Lively images of food must be designed by food stylist and the crew.
How to garnish a dish
Main
job of food stylish is to attractively display and to decorate dishes, to
create ideas for photographers taking the best pictures of them in order to
advertise brands, restaurants, or culinary firms. Playing with food is
absolutely not as simple as people have thought.
“Food
stylists need certain knowledge of culinary world. For instants, a slice of
onion will change its colors and shape after 5 minutes, sliced banana flowers
will turn black, or fried rolls will turn darker after drained. Therefore,
these photos will not be at the best state”, share Bui Ly Tien Nguyen - 4 years
experienced food stylist.
He
also said, food under the heat of studio’s lights would drastically loose its
freshness so that they always had to prepare more ingredients for replacement.
For examples, to shot a bowl of instant noodles can cost a whole case of
noodles or to shot a dish of salad might need a bucket full of vegetables.
If you were ever disappointed of a bare bowl of noodles, which was totally different from ads, or if your mouth was watering when seeing this photo, the food stylists of those commercial ads would be congratulated. Photo: Bui Ly Tien Nguyen
Nguyen
Quang Viet, General chef of Ao Ta restaurant and manager of food images has own
tricks to crown his food. “Fried rolls look much more beautiful if they’re just
fried to yellowish because they will turn darker later. Pennywort juice is
bruised green and does not look good on pictures so we have to dilute it and
picture it in a highly refractive glass to highlight its coolly brightness.
Similarly, red wine is actually really dark in photos so food stylists need to
make a wine-colored liquid for shooting.”, said he.
Food stylist Nguyen Quang Viet was preparing for photo shooting of traditional Tet food. Photo: Nha Khanh
Furthermore,
to create an eye-catching and lively dish, food stylists also have to decide
how to slice or how to chop a piece of chili. Not only food but also dinning
apparels need to be nice and need as well.
“Being
food stylists of Vietnamese traditional food is much more difficult because
they need lots of spices with their rules of combination. Without knowledge,
food stylists could ruin the whole image of food or brands. For instants, a
slaver of chicken rice could not have Mơ leaves (Paederia foetida L.), a dish
of salad could not be only green, or a lardy dish need vegetable in display.”,
share chef Quang Viet.
Nguyen Minh Ngoc was doing food making-up.
“To
shoot a touching photo of food is much more difficult than to shoot fashion
models because models can pose and move but food can’t. Usually it takes 45
minutes to shot a normal dish. Sometimes it takes a whole day with thousands
photos but only one is chosen.”, said Nguyen Minh Ngoc. It took her a whole
month to figure out how to make noodles “standing” on water surface and how to
keep them still fresh during shooting progress. Another time, after struggling
with ice shooting, she had to order fake ice from abroad just to make a perfect
shot.
Sometimes,
food stylist must use fake products during photo shooting, such as fake ice
cream or fake ice so that they won’t melt after hours. “However, there’s always
a rule that you just alter 20% of the food amount to make sure all images are
honest and original. And retouching should not be abused on photos.”, added
Minh Ngoc.
After being made-up. Photo: NVCC
When
a contract was made, food stylists would have brainstormed for new ideas,
looked for ingredients, and done several trials in advance. Sometimes they just
hung around food for days.
“People
might think food stylist job is just a piece of cake; actually they’re just for
the shooting. There was a time we shot a dish of pork plucks and it really made
us mouth watering but after hundreds of shots, it was not edible anymore”, said
Nguyen Quang Viet. And Minh Ngoc would never forget the beef shooting, when she
had to stay in beef storage for 3 days. She couldn’t have meat for the month
later.
Exotic yet hot job
Food
stylist job has been popular in the modern world but it’s still really new in
Viet Nam, which was just known in recent couple years.
Besides
freelance food stylists (individuals or groups), some stylists take a full time
job in communication firms, tourism magazines, or special culinary companies as
restaurants or food factories to have constant income.
According
to Nguyen Quang Viet, income of an average food stylist ranks $700 - $800 per
month but the nature of the job is seasonal so they don’t expect monthly
salary. Bui Ly Tien Nguyen revealed that a shooting project at Viet Nam cost
around $1000 but sometime a special big project could pay his group $7000.
Viet
Nam has not had a professional course for food stylist career since the field
is so young. Vietnamese food stylists must learn from other sources, such as
foreign books and magazine or online instructions. In fact, most of food
stylists in Viet Nam are chefs or cooks.
“This
job requires your ultimate passion, creativity, imagination, knowledge of
photograph (layout, set-up), and even chemical knowledge to create appealing
effects (smoke, colored liquid)”, said Minh Ngoc about standards of her job.
“Definitely
you need patience and meticulosity for this job. For instant, you have to place
every single grain of rice in a bowl to create a soft and appetizing image. How
come you get the task done if you’re in rush?”, emphasized Tien Nguyen.
“The
most important point is the love of food”, shared General chef of Ao Ta
restaurant.
By Thanh Huong/
Tien Phong
Translator: Thu
Pham