Food photography is always exciting. Every day is filled with new colours, textures and pairings to play with, and that’s before you taste anything! With so many fantastic food pop-ups, food trucks and catering companies in the UK, it’s always inspiring to discover the foodie behind the business. Learning why people create and cook the food they specialise in is a massive part of the creative food photography process. Understanding the client, their photographic vision, and their photo needs ultimately allow me to create photography they’ll love that is right for their business needs.
As a food photographer, my job is to create images that you love, that represent you, your food and your brand and can be utilised across all of your desired marketing outputs.
Lahore At 24 is an excellent example of combining people, product and marketing purposes. I recently photographed their authentic Pakistani food for their social media pages (Check out their Instagram.) Lahore At 24 is all about creating Pakistani food that you’ll love, playing with the idea of sharing with their tagline ‘From our home to yours.’ Their photography needed to explore the realm of Pakistani cuisine and its nuances and differences from other South Asian cuisines and instil a sense of welcome, a welcome that provides the comfort of feeling ‘Like Home.’
The ingredients were a significant feature for this photoshoot. As with most Southern Asian dishes, multiple spices and seasonings are used to create a dish well rounded in flavour and rich in colour! From Pakistani staples such as Pakoras to Pink Salt to the flavour focuses of mustard leaves, cardamon seeds and juniper berries.
Beyond the glossy, highly charged colours of food photography and dish composition, I always look to elevate the everyday in my food photography – the dishes that are staples on your menu and those that don’t have defining factors. Paneer or cheese is a great example, especially for South Asian food, where the population of vegetarians is very high, and meat substitutes are widely used. Paneer, an Indian cheese that looks like solid ricotta, is a fantastic source of protein and a go-to meat alternative for those looking for a vegetarian-friendly dish. Unfortunately, the aesthetic of Paneer doesn’t scream fine dining or photo-worthy, which provides an exciting set-up and composition challenge for a food photographer like myself to create a narrative that enhances the more ‘Plain foods.’
From plain and sometimes foods seen as ‘Boring’ to buttery textures, silky sauces and the creation of crisp and bite through a picture. I always want to capture that shot that makes people immediately hungry! By dialling up the spice level with a change of hue focus in an image to communicate spice or styling a dish to reduce the heat factor and focus on lighter Scoville levels, all can be done through the camera’s lens.
The contrast of styling fresh herbs and seasoning such as salt and coriander leaves add additional interest to your photography and communicate that you take care to fill your dishes with flavour – all this is displayed in a single or small set of images! Love or hate coriander, its zesty and aromatic flavour make it one of the most commonplace and widely used in a range of cuisines across the world, and it provides playful opportunities in food photography due to its multi presentation qualities that can add additional flair to your food photography. Sprinkle, splice, place or blend to add a spark of green, a finishing touch or an additional after flavour kick.
Lahore At 24 were pleased with their photographs, and I thoroughly enjoyed the collaboration process from humble raw ingredients to plated, placed and photographed. After the photoshoot, I received some lovely feedback:
‘I’m so glad I stumbled across The Culinary Camera. Denise was amazing at capturing my food and translated it into exactly what I had in my mind. She was easy and fun to work with, and I will definitely be working with her again! – Thanks, Denise!’
If you too would like me to bring your food to life through the camera lens, get in touch and let’s talk about how we can work together