Food is made to be savored with the tastebuds. However, the flavor of food can’t be communicated over a distance. Food also has a beautiful appearance. This appearance can often stand in for the taste for the purpose of luring people. The food photographer is the artist who can convey a sense of the flavor of the food through original, well composed food photography. The food photographer takes food, interesting tableware, and light to create a still life that highlights the freshness, juiciness, plumpness, and bright colors to make the viewer’s eyes see flavor and smell aroma. The world of product photography is a world of vision, hearing, taste, smell, and touch.

A cookbook’s success is enhanced by photographs of each recipe. Cookbooks are bought in bookstores, far from the aromas and flavors of the kitchen. With just the list of ingredients and directions, the purchaser must use her imagination to mentally turn a list of ingredients into a flavor. Photograohs spark the imagination in this task. Back in the kitchen, the cook might read a recipe and say, “I might make this if I knew what it is supposed to look like.” If the cookbook is illustrated, viola, there it is. And when it comes out of the oven, the cook can tell without tasting whether the finished masterpiece turned out as it should.

Magazines make their living from good food photography. How often have you seen a women’s magazine that sold itself to you with a headline saying, “Lose 10 pounds in 10 days” next to a picture of colorful cupcakes? That’s a double-whammy for your brain: advice for the parent in you and cupcakes for the kid. The interior the magazine is stuffed with food photography. One set of pictures illustrates the food section of the magazine. These pictures serve the same purpose as those in the cookbook. Then scattered throughout the magazine are the ads. Those that aren’t for the latest fashions are for food. You see the add for cheese with the golden cheese sandwich. This is followed by the ad for salad dressing with crisp lettuce, tomatoes, radishes, and onions.

When you open the menu at a family restaurant, what do you see? Menus in casual restaurants usually have pictures of their menu items to set your mouth to watering. These pictures needn’t be as fanciful as recipe illustrations, but they need to be realistic. If you are in a fast food restaurant, you’ll probably see the menu decorating the walls and suspended from the ceiling. These pictures in the restaurant also serve a more serious purpose. They allow people with disabilities indicate their selections by pointing to the dish that they want to eat.

Fast food restaurants want to make the driver on the highway hungry enough to stop in for something to eat. These restaurants lure the driver with appealing pictures of their menu items on billboards. They don’t just serve the purpose of alerting you of a place to stop. They want you to stop in even if you are not hungry.

Good food photography communicates more sensory information than just the visual. It stimulates your senses of taste and smell.