iN PHOTOS: How a Kamloops food photographer makes mouthwatering images
Kamloops resident Crystal Hughes had a passion for photography since high school. After earning diplomas in holistic nutrition, and starting a family, she combined her love for photography, healthy food and cooking.
She's been working as a full-time food photographer for the past five years where she cooks the foods, styles them and photographs them for food bloggers and commercial food companies around the globe.
“It started with posting food photographs on Instagram and grew from there,” she said. “It fits in well with our busy family life and allows me to connect with others and use my imagination.”
Food photography is a sub-genre of still life photography and it has grown in popularity with the rise of social media and platforms that focus on food, according to Camera Jabber.
The goal is to make food look delicious which involves experimenting with different angles, compositions and lighting.
Hughes has taken courses and continued to learn and improve her food photography over the years. She said lighting and styling are important features for this genre.
“Lighting is everything with food photography, it took me a long time to figure out the lighting part,” she said. “I used to take food outside on the deck to get the best lighting. You can make everything look good with the right lighting."
Food photographers use appealing looking backgrounds and props like colourful utensils, patterned napkins and fresh herbs.
“With styling the food, there are a lot of little tricks and tips you pick up along the way, you learn as you go,” Hughes said.
Major commercial food brands like Campbell’s and Kraft use a production set with food stylists, photographers and set designers. Hughes would have to move to a bigger city to take on those jobs.
“I’m staying here and doing all of the steps from the cooking to set design myself,” she said. “I’m a creative person and like to have my hands in all parts of the process.”
Some food photographers put cosmetics on the food to enhance its appearance, and Hughes will do that for commercial shots such as adding oil to a recipe instead of maple syrup to give it a more appealing shine. For blog clients, she sticks to the recipes.
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“I don’t alter photos for recipes because if people are going to create that dish, they’d be disappointed if it didn’t turn out looking the way it’s supposed to,” she said.
Hughes said the recent advent of artificial intelligence has entered the food photography market, but Hughes doesn’t feel her specific job is threatened by it yet.
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“With AI, people can take any product and put it on multiple backgrounds,” she said. “There is copyright infringement where my stuff is taken and replicated somewhere else, but I don’t think AI has the technology to take a health food recipe and create a perfect image of it.”
Hughes has a booked up schedule for the next few months but is always open to more opportunities.
Go here to see more of her work.
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