I often run into people who think food styling must be such a glamorous and fun job to have. Their impression of advertising and editorial photography is somewhat different than reality. High pay, lots of creative and beautiful food, working in a photo studio with lights..camera...action...but the truth is that food styling is being able to with stand long hours on your feet with no breaks, take direction and listen to your clients (and everyone else on set who has an opinion) and to be able to set your needs aside for someone else's vision. And, to do all this with a smile and a "how can I help you achieve your desired outcome?" attitude. Glamorous? Hmmm.....you decide.
Often times my job is to make premade food like french fries or pieces of frozen pie or frozen veggies look nice. This is usually more a job of sorting through hundreds of pieces of the food to find the prettiest ones and making them look delicious. It takes hours. It is more like detective work than food "styling" . Or, I may be asked to turn meatloaf into a beautiful carriage (or was that a pumpkin?) or to beautify chipped beef on toast so that it doesn't make you gag when you look at the photo. I even styled garbage once for In-Sinkerator. It's magician's work I tell you!
My last several jobs consisted of making a Halloween themed haunted castle cake that included flying bats and ghosts. The tomb stone read: Real E. Dead.........
Another job was for a fried food manufacturer. Lovely triangles of deep fried mac and cheese and oozing mozzarella sticks. And one this week will be for a slow cooker cookbook. Slow cooked lasagna. Do I have a fighting chance of making that look good? You bet I do!
I often kid my friends and coworkers about my glamorous life. I tell them that my chauffeur drove me to work and that I am a practicing woman of leisure. I sleep in till 7:00 and drink only organic cappuccinos on the way to work. They all know, however, that I start my days at 5:00 a.m. and often work 12 hour days and 70 hour weeks and juggle a group of 6 contract assistants, shoppers and food preppers. I haven't had many weekends off in the last several years either. I do billing at night (or before work), work on last minute details of the next job, put my ducks in a row, and put out all incoming fires as they are cast upon me. I do a lot of schlepping of equipment and food (up and down stairs in the morning and into my car...in and out of studios...and back home again). That is my life as a food stylist. And, I love it.....
