Making food look even more delicious than it is – Euston Square
Showcasing a venue can be pretty boring on its own if nothing is happening in it. That’s not to say you can’t make it look good – just that you’d be better off filling it with charred sweetcorn, big salads, sizzling burgers, and all of the vibrantly coloured food you might find at some kind of luxurious rooftop picnic. Which is exactly what the Euston Square Hotel did, with a liberal sprinkling of people, all chattering away, socialising, and of course eating. Unsurprisingly, our job was to make everything look really, really tasty!
Contrary to what many may think, making food look truly delicious is harder than it seems. The first thing to make sure is that the chef understands the food is meant to be photographed, not ‘eaten’. That means it’s got to look edible rather than be edible, and that’s a big difference: the symmetry, the balance of colour, creating steam, making things smoke…all these things need to be carefully orchestrated to make sure the food is visual.
The chef understands the food is meant to be photographed, not ‘eaten’. That means it’s got to look edible rather than be edible, and that’s a big difference.
These ‘tricks of the trade’ are only half the battle – presenting a good prawn, or pancake, or burger stack requires exactly the right interplay of shadows and lighting. Difficult in a room full of people actually eating the food while you’re trying to shoot it!
Of course, we really embraced the challenge by making sure we’d eaten before we arrived…and we pulled out all the stops to capture the ‘casual rooftop picnic vibe’ the client was going for. Thee shots went on to be used in their marketing brochure and other materials. We even hear that the photos from the event continue to make Euston Square’s clients’ mouths water even today…
