Food Styling for Photographers

PASTA AND SAUCES

Gently toss the salad ingredients with your hands to

incorporate the dressing. If you want the salad dressing to

appear heavier once the salad is built, you can place small

amounts of the reserved thicker dressing with a dropper,

syringe, or applicator bottle in selected areas of the salad.

You can also choose to brush some of the reserved thicker

dressing on some of the salad components. If there are

spices or fresh herb fl akes in the dressing, you will need

to add some of them at this point and also reserve some

to add to the fi nished, dressed salad on set. A salad of this

type is often garnished with a sprinkling of minced herbs

or a garnish that is complementary to the salad.

Supplies used to complete this shot:

● Vegetables in the salad include red skin potatoes,

celery, green onion, roasted red peppers, fresh red

and green peppers, marinated black and green

olives

● Studio props

● Le Creuset stockpot and stoneware oval platter

● Cardinal Glass prep bowls

● Henckels chef ’s knife

● Messermeister Take-Apart utility scissors

● Bounty paper towels

● Paper plates

PHOTOGRAPHER’S COMMENT—Notes on the Potato

Salad Set

Rich moody lighting worked great on this shot. This shot was all

about texture. The set uses wood, burlap, a rustic plate, and pottery.

I used a 40% grid over a medium Chimera lightbank and another

lightbank to bounce light off my warm beige walls. No refl ectors were

necessary with this bounce effect.