Well, leading UK food photographer Laurence Hudghton and his business partner, Phil Barton, spend most of their working lives shooting original meals for dozens of big-name clients like Morrisons, The Co-op Group, Tesco and Sainsbury’s.

The Manchester based Laurence Hudghton Photography Studio, complete with two built-in, state-of-the-art kitchens, has been shooting food and drink imagery for clients for the past 15 years.
And these days they don’t even have to cheat.

Says Hudghton: “In the days before digital imaging food photographers regularly struggled with certain commodities like ice cream because by the time you’d taken the Polaroid the product was already fast disappearing, and even when you finished the film you still didn’t really know how it was going to turn out.

Now with digital technology those problems have ‘melted’ away – so there’s no need for us to have to substitute ice cream with fondant icing. And we never use varnishes to colour chickens and other meats: we shoot the food when it’s at its freshest. A properly cooked sausage is always going to look more appetising than one that has been painted.”

That’s not to say shooting food is always a piece of cake.

Adds Hudghton: “When we shoot pizza we have about a minute before the cheese starts to look old. We have to make them in batches before we can be satisfied we’ve got the shots we need. Soup’s not too bad because it will hold heat and just sit there behaving for at least a little while.”

Shooting liquids holds its challenges too.

He explains: “Any advertising shot with movement; steam, dripping water, wine being poured into glasses or ice dropped in water – can often require hundreds of exposures. Sometimes you can see that the splash on one side of the glass is working well but not on the other side…so in those circumstances we’d comp perhaps two, four or more shots together. Often you find yourself hoping for the ‘happy accident’ whereby, thanks to serendipity, you just manage to capture all the detail perfectly. Of course, we’ll still spend a good deal of time on the computer after the shoot. It’s a bit like working with special effects.”

The studio doesn’t cheat with its food shots but isn’t averse to employing an extra helping hand where necessary. “We’ll use dulling spray from time to time. You can spray champagne bottles with it and then follow it up with water spray. The bottle looks like it’s just come out of a really cold chiller. We’ll use a lot of mirrors to reflect light, and a spot of fake ice doesn’t really count as cheating.”

The food duo uses Hasselblad H3D and Hasselblad ELD cameras from Calumet (They’ve been shopping with us since the business started) and mainly standard lenses. Says Hudghton: “We don’t use brollies at all. If we’re looking for a contemporary daylight feel we’ll use a large roll of diffuser material, put a softbox through the back of it and then possibly employ a slightly hard light, like a snoot, to pick up any detail. If a client wants a moodier, darker picture then we’ll use a softbox from the side and possibly a snoot or spotlight to pick up other details and textures.”

One of the biggest food shooting challenges the studio has faced was in the accommodation of a six-foot long Caribbean shark!

Recalls Hudghton: “We had to shoot an image for the front cover of a food catalogue. The client wanted a picture of a whole shark. It turned up covered in ice and with some pretty deep cuts and scars on its skin. We used wire to prop up its fins before creating a shot, which made it look as if the shark was actually swimming. We had to do some retouching to get rid of the skin marks but the client was delighted with the result.”

And here’s some further food for thought for photographers thinking about trying for a slice of this niche imaging market: it’s pretty much recession proof.

Reveals Hudghton: “Everyone has to eat and in tough times, as they are today, when many people can’t afford to take holidays they tend to actually spend more in supermarkets, which in turn feeds the food photography business. Packaging changes all the time, in-store posters and shelf markers constantly need updating and the competition between brands means advertising will still be a prominent feature of marketing spend.”

An important thing to remember is that as a food photographer you will be part of a team that will probably include an assistant, the client, a food stylist, a props expert and an art director.

Says Hudghton: “This isn’t a business for photographers with big egos. If you are not prepared to work as part of a team this definitely isn’t the job for you.”