Unstyling Food; Food Photography by LifeCreated

"Unstyling" food is a term I made up to describe a style of food photography I enjoy. It basically means to let the food fall where it will, with little pre-planning and staging of parts or pieces...little-to-no real "styling" at all. In magazines or cookbooks, the images have the croutons in certain places and the fork at just the right angle, but most of the time I find unstyled food to be the most appealing.

If you are really good at styling food, you can learn to make styled dishes appear unstyled.

I hope I haven't lost you yet:)

Take this salad, for instance...I have a beautiful bowl with a bronze edge. The bowl is deeper than I need, so I turn a paper plate upside down into it, and it perfectly closes up half of the bowl. You would never know this bowl really isn't full of fresh spinach. Next came the toppings, basically sprinkled on top and almost no thought went into where they landed.

When I put the whole onions on the table beside the salad, pieces of the onion skin sloughed off, but I left it. That's what would probably happen in the kitchen, so let it happen in the picture too.

I feel like unstyled cakes, salads and plates of cookies are some of the most pretty subjects.

Here are some other images I "unstyled"

Do you enjoy food and product photography? Consider checking out prints in my ETSY shop, or attending a workshop!