Painting a tomato with red lipstick and filling the white of a fried egg with denture paste are just some of the tricks that I learnt a couple of weeks ago as a guest at Denise Vivaldo’s, Introduction to Professional Food Styling here in Auckland.
Let me be clear, that there are two different types of food styling, one is for editorial, and the other is for product advertising. It’s that latter that Denise focuses on for this class and it was very much on how to work with the food to make it look appealing after hours under hot lights rather than fluffing it with props. That being said, a lot of the information and techniques she demonstrated could be very useful for editorial.
It was fascinating to see the end result of some surprising ways to handle food for the camera as Denise spoke us through her impressive portfolio of food images. Think divine looking raviolli that didn’t touch boiling water, no that would ruin the delicate shape, each morsel was manipulated one by one with her hands under hot water.
This woman is one of the most sort after food stylists in the States for celebrity cookbooks, big budget advertising shoots, television and film productions along with events along the lines of The Oscars, parties for royalty and The White House. Yes, Denise Vivaldo is a genius in her field and the best part is that she is incredibly generous and shares every bit of her industry knowledge with us.
The course was divided into five styling demonstrations and each of the categories was chosen specifically with a portfolio in mind. Most art directors would like to see how a stylist could pull together bacon and eggs, a hamburger, iced drink, a roasted chicken and ice-cream. Why? Each of them can look tired, shrunken, melted or simply dull in colour and unappealing after even a short time under the hot studio lights.
To give you a tiny idea of the process, think raw and a lot of it. In fact that fried egg that I mentioned earlier, had only the white of it cooked, the yolk on top was completely raw. The chook looked lovely and plump because it too was raw, being in the oven only about ten minutes to puff up and after that, it was about painting, torching and then some more painting. The same goes for the hamburger patty, raw in the middle and torched. Watching the effort and time it took to build that hamburger was quite incredible. She then faced the problem of it being winter here in New Zealand and the out of season tomato had very little colour until Denise gave it a makeover with her red lippy. You should have heard the gasps in the room at that point. She also decided on “the side” of the hamburger to work on, as it was the only part she cared about; the rest wouldn’t be photographed anyway.
The appealing drinks had fake ice of course with a touch of real to get that frosted look. As for the ice-cream; fancy some vegetable shortening and icing sugar anyone?
Every part of this course was an eye opener. Denise gave loads of advice from how to deal with art directors to how to sell yourself, even admitting that she has met a lot of stylists along the way that were a lot more talented than her, yet are out of work today because they simply didn’t network. I think most of us can learn from this!
The day was packed with invaluable information and delivered in such a fun way with stories of one celebrity dinner party and encounter after the other. She literally had all of us on the edge of our seat or in hysterics for a solid six hours of entertainment.
This is certainly a must do course for anyone wishing to crack the professional food styling industry and it compliments Denise’s book, The Food Stylist’s Handbook.
Here I am with my fellow classmates, Denise and two of her past students, Kirsty Bryson and Jazreel Chanwho are lucky enough to assist her on her visits to this side of the world and who have both gone on to lead successful food styling careers since taking her class.
Happy weekend everyone!
Mel x
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Great read Mel & what a fun day! One of my first jobs was to work on a TVC for a local seafood restaurant and filthy cigarette smoke was used to make a lobster dish look steaming hot!
Oh that’s hilarious Tash. Denise did actually tell us about that technique that was used years ago. x
Hi Mel.
Wauw it sounds and looks like you’ve learned from the best! Must be a thrill to see and learn the tricks behind those gorgeous food pictures. The lipstick trick? That’s beyond genius! Wonderful to hear about this class, so thank you so much for sharing! Happy weekend, big hug!
Thanks Mette and I see you’re catching up with Gudy this weekend. Have fun girls xx
I have to confess Mel, I couldn’t read the whole post, I’m a bit squeamish about things like that! Sounds like you had fun though
Ha ha – is it that raw gets to you? ;-)
How very interesting!! I bet you learnt quite a lot of little secrets we never ever knew…I did hear they do something similar with hair commericials using lots of oil sprays to get that shiny look! haha…clever!
Clever right? She’s really a bit of a magician. Still amazed. I didn’t know that about hair but it makes sense! Xx m
Wow! I had no idea this is the way product food styling is done. I guess it saves alot of time not having to cook the food through, there’d be no reason as it’s not going to be eaten, just has to look spectacular for the shot. Sounds like such an enjoyable eye opening class Mel, thanks for enlightening us on the ‘tricks of the trade’. Have a great weekend. xx
Time yes, but it’s all about it looking perfect. Have a great weekend too Catherine xx