Get ready to feast your eyes on some hearty German cuisine, brought to us by Philadelphia-based photographer Jason Varney. Jason shot his most recent cookbook, New German Cooking, in fall 2013 and it was just released.
I chatted with Jason about the process and got some tips on food photography.
Have you shot many cookbooks in the past?
This was a project for Chronicle Books, in San Francisco. I’ve shot over 10 cookbooks, so I have a good amount of experience with the format and process.
How did you get involved with this book?
At the time I was represented by a literary agent for cookbook work, who also represented the chef/authors- all of us are Philadelphia based. I believe my involvement in the project became part of the proposal. I had also previously worked with the chef on projects for Philadelphia &Bon Appetit so I was familiar with him and his work.
What was your approach to this book?
My on-set process is fairly minimal, I work with natural light exclusively which helps define my style. The project was shot over three days in my Philadelphia studio where we have a full kitchen. The chef/author Jeremy Nolen was on set to prep and oversee dishes but final plating was performed by our food stylist Carrie Purcell, who also worked double duty as a prop stylist. I was responsible for the visual style of the book, and collaborated with Jeremy and Carrie on the look and feel. It was important for us that the book felt clean and modern despite being what could be considered traditionally heavy food. We avoided using too many dark woods and worked mostly on distressed metals instead to give modern look with a bit of a nod to a rustic, old world feel.
Any tips on shooting food? What’s your favorite part about it?
I treat each dish differently and try and accentuate what’s most exciting visually and most appetizing about it. Changing scale really helps. Sometimes food needs to be shot really tight, full-frame graphically, others its best to pull back and focus on creating more of a dining atmosphere so some of the focus is taken off the food. I really enjoy the constant problem solving aspect. For all of my work, its really important to me that my images are more that just representational, they need to be artful. With cookbooks, I don’t want the books be found just in kitchens, but also on reader’s coffee tables.
Any challenges involved with this project? If so, how did you overcome them?
I think the biggest challenge of this project was translating a chef’s restaurant style food to a cookbook audience and making that food look accessible and approachable to a home cook. Food and prop styling helped transition the look of the food.
What did you enjoy most about this shoot?
So much of my work and process is individualistic- I run my business, tackle most of my post, and most of my shoot crews consist of just myself and an assistant/tech. With cookbook projects its a thrill to be a part of a collaborative artistic team. Chef, food stylist, prop stylist, designer. I love hunkering down in a studio for a week and making a great body of work. My work has been gravitating towards more recipe shooting for editorial, cookbooks, and advertising, and its something Im really excited about.
Here is the cover of the book. It was published by Chronicle Books with design by The Heads of State. Get your copy here.
For more of Jason’s work, visit varneyphoto.com.