Yum! Food styling

Chances are you've drooled over photos in your favourite food magazine or cookbook or salivated while watching a commercial for a juicy burger. And do you ever wonder how they do it? Well, those tantalizing goodies are the work of food stylists.

Last week, I took a food styling course at George Brown College in Toronto along with 14 other people. We were from varied walks of life -- chefs, caterers, instructors at the college, a couple of graphic artists and myself, a home economist.

The instructor, Delores Custer, a food stylist based in New York City, is an international consultant to advertising agencies, public relations firms and a number of food companies. She dished out lots of information and hands-on work. Each day we had an item we had to style.

We had to shop for the groceries and bring in dishes and other props that we might want to use. We also had to think about possible camera angles -- as if we were shooting it in a studio. Then, we had an hour to complete the item and have it critiqued by Delores. The assignments varied from bringing in the perfect piece of fruit (mine was a blueberry), to recreating dishes that appeared in advertisements, to styling a dessert for a specific magazine.

One of my favourite assignments was studio day. Michael Visser, a food photographer, set up a studio in one of the classrooms and actually took pictures of our assignments (you can see my group's result above). We were divided into groups of four and each had to plan its entire shot. My group decided to make grilled chicken skewers with mango salsa. We brainstormed about the layout, props, camera angle, groceries and who our client would be. We worked so well together and everything went so smoothly that we actually did four or five different shots in our time allotment. It was a great experience -- the best part was being able to see our ideas as actual pictures.

I learned so much that I can't include everything this time around. Stay tuned for behind-the-scenes tips and tricks of a food stylist. To be continued...