One of the most exciting events as creatives is when you access a new portion of your skill set that you didn’t realize was there. Most independent creatives will agree that new opportunities constantly present themselves when you are open to them and that is how you often discover those new skills. One of the most exciting parts for us this year was discovering our passion for food photography and filmography. While so many of our plans came crashing down during this season of life, we were also very blessed with new connections, clients, and opportunities. One of those exciting connections led to us discovering our new niche.

Foot photography and filmography is a wide-ranging field.

Food photography can be anything ranging from a smartphone photo at a Sunday Brunch and to high-end studio work. Food videography began with a boom when celebrities like Julia Child started with their own cooking programs. From there it has only expanded. The Food Network has had multiple television programs since 1993 and are only continuing to expand their programming. Buzzfeed created a whole separate channel just for food content. Short-form recipe videos for youtube, Instagram, and tik-tok are the highest they have ever been.

We were first introduced to food videography through our project with Rukey’s kitchen.

Rukey is a private chef and caterer who specializes in Nigerian food. We drove down to Philadelphia to shoot two short-form cooking videos in an air BnB kitchen. This was our first experience and we enjoyed it so much. Not only was Chef Rukey, delightful to work with, not only did she allow us to sample the delicious food, but we had such a positive introduction into this new area of our field. The food was already so aesthetic and beautiful that it was not challenging to make it look good on camera. For the short-form video, we highlighted the most important steps of the recipe as they were happening. We wanted to do less of a how-to and more of a visually appealing experience that would entice the viewer into wanting to go to the source of where the food was made rather than try to make it themselves.

What were our big takeaways from this experience?

Plan Everything! We were able to be efficient and stick to Rukey’s timetable and budget with meticulous planning. We started with a shot list and a walk-through of every step she was going to take and every step that we were going to film of the process. We kept track of every angle that we shot from to make sure that when we went to edit we would have a clear timeline to follow. This allowed us to continue our efficiency into the editing process and we had a fast turnaround rate for the completed project.

Be Open to Change. Even though we had an idea of what the process was going to look like going into the shoot, we needed to be open to the fact that some of our ideas might just not work out the way we wanted them to. Flexibilty is always the best option when working with other creatives. Although we may have the been the ones that were technically the most knowledgeable about film, that did not discount the fact that someone else was paying for the service and their ideas needed to be respected and listened to. There were several shots that we thought would look good but just could not be executed properly, which meant we all had to brainstorm a new option on the fly. Which, if I’m being honest, is one the most exiliaterating parts of the job.

Curate your Shots. One of our biggest takeaways was learning how to use the shots to accentuate the food. In many ways it was similar to any other shoot in that we had to be aware of our lighting and how it changed throughout the day. But food also has the tendency to look different as it cooks or as it sits out. Because we were doing an organic shoot and because we didn’t have everything prepared ahead of time we had to be careful to get our shots as quickly as possible.

Nigerian Fried Rice with Chicken and Plantains

Conclusion

One of the most rewarding parts of our job is that we are constantly learning. Learning how to do better, learning how to be more efficient, learning new techniques. In this age that we’re living in, there are so many new opportunities to lean into with food photography and filmography. Our experience with Chef Rukey gave us the confidence we need to continue to pursue those opportunities. We are so excited to be able to work on more food projects in the future.