity-defying sculptures. There’s no telling how the elements stayed up without toppling over, but the 12 hours spent into each shot get rewarded with amazing food art.
