Masterclass #1

Unpick the secret sauce that makes your Photography stand out.

The world is full of photographs of food, at least that’s how it feels sometimes. Especially if your social media algorithm is anything like mine. So. Many. Food. Photographs.

A photograph might be technically good - in focus, well lit, all that jazz, but sometimes it just doesn’t “do” anything. It doesn’t engage you in any way.

In these monthly Masterclasses I want to help you unpick the secret sauce that makes a photograph stand out.

This week we are kicking off with Finding Your Own Style.

In a world with, let’s face it, far too many photographs of food, you need to know how to make your photographs stand out for their sheer bloody awesomeness. How to take photographs that make you beam from ear to ear with pride for absolutely nailing it on all fronts.

You need to work out what your own unique style looks like, and how to create it.

Well, you’re in the right place. I want these Masterclasses to fill your creative boots with all the technical, inspirational, and occasional rule breaking tips to elevate your own images.

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Play with your Food.

©Kirstie Young

My workflow starts with creative decisions, rather than technical ones. I love to play with my food. Some versions will work brilliantly and others less so, but that’s OK. This is about learning creative flexibility, and allowing yourself to trust your instincts to find your own unique visual style.

There are endless ways to shoot things. Every single image won’t always hit the sweet spot, and sometimes you can take a shot that you love but others don’t. And that’s absolutely fine. The whole point of being a photographer is to have something to say, a point of view that is uniquely yours, and sometimes that won’t resonate with everyone, but it will find the ‘right’ audience of people who love what you do and how you see the world. The key, the ‘secret sauce’, is that by being inquisitive, bold & imaginative in your work you will create images that stand out.

Take a look at these three photographs of the same Hazelnut Praline Truffles, all shot as very different stories.

The first shot focuses on the fresh ingredients, the hand finishing, the artisan nature of the chocolate. It screams gloss, and texture and an abundance of real ingredients. It says care and attention. It says premium, it says expensive.

The second shot is all about a moment. It’s the same product, but this time the focus is on the much needed rocket fuel that a mouthful of decent chocolate and a strong coffee in the middle of a work day can provide. By having everyday objects around, it removes the idea that this is a product that should be kept for a special occasion but that instead suggests you should have a bit of what you fancy every day.

This 3rd image is much more playful, and conceptual. I wanted to run with the key message of handmade to include the packaging as well as the chocolates. With this 3rd shot I finally hit the sweet spot I was searching for and found an image that was uniquely mine; it had something new to say.

I make my living by shooting Food & Drink, so a lot of my work is shaped by Clients, Art Directors, Agencies and Publishers. But as a Photographer, this is a collaborative process, so it is important for me to have a clear idea of how I want to communicate the message in the brief. With so many brilliant photographers out there to chose from, it’s important that you have a recognisable style that people hire you for. In my case, I would describe it as a little bit ‘messy’, but in a very intentional way. I love to try and find something a little playful in a shot, and can’t resist a splash, a pour or a drip.

©Kirstie Young

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Find What Inspires You

Find your own unique standpoint and you are onto a winner.

One way to find that is to take a look at other food photographers’ websites, especially ones who have a clear personal style. It really helps to find photographers you don’t particularly connect with, as well as ones that you do on your journey to finding your own viewpoint. It will help to really clarify the idea that being a photographer isn’t about technical ability - you need a clear visual voice too.

It isn’t about the camera, the lens or the F-Stop. There are some brilliant photographs that have been taken on phones, and some equally awful ones taken on very expensive DSLR’s. The connection you feel when you look at a great photograph is always about the person who pressed the button and what they were trying to express.

To illustrate what I mean, here are examples of two very different photographers, with very different views on the world.

Davide Luciano makes bright images that are full of personality, but still have a clear flavorful story. His bold, modern work often elevates common ingredients and turns them into modern art. They are cute and playful. They make you smile, and they don’t take themselves too seriously while still being beautifully executed.

Neil Santos food photographs often include the people behind the dishes as well as the dishes themselves, his shots really can transport you to another place, a memory of childhood, or of a really great meal and are full of heart. They are beautifully composed and thoughtfully taken, but they feel like snapshots of a really relatable moment.

I really believe that the best Food Photography should be a portal to somewhere else. Be it a memory, a taste, a dream (or a nightmare … We have all had terrible meals …)

Both the above images are very different in style, but they both take me somewhere.

With the bright, highly stylized Davide Luciano image I can clearly taste that Orange and Cardamon, and I now want nothing more than an ice cold cocktail with these exact flavours.

The sweet and gentle Neil Santos photo gets to the heart of my love of food, and of cooking as a love language. The earnest way that the little hands are clasped together in concentration really makes it for me.

Food can be funny, subversive, moody or evocative. It can be styled to sell you a version of a lifestyle that is beautiful and precise; as fine-art; as symbolic or ritualistic.

Your personality and how you see the world should have full bearing on what you create in your photography. I am a fairly chaotic human, a little subversive, and messy to boot, so of the three chocolate images above, the third one is the definitely the most honest.

Showing your vision through your photography can also make you feel vulnerable, which is why having the support of the Lens Soup community to cheer you on is going to hopefully be so bloody marvellous.

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Let Yourself find Joy in the Process

Once you allow yourself to stop worrying about the settings and user manuals for a moment, and concentrate on finding your own approach and style, you will find so much more joy in the process.

It’s important, and very much part of the journey, to become technically competent too, but to focus on that before finding your style, your own unique point of view, is to entirely miss the point of being a photographer.

So, if you are looking for pointers to put this all into practice over the next month you could consider:

• Pick a handful of your own photographs. Why do you love them, do they feel coherent in style yet? Work out what they say about your own personal lens on the world, and take that as the start of your own style.

• Find out who has photographed the cookbooks you love the look of, it is generally on the first or last page of the book itself, and delve a little deeper into their work through their websites or Instagram accounts. Work out what the essence of their style is. If it’s a style you love, play around with recreating it.

• Practice with intention. By which I mean find a style that resonates with you, and take at least one photograph every day that explores that. Don’t worry about the technical aspects at this point, that can all be learnt through this community, Zooms and in-person workshops. But first try and discover who you are as a photographer, what brings you joy and expresses how you see the world.

• Stop posting everything you take on socials for a while, take the time and space to shoot images just for yourself. It’s impossible to stop chasing “likes” and it will really influence your creative choices if a photograph lands with a deafening silence when you post it on Instagram.

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These Masterclasses are for you,

the people who have chosen to Subscribe to them. I would love to tailor them to the community that I’m writing them for, so do let me have any comments about the areas you would love to see covered in future Masterclasses so that I can oblige!