Food styling

Learning goal

You will be able to recognize the small jobs behind the plump, shiny and orderly food seen in ads and menus: choosing the right plate, giving the food height and texture, refreshing the glints with a brush, bringing back moisture with a spray. You will prepare your own small food styling kit and arrange a plate for the camera, from the single angle it sees. You will tell apart which of these jobs only show the food fresh and orderly, and which promise the customer something other than the plate that will arrive. You will adopt, as a measurable principle, that the plate you shoot for a restaurant menu must be a plate that can be served to a customer. You will watch how a hand touching the food in the frame shifts with the color reflected by a red sauce or a warm light.

The question

The restaurant owner puts a page cut from a magazine on the table: a shiny patty, upright green lettuce leaves with tiny water droplets on them, a bun whose sesame seeds look as if laid out one by one. "Our patty is tastier than this, but it never looks like this," they say. In the kitchen, the kitchen assistant tells a story, laughing: a friend of hers worked on an ad shoot, and there they touched the food with tweezers, brushes and sprays. The restaurant owner wonders whether this is cheating. What are the behind-the-scenes tricks, and which of them stay honest?

Context

At the restaurant's window table you watched the glint, and the appetite, go out when the lentil soup's butter set within a few minutes (Lesson U.6). On the day a bowl that came out purple was sent back as a return, we talked about the photo making a promise and that promise being tested when the box is opened (Lesson U.1). In the first food lesson you met the way food is placed on the plate and prepared for the frame, that is, presentation (Lesson 16.7).

Food styling stands between these two. On one side, food on camera fades, sinks and dries faster than the eye sees it do at the table; the stylist makes up for this loss. But every touch comes a step closer to showing the food differently from how it really is. This lesson talks about where each of these steps stands.

Simple explanation

What is in the stylist's bag?

A food styling kit is the set of small tools used to arrange a plate for the camera: a pair of tweezers, a few soft brushes, a water spray, cotton swabs, paper towels, a small spoon, a bottle of oil and some spare ingredients. The tweezers put a parsley leaf or a sesame seed in place; the cotton swab wipes away sauce splashed on the plate's rim; the brush refreshes a layer of oil or butter; the spray leaves a fine moisture on the vegetables.

Most of these tools don't change the food, they only keep it fresh during the few minutes the camera sees it. A thin oil brushed onto the surface of a patty drying under the light brings back the freshness highlights from the previous lesson. A lettuce leaf that has started to wilt revives in a few minutes in iced water. Spare ingredients, that is, a few extras of every part of the plate, let a part that spoils be replaced at once.

The plate is a tool too. A small or medium plate shows the same portion fuller. A portion left in the middle of a wide plate, on the other hand, looks lonely and meager. Plain plates in simple colors bring the food's color forward, while busy patterns compete with it.

How does food rise?

Building height is arranging the food on top of each other, leaning, or in layers instead of spreading it flat on the plate, giving it volume and shadow. Stuffed vine leaves or patties spread flat turn into a line when seen from a side angle. Three vine leaves leaning on top of each other, on the other hand, gain height, shadow and depth. A small mound made by pressing rice, or tucking a lettuce leaf that is already in the portion under a patty, lifts the pieces on top a little and turns them to the camera.

Styling is often done only for the single face the camera sees. The back of the plate can stay messy; what matters is the order of the face turned to the lens. That is why setting up the camera and the light first and doing the arranging while looking at the screen is the fastest way.

Which trick stays honest?

A servable plate is the plate shot for a restaurant's menu being a plate that can be served to a customer, with everything in it and with the same portion. Choosing a fresh leaf, wiping away extra sauce, refreshing a layer of oil, raising the pieces doesn't break this principle, because the customer's plate is made of the same food too. Hiding an extra patty that isn't in the portion under the patty, putting another mixture in place of ice cream, or using an inedible glaze, on the other hand, shows a plate that won't come to the customer and widens the expectation gap.

This principle isn't an aesthetic preference but a testable question: can this plate be taken to a customer right now? If the answer is yes, the styling has refreshed the food; if no, it has changed the food.

A hand touching the food takes on color in the frame too. A hand near a red sauce or a tomato turns reddish with the light that bounces off the sauce and comes back; under a warm lamp this shift grows even more. On very light skin this redness can look like a burn, while on dark skin the skin can shift toward orange. Taking the white balance from the plate's white rim and not bringing the hand too close to the sauce protects the skin's own color.

Visual evidence

Your friend prepares a small food styling kit in the kitchen: tweezers, two brushes, a water spray, cotton swabs, paper towels, a bottle of olive oil. Instead of the restaurant's wide white plate they choose a medium, plain plate and set the light at eleven o'clock.

The kitchen assistant, a young woman with very light skin, freckles and red hair, lays the patties on the plate. Your friend has her lean three of them against each other and tucks a lettuce leaf under the one at the back; the patties rise, shadows appear between them. With the brush they spread a thin oil on their surfaces, and the glints come back. The lettuce leaves out of the iced water stand upright; with the spray they leave a fine moisture on them. With a cotton swab they wipe away the sauce splashed on the plate's rim.

As she puts the tomato sauce bowl beside the plate, the assistant brings her hand close to the sauce. In the first frame her light skin has taken on the sauce's red, her fingers as if burned. Your friend takes the white balance again from the plate's rim and asks for the hand to stay a little away from the sauce; in the new frame her freckles and the skin's light pink are in place. After the shoot the restaurant owner takes the plate and carries it to a customer: a servable plate.

Common mistakes

Summary

Food styling is refreshing and arranging a plate with a food styling kit for the few minutes and the single angle the camera sees: the right plate, building height, glints with a brush, moisture with a spray. For a menu, the limit is that the plate shot must be servable to a customer. You protect the skin of a hand touching the food by correcting the color reflected by the sauce with white balance and distance.

Mini assignment

In this assignment you will arrange a plate for the camera with your own food styling kit.

1. Prepare a food styling kit from tweezers, a brush, a water spray, cotton swabs and paper towels.
2. Shoot a dish first spread flat on a wide plate, then on a smaller plate, building height and refreshing it with the brush and spray.
3. Put a red sauce beside the plate and shoot while a hand holds it, with its owner's consent; look at the skin's color, and if needed take the white balance from the plate's rim.

Check yourself

• Does the arranged plate look fuller and deeper than the one spread flat?
• Could the plate you shot be served to someone right now?
• Does the skin of the hand in the frame carry the sauce's color, or its own?

Glossary

Mini quiz

1. What brings the freshness highlights back to a drying patty?

• A) A thin layer of oil spread with a brush
• B) A stronger light
• C) A wider plate
• D) A black and white frame

2. What is done to show the same portion fuller?

• A) The portion is spread flat on a wide plate
• B) A smaller plate is chosen and the pieces are arranged on top of each other
• C) A patterned plate is used
• D) The plate is shot from above

3. What breaks the servable plate principle?

• A) Wiping the sauce on the plate's rim
• B) Replacing a wilting leaf with a fresh one
• C) Secretly adding an extra patty that isn't in the portion
• D) Spreading a thin oil on the patties' surfaces

4. Why does a hand beside a red sauce shift to red?

• A) Because the aperture is open
• B) Because the shutter speed is long
• C) Because the plate is too small
• D) Because light reflected from the sauce carries a red color to the skin

Answers

1. A — The thin layer of oil makes a wet surface and the backlight shines toward the lens again.
2. B — A small plate and pieces arranged on top of each other give volume and shadow.
3. C — A piece that isn't in the portion coming to the customer makes the photo different from it.
4. D — Light bouncing off a red surface leaves its own color on the skin nearby.

Summary card

• Food styling kit: tweezers, brush, spray, cotton swabs, spare ingredients.
• A small plate and building height make the portion fuller.
• Styling is for the single face the camera sees and a few minutes.
• The test: can this plate be served right now?
• The sauce's color reflects onto the skin; white balance from the plate's rim.

Bridge to the next lesson

The restaurant owner also shoots the stacked patties from above with their phone and is surprised: the height has vanished, the patties have turned into flat circles again. On the other hand, the soup and the meze plate look much more orderly from above. Overhead or 45 degrees? The next lesson takes up from which angle to look at a dish, and how its shape, height and surface decide that.