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This was my absolute favorite #beverage to style during the Bru's Room photo shoot.  Getting the raspberries and the lemons to sit in the right place and pose for the camera was a blast.  The ice cubes are not real, the beverage is actually warm.  I used my fake cubes.  It is easier to work with a warm beverage and fake ice because you don't have to worry about it getting watered down.  Also, the perspiration on the glass is done with vegetable glycerine and water (50/50 in a fine spritzing spray bottle)  The raspberries and lemon and liquid however are all the real ingredients used to serve this marvelous beverage.  Beverage styled by me, Melody Page.  Photography done by Jeffrey A McDonald (www.jeffreyamcdonald.com)

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Cucumber Martini from #brusroom photo shoot.  Layered cucumber slices floating in a premium chilled #vodka.  Perspiration on the glass is done with a spray of 50% water and 50% vegetable glycerine to create an effect that makes the beverage look chilled, but the sweat from the glass does not move nor run #beverage #beverage styling by Melody Page. #photography by Jeffrey A McDonald.com

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Here’s a beautifully styled Bacon Cheddar Burger put together by non other than South Florida food stylist Melody Page.  This half-pound #burger is smothered in #cheddar #cheese and thick applewood bacon at $1 a slice, all stacked on a whole wheat bun.  Believe me when I tell you, this burger had the most amazing flavors!!  You can find more of these burger shots and many others on Melody’s blog here, and on my website at www.jeffreyamcdonald.com.  I hope your getting the same #mouthwatering sensations as I am!!  Enjoy!

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I was commissioned by Himmarshee Public House Restaurant in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida to shoot this beautiful tuna spread along with several other menu items, which I’ll be posting in the upcoming days.  You can find more of my work on my website at www.jeffreyamcdonald.com, as well as Melody’s food styling here.  Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

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Commercial Food Styling & Photography v.s "Uncle Bob's" Best Intentions

Why Do I need a Professional Food Photographer and Stylist?

I created this blog post because part of my job at JAM Photography is selling and booking photo shoots.  The biggest challenge that I come across is point and shoot digital cameras with an enthusiast behind the lens.  There are tons and tons of enthusiasts in the world today, and the point and shoot generation of cameras has gotten much better (ok mountains better) than they were when I was a child.  Not to mention that it is no problem to take 100 pictures of the same item because you don't have the expense of processing film, nor the wait.  There are also a lot of people who own a terrific $300 or even $500 point and shoot cameras and have the right idea, along with the right intent.  When I approach restaurants, food manufacturers and product manufacturers in a cold call scenario, at least 50% of them start out by telling me that their "brother, mother, sister, cousin, waitress etc" take all of their pictures for them and by the way "they look great!"  In the meantime, I'm looking at this image of their food on their website and thinking "Ok, well if vomit on a plate is what you are serving, then yes, it looks fabulous"  But I can't actually SAY that!  Well, I could, but it certainly wouldn't earn me any business. It's not always that bad, but I have seen a few doosies!  So now that I have vented, this blog is really about educating the consumer.  If you don't know what commercial photography is, and what it can do for you in the way of representing your food, then I guess Uncle Bob's photos are terrific.  But the reality is that people buy with their eyes, before they will spend a single dollar.  If the food does not look good in a picture placed in an advertisement, it's not going to bring people in the door.  There is a lot that goes into creating a good, solid commercial image.  I asked my photographer (www.jeffreyamcdonald.com) to create the document pictured above to help me out.  I was inspired because one of the restaurants that we recently did images for had just opened and a newspaper (which shall remain nameless) came into the restaurant and took some food images to put into their article about the restaurant opening.  That said, the images on the left were done by a "real" photographer, just not a professional "commercial" photographer.  They are still not great.  There is no special lighting to show texture and they are not color corrected at all.  The tacos look messy.  But these are the images that they published in the news paper... Thus gifting me with a glorious comparison!  All of this occurred immediately after JAM Photography's images appeared on the client's website.  So I thought wow, they tried to do exactly what we did.  There are even a few more, that mirror our other images, it can't be a coincidence.  But I want you to take a look at each image side by side and see what I see.  Ask yourself during this evaluation of the images...."which one would I choose to eat?"  Even though they are the exact same dish.  When a dish is styled to look beautiful it draws in the consumer.  There is a LOT of detail that goes into styling, dare I say almost as much as what goes into the lighting and actual taking the image itself.  The consumer does not care if the styled image is what is served to them.  By the time the plate arrives, they are hungry and the next sensory experience begins:  SMELL.  So they are not looking at it any more, they are moving to the next sensory experience of:  TASTE.  But to begin with, if you want to get them to taste your food, and not the restaurant's food that's next door and pay you for it you have to show it to them first.  This is the value of commercial photography. 

On the left:  The newspaper's images, On the right:  Photography by Jeffrey A. McDonald www.jeffreyamcdonald.com

Dish #1: Bacon, Corn Fritters (By the way they are super delicious and they forced me to cheat on my very healthy lifestyle diet)

Comparison of the images:

On the left:  newspaper images straight out of the article published on the internet.  No changes have been made.

1.  The corn fritters have a reddish tint.  There is no post processing or color correction. 

2.  The plate does not appear to be full, possibly they ate some of them before shooting?

3.  The brown paper overwhelms the plate, causing the fritters to look small. 

4.  The center of the dish has a cup of dipping sauce, it looks dirty.  Also, due to the angle of the capture, the cup looks to be the same size or even bigger than some of the fritters.  Any marketing specialist would question:  what is the hero of this image?  The cup or the fritters?

On the right: Images taken by JAM Photography

1.  The corn fritters are exactly the same color as they are served, a golden brown.

2.  The plate is full (as it is when you order the appetizer), and they are arranged in a way that makes them look bigger from the perspective of the lens.  Notice that they look bigger than the center dip cup, rather than the center cup dominating the dish.

3.  The brown paper is barely visible, only there to allow the consumer to know that there is in fact a brown paper under the dish when it is served.

4.  The corn fritters have been commercially lit, from several different angles, the effect of this is that you can see the texture of each fritter, which really entices the taste buds.

5.  There is an alcoholic beverage in the background, suggesting to the mind of the consumer that these might be great with a beer.

Image #2:  Chicken Tacos

On the left:  The newspaper images

1.  The tomatoes have black spots on them.  EEWW.  It could be that they are grilled, or black bean sauce?  Either way, they are not commercially styled for the camera.  I'm not sure, but I'm not eating it.  The lettuce also looks wilted, which happens to lettuce the minute something warm touches it. 

2.  The image was taken with an on-camera flash for lighting.  The effect is that the tacos are very light, and the background is very dark.  The lime is dark as well.  Additionally, because there are several ingredients that are light in color, the ingredients just seem to melt together.  There is no contrast between them. 

3.  This image is as un-styled as it gets.  First, what is the yellow squiggly thing on the left of the front taco?  Really what is that?  There is also the appearance of something black under the lettuce.  What is that?  I hope it's beans. 

On the right:  Photo by JAM Photography

1.  There image is lit from three different angles, thus each bite is lit in a way that is consistent throughout all food in the image.  The texture on the lime for example even shows through. 

2.  There is clear definition between the black beans, corn, chicken and sauce.  The sauce looks creamy.  The lettuce is fresh looking.  In food styling we tend to work with cold food, thus while it is the same food, the hot chicken isn't wilting the lettuce as we shoot the image.  This is likely what happened on the left image and why the lettuce in that image is wilted in appearance.

3.  The cheese crumbs are strategically placed.  The serving dish is shiny and clean.  Aaah, I'm hungry. 

Image #3:  Pork Bellies (also delicious, have a wonderful smoky maple flavor and sprinkled with roasted pecans, pure heaven!)

On the left:  Newspaper Image

1.  Again, this image has a lot of redness to it, which is not at all the color of the actual food.  Considering it is pork, red is a definite no no.  Had this image been taken into a photoshop program it could have been color corrected. 

2.  The paper under the food overwhelms, it's distracting. 

3.  The micro greens on top are wilted from the heat of the pork bellies.  Also, it appears that there are a huge amount of greens with this dish, they are almost equal in proportion to the amount of meat in the picture.  Marketing wise I would have to ask:  are you selling pork bellies or micro greens?  Which is the hero of the image?  And where are the nuts? 

4.  On-camera flash was used again here, but is a no no for any commercial photography.  Remember though, the photographer of this image is not a commercial photographer.  Also, the camera lens itself was probably not the best one to get such a close up image.  If you look closely, you will see that it is ever so slightly out of focus on the pork.  The focal point of whatever lens was used was not broad enough.  The focal point is a few of the middle section of the micro greens (again, not the hero).  This could be why you don't see the nuts, they are in there, they are just not in focus.

On the right:  Image by JAM Photography

1.  The color of the pork bellies are the actual color of the dish when you receive it's served to you.  A warm light brown with a beautiful maple glaze.

2.  Notice the texture on the top piece of pork belly.  Wow!  Notice the texture on the edges of each individual piece, that was hand placed in exactly the right position to best show the tastiest side of each belly.  The nuts!  Oh yeah baby, they are beautiful, shiny with the maple glaze and the beautiful texture on those make me want to pluck them right out of the picture and eat them now.  This image was captured using three separate professional light boxes and a professional Nikon lens.

3.  The micro greens on top are all in focus, showing off even the purple hue to them.  They are arranged in a way that does not overwhelm, but suggests that they are a garnish on the dish.  They are crisp. 

I really believe that if you read this whole article, and review each image, looking at the details you will see WHY commercial food photography can grow your customer base.  All in all, the pictures on the left are FAR from the worst I have seen restauranteurs market their establishments with.  At a quick glance they are not that bad.  I don't know who captured them and I am sorry if you come across this blog and take any offense.  I'm sure you had the very best intentions and probably enjoyed each dish as I did.  But the bottom line is that when doing a commercial food shoot, there are special tricks in styling and lighting and even lenses that make all the difference in the world to the end product.  The bottom line is that a successful commercial food shoot is done by a professional photographer who has the professional camera and gear to get it done.  Uncle Joe may mean well, and he may have a good eye, but if he doesn't arrive to your restaurant carrying $10,000 - $100,000 or more in equipment, and have an understanding of how to light an object for the camera to best capture it, and does not understand styling and black spots on tomatoes are just not a detail that he notices, then he can not create the image that a professional photographer can create for you.  As a matter of fact, he may end up costing you business as they run out the door, taking their wallets with them. 

There is true value in having things (all things) done right. 

[southfloridafoodstylist]

Beef Wellington Recipe and Styled Dish

I did this dish for Christmas Eve Dinner, to share with our friends.  I had been wanting to cook it for a long time, and had never tried it before.  It was a lot of fun, a lot of work (between the cooking and the pause, style, shoot, refrigerate processes) it took about six hours to make, and it was gone in 60 seconds.  But from what our friends say, it was an awesome 60 seconds!  I am sharing here the recipe with you, as well as the pictures. 

First, the ingredients plate, I laid out all of the ingredients and styled it to be beautiful for the camera.  Below you will find the recipe as well as additional styled images. 

Ingredients:

1 lb beef tenderloin fillet

Salt, pepper, fresh garlic, fresh thyme, shallots

Olive oil

1 lb mushrooms, two shallots

4 thin slices prosciutto ham

2 Tbsp yellow mustard (we used Coleman’s Original English Mustard)

7 ounces puff pastry or phyllo dough (needs 3 hours to defrost in refrigerator if using frozen)

2 egg yolks, beaten

1 Preheat oven to 400°F.

2 Heat a tablespoon or two of olive oil in a large pan on high heat. Rub the fillet generously with salt, pepper, fresh thyme and chopped fresh garlic. Sear the fillet in the pan on all sides until well browned (hint: do not move the fillet until it has had a chance to brown), but do not cook the inside, this is an outside sear. Remove the fillet from the pan and let cool in the fridge for at least 30 minutes

. Once cooled, brush the fillet on all sides with mustard.  Preferably a good English mustard, but a good quality sharp yellow one will do as well.

3 Chop the mushrooms and shallots (you will only need one or two shallots per pound of mushrooms) and put them into a food processor, blend into a rough puree. Heat a large sauté pan on medium high heat. Put the mushroom purée into the pan and let cook down, allowing the mushrooms to release their moisture. Do not oil or coat the pan with anything.  Stir frequently. When the moisture released by the mushrooms has boiled away, set aside the mushrooms in the refrigerator to cool.

4 Roll out a large piece of plastic wrap. Lay out the slices of prosciutto ham on the plastic wrap so that they overlap. Spread the mushroom mixture over the ham. Place the beef fillet in the middle, roll the mushroom and ham over the fillet, using the plastic wrap so that you do this tightly. Wrap up the beef fillet into a tight barrel shape, twisting the ends of the plastic wrap to secure. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.

5 On a lightly floured surface, roll out the puff pastry or phyllo sheets to a size that will wrap around the beef fillet. Unwrap the fillet from the plastic wrap and place in the middle of the pastry dough. Brush the pastry with the egg-wash (two egg yolks beaten). Fold the pastry around the fillet, cutting off any excess at the ends. Place on a small plate, seam side down, and brush beaten egg yolks all over the top. Chill for 5-10 minutes.

6 Place the pastry-wrapped fillet on a baking pan. Brush the exposed surface again with the egg-wash. Score the top of the pastry with a sharp knife, not going all the way through the pastry. Sprinkle the top with coarse salt. Bake for 25-35 minutes at 400 degrees F. The pastry should be nicely golden when done. (To ensure that your roast is medium rare, test with an instant read meat thermometer. Pull out at 125-130°F for medium rare.) Remove from oven and let rest for 10 minutes before slicing. Slice in 1-inch thick slices.

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#Tasty #Basil #Salad by Melody

Honestly, I did not style this dish!  Jeff arranged it on the plate and shot it because he was waiting for my next styled dish to appear and I had just made Tasty Basil Salad as a side dish to go with dinner.  I know, I know this is my #foodstyling blog, but I did invent the #recipe and I really wanted to share it.  I have had a lot of people ask me for it, and it's really very simple.  It's so #delicious.  I have to give credit for the photo of course to JAM Photography Inc.

The recipe is as follows:

2 cups cut up grape tomatoes

2 cups sliced baby cucumbers (or you can use regular cucumbers but the baby ones just work better for this recipe)

1 diced large shallot

1/4 cup shredded fresh #basil

Juice of one lemon

1/4 cup water

1/8 cup olive oil

Salt, Garlic Powder and Fresh ground black pepper to taste

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Follow me for food styling tips #foodstyling

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Here’s a beautiful pan seared salmon appetizer on a carrot puree by Chef Dwayne Sinclair.  Image by Jeffrey A McDonald.  You can find more images like this at www.jeffreyamcdonald.com

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This is a photo-shoot we did over the #holidays to add to our portfolios.  I am enjoying helping Jeff build his business in many ways, see JAM Photography by clicking here. I wanted to practice styling beverages.  We have a pending quotation out to a wonderful restaurant/bar in Boynton Beach called #Sweetwater.  They hand make each drink from fresh ingredients and they are all very unique.  Jeff has done quite a bit of beverage photography, but since this shoot may or may not yet close and I have not had much practice styling beverages, I decided to create and style to add to the portfolio and explore my growing talent of food styling. I hope that Sweetwater Grill brings us in to do a shoot, it's a fun place.  At this point it doesn't look like it will happen just yet.  They have a "friend" who is not a "food photographer" but does take "great pictures" and they are going to try that first.  I have heard and seen this many times.  Mostly it does not go great for the restaurant going in this direction.  On occasion it does.  Jeff and I have done several shoots after a restaurant has hired a friend and it did not go as well as expected.  Unfortunately it sometimes even costs the people involved (the not so professional photographer and the restaurant management) the friendship. 

Making food #tasty in pictures is trickier than it looks and nothing hurts a restaurant more than having a bad picture of their food and drink.  Well, I hope the best for Sweetwater in their journey, and I thank them for inspiring my pomegranate lemonade styling session, and I hope that one day soon they come back to us for pictures, unscathed and ready for fabulous images. 

This is #pomegranate #lemonade (or not).  When I actually made real pomegranate lemonade, the color was not so rich and beautiful.  It certainly did not match up with the true color of the actual pomegranate fruit.  The liquid in this beverage is actually water with red food coloring.  It took a little trial and error to get the "right red" by holding the fruit next to the glass, but all in all, not tough.  Another trick that I used in preparing this beverage for the camera is that I used fake ice cubes.  The liquid itself was room temperature and the ice cubes were not only plastic, but also room temperature.  This helps prevent a build up of condensation on the glass.  To make the drink look refreshing I used a lemon twist.  Here is a tip on how to make your #lemontwist:  You can use a #lemon rind peeler to make a long thick thread of lemon peel or you can use a knife and do it by hand.  The real trick is what to do once you have your lemon peel.  You wrap it around a chop stick.  Let it stay wrapped around the chop stick for a few minutes.  This gives it the curly shape.  I also added a few tiny slices of lemon to the drink to add to it's refreshing appearance.  These had to be changed out at the end before the final shot, as the red food coloring turned them red within a few minutes.  Another tip for you:  when using fresh herbs, lay them out gently and cover with ice water.  This keeps them looking very perky.  Ice water can even perk up near wilted herbs.  The one you see in the image is #mint.  So these are my tips today.  I hope you enjoyed my blog.  It was a really fun shoot, albeit without the end result of enjoying the product, since the taste of colored water is nothing extraordinary. I hope my food styling tips today helped you in your journey!

~Melody

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There is no school that I have found where one can become a professional food stylist.  There are a very small amount of video's on you tube and there are a few good books out there.  The career of a food stylist is like some sort of secret cult with secret tricks of their trade.  There are a few tricks out there that are rather public, such as how to use mashed potatoes to make the appearance of ice cream....but it seems by enlarge, most stylists have some sort of background that journeyed them into styling food for a living from some related pathway (many of them in the culinary world) and they don't share too many of their secrets.  I have started this blog so that I can share the secrets I learn as I go along.  My first post is rather simple, but the ones that follow will be a bit more complex.   I started my journey as a food stylist completely by accident.  In October of 2013, my partner in life (aka boyfriend), Jeff is a commercial food photographer.  You can find his online portfolio here:  Commercial Food Photographer You can also check out his blog here.  Many of the items on his page have been styled by me!  His focus is mainly food and products.  He had booked a rather large photo shoot with a local restaurant chain called Bru's Room.  It was a two day shoot and required an assistant to do digital tech work and set up lighting.  Two days before the shoot Jeff found out that his regular assistant would not be able to join him on the shoot.  He was frustrated.  Being that I had taken several of the classes that he teaches on meetup.com, I offered to assist him.  He gratefully accepted and started showing me everything additional that I would need to know to assist properly, such as file naming and camera tethering to the computer. So two days later we arrived at the corporate headquarters early in the morning.  I began setting up lighting gear along side Jeff.  The General Manager arrived and let us know that the executive chef, which Jeff had met with before and was to do all of the food styling was no longer working for the company.  We looked at each-other and knew, as a team we do all things well and as our eyes met, we knew simultaneously that we would be able to handle the styling and whatever else came up. I knew very little about food styling, but I did know what Jeff was looking for in his camera's eye.  And so it began.  My first day as a food stylist. In the above image of the wings, we had the wings come out of the kitchen without any sauce on them.  This avoided a messy appearance on the plate.  There is nothing clean looking about sauce.  I painted each wing with the wing sauce, allowing only enough to make the chicken pretty, with a small brush.  On top of that, I painted just a little bit of oil, to add a nice glossy shine to the wings, making them look fresh.  I placed each wing on the plate and used folded up paper towels underneath several of the wings in order to get them to be in just the right position for the camera.  I used q-tips to clean any area on the plate where a drop or two of sauce had appeared.  The beer in the background, suggestive for a consumer to also order a beer, was stirred with a straw moments before the image capture.  Lets face it!  There is nothing sexy about a flat beer! So the food styling keys in this image are: ***Don't sauce the food until it's on the plate, then paint it on a little at a time with a small brush ***Stir the beer ***Use paper towels or cardboard pieces for props ***Have q-tips handy to clean up the plate Ultimately, I learned by trial and error, but I hope these simple tips will help you on your journey.  I will be posting articles as often as I can.  I have a few other blogs going, I am a jack of many trades, or rather a jill.