When not working with private clients to help them make delicious meals at home I work as a Food Stylist on many different projects ranging from print materials for store coupons, restaurant menus to television commercials. It takes many people and usually many hours of work to produce sometimes just one image. The behind-the-scene look I am sharing with you today is one of those amazing photos. Some photos are worth sharing not only for their beauty or what they represent, but for how they were created. Here is a look behind the scenes at Food Styling and how those beautiful images are created.
The burger shot below was created to show off all the different types of meat options that this company has to offer with the concept of making your burger even better. This one image took 5 hours of studio time to create not including pre- and post-production work done with an advertising agency and skilled photographer making this ultimate burger tower shine.
So here is how we did it
Starting with just the burger we next carefully chose the order of the meats based on their color and stability so we would have definition and variety between the layers making it easy to see all the different components. We had a total of 9 different meats to work with so this structure needed some support. Below we see one of two platforms that are connected to wooden dowels that run through the sandwich. The meat was then carefully folded and wrapped around these platforms to hide them.
Remember no one is actually eating the sandwich, it is just to show the variety of meat options available. Since there are dowels running through the middle I could not get full pieces on meat into the sandwich meaning the back was almost completely hollow. We only needed one side of this sandwich to look amazing. Here is a look at the back of the sandwich. I used mashed potatoes to help add structure and hold items in place.
The final meat of top had to be the pulled pork as it was the only flakey meat. Putting it in the middle as we had originally planned meant that it would be crushed and not stay in place falling out into pieces. I carefully placed it on top and rested the top bun on skewers so it would not collapse the tower. This is what it looked like on set when finished. In post-production it was dropped onto the background you see in the final image above.
So, as you see a lot goes into creating that mouthwatering image and there is a reason it never looks that way when you get it at home. This sandwich was made using all edible products and the actual meat products from the company. None of the food was altered just carefully and artfully placed. I hope you enjoyed that little behind-the-scene look at Food Styling.
If you have questions on this project or food styling leave a comment below.
