Food photography: creating appetizing images

151 Pages·2019·8.183 MB·English

by  Glyda, Joe

“This book is an excellent resource, particularly for those interested in
pursuing a career as a commercial food photographer in the advertising
industry. The author has a wealth of knowledge and experience which present
as a smorgasbord of tips, tricks and techniques to help you to make the most
of your images. He also shares detailed insights into food photography teams,
individual roles and how a commercial shoot takes shape.” F
O
—Fran Flynn, Food Photographer, Designer, Author & Educator O
D

P
H
“The perfect food photography instructional book from a professional in the O
T
field. The exceptional visuals of food and tools used within the profession will O
G
improve the quality of food imagery for photographers and bloggers instantly.” R
A
—Amy Brooks Horn, Senior Lecturer of Photography, Northern Arizona University P
H
Y

As a food photographer for 40 years, Joe Glyda has shot everything from appetizers

to entrées to desserts. In Food Photography, Glyda brings his experience as a teacher
and professional photographer to the page, instructing photographers how to light
food, use unique camera angles and work with styles and trends to create timeless and
mouth-watering images.

Including setup diagrams, toolkits and instruction for shooting editorial imagery, recipe
and cookbook images, as well as images for packaging, this book is an essential resource
for taking photographs that creatively meet your client’s needs. Including invaluable
advice on building your team and working with art directors and clients, this one-of-a-
kind book is essential for students of commercial food photography, food bloggers and

professional photographers alike.
FOOD
Joe Glyda has been photographing food, architecture and aviation for over 40 years.

JO
He introduced digital photography to Kraft Foods in 1993 and has photographed
E

images for a wide variety of food and for a broad range of markets. Since 1990, Joe has G
L PHOTOGRAPHY
Y
been teaching the art of commercial photography at various venues and institutions, D
A
including Professional Photographers of America conventions, Photoshop World, the
Texas School of Professional Photography and Imaging Explorations in Canada.
CREATING APPETIZING IMAGES
FOOD PHOTOGRAPHY
JOE GLYDA
Cover image: © Joe Glyda
Cover design: Asha Pearse
ISBN 978-1-138-50221-5
www.routledge.com
9 781138 502215
Routledge titles are available as eBook editions in a range of digital formats AFocal PressBook
Food Photography
As a food photographer for 40 years, Joe Glyda has shot everything from
appetizers to entrées to desserts. In Food Photography, Glyda brings
his experience as a teacher and professional photographer to the page,
instructing photographers how to light food, use unique camera angles and
work with styles and trends to create timeless and mouth-watering images.
Including setup diagrams, toolkits and instruction for shooting editorial
imagery, recipe and cookbook images, as well as images for packaging, this
book is an essential resource for taking photographs that creatively meet
your client’s needs. Including invaluable advice on building your team and
working with art directors and clients, this one-of-a-kind book is essential
for students of commercial food photography, food bloggers and profes-
sional photographers alike.
Joe Glyda has been photographing food, architecture and aviation for over
40 years. He introduced digital photography to Kraft Foods in 1993 and has
photographed images for a wide variety of food and for a broad range of
markets. Since 1990, Joe has been teaching the art of commercial photogra-
phy at various venues and institutions, including Professional Photographers
of America conventions, Photoshop World, the Texas School of Professional
Photography and Imaging Explorations in Canada.

Food Photography
Creating Appetizing Images
Joe Glyda
First published 2019
by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
and by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2019 Joe Glyda
The right of Joe Glyda to be identified as author of this work has been
asserted by him/her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical
or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval
system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks
or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Glyda, Joe, author.
Title: Food photography : creating appetizing images / Joe Glyda.
Description: New York : Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2019. | Includes
index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018053255| ISBN 9781138502208 (hardback) | ISBN
9781138502215 (pbk.) | ISBN 9781315144818 (e-book)
Subjects: LCSH: Photography of food.
Classification: LCC TR656.7 .G594 2019 | DDC 778.9/96413--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018053255
ISBN: 978-1-138-50220-8 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-138-50221-5 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-14481-8 (ebk)
Typeset in Minion Pro and Avenir
by Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport, Cheshire
The dedication of this book is focused on two incredible
friends, Carol Andrews and Tony Corbell. It was with
their help, encouragement, and support that this book was
possible! I am dedicating this book to both of you. Thank
you so much!

Table of Contents
Preface viii
1 Introduction to Food Photography 1
2 Getting Started 13
3 The Players 31
4 Lighting 41
5 The Setup 63
6 Tools of the Trade 78
7 Postproduction 110
8 In Conclusion 134
Index 135
Preface
My career as a commercial food photographer started in a mock photogra-
phy darkroom with my Dad as my so called chemical instructor in the base-
ment. He was a machine parts inspector by day and a photographic hobbyist
by night. I was instructed to carefully cover each window with black cloth
and pushpins while my dad mixed the developer, stop bath and hypo in sep-
arate trays. He instructed me to be extremely careful not to let the different
chemicals touch each other, let alone touch the chemicals with my hands.
By calculating the timer on the enlarger for the exact amount of time and
exposing the paper, he showed me the “magic” of having an image that he
shot appear on a blank sheet of special paper before my very eyes. And yet, I
could tell, there was a special science going on . . . and I loved it.
My introduction to becoming a photographer started when I was given
my first camera at age eight. It was a Kodak Star Flash. I remember intensely
watching as my dad would instruct me to lick the bottom of the flash bulb
before he inserted it into the flash dome. He said the saliva made a better
connection and I wouldn’t have to waste a shot by a miss-fired bulb. As I got
older I became increasingly interested in photography and in high school,
took pictures for the school newspaper and yearbook. My dad gave me his
Pentax and later started using his Leica III. After high school, I decided to
go to work at a few different jobs instead of college, but somehow, I wanted
to get a job in computers because I had a feeling that was where the future
was headed. At 8:00 am, February 11, 1974, on one of the snowiest days in
Chicago that year, I took a few buses and a train to meet with an employ-
ment agency to look for a new job. One of the workers came in and saw me
sitting in the lobby and said, “What are you doing here?” I told him that I
was asked to come back on Monday, and they would help me find a job. He
said he was going to get his boss. The boss brought me in his office and said
that anyone that would come out that early on a snowy Monday, during
that kind of weather, deserved a job. They sent me down the street, to a
company called Kraft Foods, where I got a job starting in the mail room.
One day, while I was delivering mail, I discovered that they had a Photog-
raphy department on the fifth and sixth floors along with a huge darkroom
and audio-visual (AV) department as well. They also had an incredible test
kitchen next to the studio where food techs created recipes for the company.
PreFACe ix
I started bringing some of my black and white images that I was taking and
processing at home, in the basement, to show the nine staff photographers
my darkroom skills. They laughed me off and told me they look nice, and
to keep it up. What they were saying was, “Don’t call us; we’ll call you.” I
was persistent by hanging around the Photo and AV departments regularly,
making sure I was the person delivering mail packages. The AV department
had a sound recording room where they created slide shows using multiple
projectors. Those photographers photographed hundreds of products for
presentation slide shows, and I would ask to get them coffee while they were
working on some of these projects.
After two years in the mailroom, I was promoted to work in the duplicat-
ing department’s darkroom, where everything at that time was printed on
a printing press. Kraft didn’t have a Xerox machine yet, so they designated
me to work a Kodalith Brown 3000 STAT and a Kodalith enlarger, which
was like a giant horizontal camera that made the Kodalith’s for the plates
for printing that were used on the printing presses. A Kodalith is a contrast
black and white negative usually containing words and numbers. Little did I
know, the photography department at times needed Kodaliths for their AV
department. Since there was a lot of downtime in the darkroom, waiting
for the next Kodalith job, I would spend most of my time cleaning up and
removing out all the little white specs of dust and rewriting the letters and
numbers to be more legible on each Kodalith. After one year, Gene Sowa,
the manager of the AV department, asked, “Who’s making these Kodaliths?
They’re really clean.” Another photographer told him it was the kid from the
mailroom who is always hanging around the studio. Fitz Lee, who oversaw
the entire operation, invited me up to his office and said that he wanted
to talk to me. He asked if I had any interest into working in the studio. I
said, “Absolutely yes,” with enthusiasm. He said, “You don’t even know what
you’re going to do.” I told him that I would sweep the floors if he needed
me to. He said, “You’ve got the job,” and he put me in the darkroom with a
photographer named Shorty.
My first week in the darkroom was eye-opening because this photogra-
pher and darkroom specialist used his hands, instead of tongs, while dipping
150 pieces of darkroom paper into the developer, stop bath and hypo. I was
shocked at first because of my experiences with my dad instructing me to
be so careful not to mix the chemicals. Even though the ashes of his pipe
would sometimes fall into the developer (which he noted to me sometimes
helps the contrast), Shorty was an expert in the darkroom. He taught me
how to make 150–200 black-and-white prints in two minutes. After about
43 months in the darkroom, Mitch Weinstock, one of the nine staff photog-
raphers, asked if I had ever used a view camera before. I said, “No, what’s
that?” I told him that I didn’t, so he brought me into the studio and showed
me how to set up the camera and lens and how to look through the ground