Careers for Freshers

Food Styling

It's all about making the food look good, delicious and mouth watering…so what if there is just lettuce and cabbage in the salad!
Chances are you'll lick your lips anyway!!

• Job Profile
Styling food? Remember the ad for the 31 scoops of Baskin Robbins? Even if ice cream wasn't one of your weak points, didn't it make your mouth water for the real stuff?

That's what the food stylist's work is all about - making food look good on camera. The stylist ensures a brilliant photographic representation of the food that looks good and most important - appetising!

It's the stylist's job to ensure what looks good and how.

There are many techniques involved in styling food. The idea, is to know what works best! Did you know that most of the photographs you drool over in well-produced recipe books are not cooked most of the time.

The hours are hectic and you might end up shooting at a stretch for more than a couple of days. Pre-production is important and you need to look high and low.

• Eligibility
A thorough knowledge of the ingredients, a sense of design and an understanding of advertising norms, is what it takes to be a food stylist.

A culinary background, knowledge of photography and a keen eye for detail helps when it comes to understanding how food behaves in different forms.

• Institutes
Abroad, many short term courses are offered. The Culinary Institute of America at Hyde Park, New York, offers a very good week-long course in food styling.
Most hotel management institutes do teach it as a subject. Once you've finished your hotel management course, you can pursue as an established food stylist.

Some hotel management institutes are:

• Mumbai Institute of Hotel Management Catering Technology and Applied Nutrition or Catering College

• Educational Institute of American Hotel and Motel Association

• Culinary Academy, Cidade de Goa

• Food Craft Institute, Poona

• The early years
A large chunk of the market is in recipe books but not all of them have high budgets that would allow you to experiment and innovate.

Contrast that with ad films, where the budgets are quite stretchable. A background in hotel management is not always a must. With a great sense of design you can definitely be a good stylist, provided you know your chocolates and capsicums in and out.

• Money
Like all professions one needs to start small. As an assistant to a stylist you can take home anything between Rs 500 and Rs 1,500 per assignment. An established food stylist can call the shots. Money ranges between Rs 5,000 and Rs 10,000 per day.

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