Press your shutter for food
Have you ever taken photos of your food when you just finished cooking a complicated dish by yourself or when passing a window dessert with a special shape or colour?
Have you ever been captivated by the pictures in the menu, when you are sitting in a restaurant?
Or, have you ever thought about why McDonald’s hamburgers look tastier in the commercials?
All three questions are based on images and those images can be called food photography. Food photography has become increasingly popular because of the improvement in technology and the development of social media. Anyone can use mobile devices to take photos of food, anytime and anywhere.
Basically, the meaning of food photography is what Wikipedia says, “Food photography is a still life specialisation of commercial photography, aimed at producing attractive photographs of food for use in advertisements, packaging, menus or cookbooks.” Therefore, at the very beginning, food photography, as a professional term, was mainly used in the advertising industry.
However, the definition of food photography has developed based on its functions. Apart from marketing function, recording people’s daily lives and reflecting different kinds of lifestyles have become an important role of food photography.
Based on the different functions and roles of food photography, photographers have different ways to take food-theme photos. As for advertising or promotional photography, photographers often use fake food or model food to make food look better and achieve the best result. Sometimes, they may need to take photos according to advertising agencies’ layouts, to emphasise the main product and make the whole picture more structured. Everything in one photo must be designed properly and the meaning of food photography is to evoke consumers’ willingness to buy those products.
On the other hand, as food photography can be achieved easily and posted onto social media by people’s mobile phones, for those who just take food photos before eating or who want to reflect a kind of lifestyle, food photography seems like a kind of documentary. Some people might say that the only reason to shoot food photos is because they love food and they want to record whatever food they enjoy. Some might want to tell a story via food photography. Undoubtedly, different photographers have different ideas about what they want to focus on. Below I will introduce two special food photographers and their artworks.
Keiko Oikawa
http://www.keikooikawa.com
(Copyright: Keiko Oikawa. Source from: http://www.keikooikawa.com/#54)
She is a Japanese food photographer based in the UK. In her lens, she not only does close ups of thousands of delicate food, but also the harmonious relationship between the food and individuals so that her artworks always look warm and positive.
Dwight Eschliman
(“Ingredient – Propylene Glycol” Copyright: Dwight Eschliman. Source from:
http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2016/02/25/t-magazine/dwight-eschlimans-ingredients/s/Dwight-Eschliman-slide-7P90.html)
Dwight Eschliman, as a food photographer, wants to deconstruct the food we eat everyday, especially those highly processed foods, such as crisps and food additive and let people know what those ingredients originally look like.
(“Ingredient – Caffeine” Copyright: Dwight Eschliman. Source from:
http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2016/02/25/t-magazine/dwight-eschlimans-ingredients/s/Dwight-Eschliman-slide-J9HR.html)
They might look unnatural and unhealthy, but all of them are safe and some of them are natural ingredients.
In fact, there are millions of professional and amateur food photographers in the world. And because of them, we know about different types of dishes, different kinds of lifestyles and different food cultures all around the world. And more importantly, we begin to think about our relationship with food. We enjoy food more and we respect it more.
Reference：
Love, C. (2016). Photos That Show What (Really) Goes Into the Food We Eat. Nytimes.com. Retrieved 19 June 2016, from http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/25/t-magazine/art/photos-additives-ingredients-dwight-eschliman.html
Top 10 Food Photographers. (2011). David White Studio. Retrieved 19 June 2016, from http://www.davidwhitestudio.co.uk/practice/top-10-food-photographers/
By Yi Yang
