Denise Vivaldo - The Food Stylists Handbook: Hundreds of Media Styling Tips, Tricks, and Secrets for Chefs, Artists, Bloggers, and Food Lovers

Text 2010 Denise Vivaldo

Additional text copyright 2017 by Denise Vivaldo

Photographic credits on

Originally published by Gibbs Smith in 2010.

First Skyhorse Publishing edition, 2017.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Skyhorse Publishing, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

Cover design by Jane Sheppard

Cover photo credit: Heather Winters

Cover concept and styling: Cindie Flannigan and Denise Vivaldo

Interior design by Debra McQuiston

Print ISBN: 978-1-5107-2114-2

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-5107-2118-0

Printed in China

We dedicate this book to all the aspiring food stylists weve met and taught from around the world. We appreciate their passion, talent, and tenacity.

CONTENTS

Today, food styling is a relatively small niche market compared to other jobs in the food industry. But its a growing market with strong international appeal.

What a successful food stylist does is help produce a photo that sells a dream, brand, product, plate, lifestyle, chef, or restaurant.

Different food styling jobs require different skill sets, different shopping and prep, different questions, different behavior, different assistants, and different experience.

As creative as food styling can be, it is a business. It takes years to establish a client base large enough to make a living. To accomplish this you need to have a plan and implement it.

Food stylists build their own kits according to their specific work requirements, their personalities, and the tools they are most comfortable with.

In marketing your food styling business, you are marketing yourself. What experiences make you different from other food stylists in your area?

Always search for new markets for your services. Marketing doesnt always have to be expensive or difficult.

Using Videos, Photos, and Recipes to Sell Your Services

Food Photography Tips and Tricks

The actual job of styling any plate of food is the end result of a lot of preparation. Magic time begins when the photographer starts to shoot.

Now you are ready to do some actual food styling! We alter techniques to suit the particular job at hand and whatever we have available at that moment, using food products instead of canvas and paint.

Acknowledgments

I had a dream in 1988 to write a book about how to become a food stylist. I even had a publisher interested for a second. That book never came to fruition and now I know that was a good thing. I didnt know enough back then.

Fast-forward twenty-nine years and here it is, in its second edition. Working on this update has been a joy. We sold every copy of the first edition, won a Gourmand World design award, and received rave reviews from our students across the globe. I am so proud. This book truly only came about because of Cindie Flannigan. We are a team. Cindie came to the Denise Vivaldo Group as an intern in 2001, after graduating from my alma mater with honors (they taped my diploma together) and has never left. I am so grateful for her.

Cindie makes work fun and energizing and, best of all, she is extremely talented. I get to learn from her. I love being a chef, food stylist, and author, and having a creative partner to work with every day has helped me survive, prosper, and enjoy the ride.

Fifteen years ago, Cindie suggested we start teaching food styling workshops. The idea came from the emails we received every week asking us how to break into the business. I told her notoo much work, too costly to run, too many working weekends. Blah, blah, blah

Well, Cindie said shed help and eventually we gave it a try and the workshops have been booming ever since. Not only are they fun and we make a few bucks but, best of all, we have met incredible stylists, bloggers, students, chefs, and photographers from all over the world. We also give corporate workshops for food packagers and producers, magazines, and public relation firms.

Our workshops taught us that the culinary community needed this book and we have been privileged to write about what we love.

There have been huge changes in food styling and photography in the last seven years, and we wanted to upgrade all the photographs and text. So Cindie and I went to work.

Discussing a new design and possibly a soft cover, my dear friend and book agent extraordinaire, Martha Hopkins, stopped me in mid-sentence and said, Miss Denise, I know a publisher that would be interested in buying and republishing your handbook. Bingoand here we are. I am so grateful to have Martha in my life.

I want to thank Nicole Frail and her entire team at Skyhorse Publishing, as well as production editor Chris Schultz and cover designer Jane Sheppard.

I will always be indebted to Charlotte Walker for introducing me to food styling; Maggie Waldron for telling me she could see a little talent in my work; and to Kit Snedaker, who said Kid, if you want something, you just get up every morning and put one foot in front of the other.

Cindie and I would like to thank the photographers whose work appears in this book. Our photographers did not get paid. They released these photos to us because they believe in us. If we had had to pay them for their services, this book would never have happened. They helped us because not only are they gifted photographers but they are also dear friends. They are, in alphabetical order: Matt Armendariz, Ryan Beck, Victor Boghossian, Kent Cameron, Rachael Coleman, Edward Covello, Jack Coyier, Anita Crotty, Jon Edwards, Laura Edwards, Ben Fink, Kim Hudson, Jeff Katz, Diana Lundin, Martin Mann, Bob Muschitz, Ed Ouellette, Jerome Pennington, Christina Peters, R. Pratima Reddy, Jeff Sarpa, and Heather Winters.

A huge thanks to Jeff Parker and Paty Winters for your continuous support and great suggestions on our last, crucial read-through.

And, finally, thank you to all the great food stylists, assistants, interns, and students weve been privileged to work with over the years!