If you’re trying to distinguish if a Pittsburgh food photographer shoots more advertising work or more editorial food photography, just look his (or her) web page and count how many raw ingredient photos he has displayed… Editorial food photographers tend to shoot a lot of raw fruit and vegetable shots and advertising food photographers tend to shoot more prepared food shots. Of course, this is a broad generality and doesn’t always hold true, but more times than not, lots of a ingredient shots means that the photographer’s main market is of an editorial bent, meaning magazines.
So you might ask yourself, what does this matter? Well, if you own a restaurant here in Pittsburgh and you’re thinking about hiring a food photographer for a menu shoot, you might want to see if that photographer shoots the kind of photos you need. Are you just looking for photos of raw ingredients, or do you want appetizing photos of YOUR prepared menu items…? There is a huge difference between shooting raw Brussels sprouts in a bowl, and shooting your homemade lasagna on your restaurant’s plate.
If you are looking to have a Pittsburgh food photographer to shoot your menu, make sure that he has similar shots in his portfolio, so there’s no surprise the day of the shoot. Don’t get me wrong. Every food photographer ends up taking pretty vegetable shots sooner of later, but if most of his portfolio is made up of that kind of food photography, you might want to keep looking for a photographer that has in his portfolio or web page, the kind of photos that you actually need. Don’t assume, that if he can take a picture of a tomato or whole raw fish, that he can shoot prepared food. That’s a very different type of food photography.
Even though I'm an advertising food photographer, that doesn't mean I can't shoot pretty pictures of raw food...
Every food photographer can shoot raw food, but advertising food photographers tend to shoot prepared foods much better - INHO :o)
