I worked on a lot of food accounts over my time in advertising - picante sauce, breads, burger chains, soups, chips, fried chicken chains, ready-made meals - and I found food shooting to be the most difficult. People and animals take direction; cars just sit there, and exterior location shoots are a matter of waiting for the light.
But food is a bitch. It is very difficult to control; there's a window of time when it can be shot then it "dies" under the heat of the lighting. You also can't (or shouldn't) manipulate it to such an extent that you misrepresent the product. And the waste! Just as with
models, you go through hundreds of bags of bread looking for the the perfect slices - the properly shaped crown, no big holes, the even distribution of the grains.
Pounds and pounds of chicken are prepared for shooting, not eating. Cooked for the perfect color of crust; raw chicken inside.
Countless cans of soup opened, the food stylist picking through with tweezers looking for the perfect mushroom slice, the prettiest piece of carrot.
Then everything is tossed in the dumpster.*
A few quotes from food shoots:
"The broccoli needs encouragement."
Regarding a close up of a spoonful of chicken noodle soup, to the stylist: "Can you PLEASE make that noodle look LESS like a WORM? AND WHY DO I HAVE TO EVEN ASK THIS?"
Shooting raw strawberries and bananas for a retail juice label:
Client, regarding the hundredth banana we tried: "That one won't work either. It looks like a penis."
Photographer, frustrated (to me): "It's a BANANA. It's longer than it is wide! If she wants a banana that doesn't look like a dick maybe we should just use an apple and CALL it a fucking banana."
Client: "I was really expecting better than this."
Photographer: "Well it IS a meatloaf we're shooting here."
"Listen, this is not just a cup of nuts. These are American Airlines First Class warmed nuts. WARMED nuts. I need to feel WARM nuts otherwise what's the point?"
Nationally Know Corn Chip client: "Obviously shape, form and pointy-ness is critical - I just don't want the cheese dust to be secondary."
Pizza shoot, to the talent: "It's called a bite-and-smile shoot FOR A REASON. You bite, you SMILE. I give a shit what it tastes like. And don't fucking SWALLOW, you're going to be doing this for eight more hours."
Shooting deep-fried fish, deep-fried hush puppies, and french fries on a plate for National Fast Food Fish Chain. From the client: "But everything is the same color!"
Explaining to a client why we use a portable fabric steamer to mimic steam off a dinner plate. Client wanted the food itself to be steaming:
"To get the amount of steam we need to read [on film], this is better because heating the food can't really be controlled steam-wise, and it would probably burn the hand model's hands."
"Aren't we paying her? Isn't that what she does?"
"Think it's easy? You try putting a perfectly fried egg on a piece of Saran Wrap."
"Tell the hand model to spoon the sauce like she MEANS it."
"This isn't working - the beans are taking over. We need to dial back the beans."
I got paid for this.
*Some clients and photographers do go to great lengths to see that edible product left over from shoots goes to local Food Banks.
