Food is made to be tasted. However, the flavor of food can’t be communicated on paper. Food also has a beautiful appearance. This appearance can often stand in for the taste for the purpose of luring people. The food photographer is the artist who can convey a sense of the flavor of the food through original, well composed food photography. The food photographer takes food, interesting dishware, and light to create an arrangement that highlights the freshness, juiciness, plumpness, and bright colors to make the viewer’s eyes see flavor and smell aroma. The world of product photography is a world of the five senses.
A cookbook’s sales are enhanced by photographs of each recipe. Cookbooks are bought in bookstores, far from the aromas and flavors of the kitchen. With just the list of ingredients and directions, the purchaser must use her imagination to mentally turn this boring text into a flavor. Pictures spark the imagination in this task. Back in the kitchen, the cook might look at a recipe and say, “I might make this if I knew what it is supposed to look like.” If the cookbook is illustrated, viola, there it is. And when it comes out of the oven, the cook can tell without tasting whether the culinary masterpiece turned out as it should.
Magazines build their success on good food photography. How often have you seen a women’s magazine that appealed to you with a headline saying, “Lose 10 pounds in 10 days” next to a picture of colorful cupcakes? That’s a double-whammy for your brain: advice for the parent in you and cupcakes for your inner child. The inside the magazine is stuffed with pictures of food. One variety of photos illustrates the recipe section of the magazine. These pictures serve the same purpose as the cookbook pictures. Then scattered through the pages we find the ads. Those that aren’t for the latest fashions are for food. You see the add for cheese with the melty cheese sandwich. This is followed by a salad dressing ad with crisp lettuce, tomatoes, radishes, and onions.
When you look at the menu at a family restaurant, what do you see? These restaurants usually have pictures of their menu items to whet your appetite. These pictures don’t have to be as imaginative as magazine pictures, but they need to be realistic. If you find yourself in a fast food restaurant, you’ll probably see the menu plastered on the walls and hanging from the ceiling. These pictures in the restaurant also serve a more serious purpose. They allow people with disabilities to place their order by pointing to the dish that they want to eat.
Fast food restaurants want to make the traveler on the highway hungry enough to stop in for something to eat. These restaurants lure the driver with tasteful pictures of their food on billboards. They don’t just serve the purpose of informing you of their location. They are convincing you to stop in even if you are not hungry.
Good food photography conveys more sensory information than just the visual. It stimulates your senses of taste and smell.