‘Where do we start … all ice-cream is mashed potato?” asks Georgia Glynn-Smith, food photographer and creator of the London School of Food & Film online masterclasses. When it comes to the industry secrets on photographing food – something she has done for cookbooks by the likes of Gordon Ramsay and Mary Berry, and Tesco and M&S TV adverts, she knows it all.
“Anyone can photograph food, but one of the things you need to figure out is what is it that makes you hungry? Is it the melting cheese, the flutter of icing sugar, the drizzle of chocolate, the falling slice of perfectly cooked beef, the crunch of the roast potato? Focus here will make your audience want to dive in and eat it.”
This photograph was inspired by a friend of Georgia who had been in hospital for months with leukaemia.
“I was being filmed for a TV show with Jamie Oliver and we needed footage of me in the studio. I needed a brief, so I called my friend and asked her what she really missed. She said fresh fruit and bright colours. I created this image for her with love, shooting it on a professional camera but then again on my iPhone so she could see it happening immediately,” Georgia says.
While she adds that she wouldn’t feel confident shooting on a phone for anything that will be used on a billboard or packaging, she sees it as more than sufficient for social media and online.
“But I do teach my students to never use a filter, as it will end up looking rather crude.”
As for Georgia’s friend?
“She is fortunately so much better and now travelling a lot in her bright colourful campervan with family, eating all the food she can get hold of,” Georgia says.
