How To Become A Food Stylist And Get Paid To Make Food Look Good

Seeing a photo of a big, juicy burger (or Beyond Burger) with crunchy green lettuce and tiny drops of water on thickly sliced ​​tomatoes is enough to make your mouth water. The same is true when you’re watching a Coke ad, when the fizzing and splashing of the drink is so noticeable that you suddenly feel thirsty. Food images are expressive and making them look good is an important task. In fact, it’s a whole career in itself.

Diana Jeffra, who lives in Virginia, has been a food stylist for nine years. While a photographer is the person who takes pictures of the food, Jeffra’s job is to cook the food and prepare the shot. Whether the photo ends up in a magazine, an ad, product packaging, or she’s helping shoot a commercial, the mission is the same: to leave the viewer wanting what they’re looking at.

The summer day I called her to find out more about her career, she was on set cooking up a turkey for a Thanksgiving spread for a local magazine. Yes, the summer heat was sweltering outside, but on set it was November 24th. Making prints like this is Jeffra’s bread and butter, so to speak. “I prefer the calm pace [photos]. I find the shooting tempo for big commercials is too fast for me,” she said.

As well as styling food for magazines, she has also collaborated with many brands that are likely to be found in your pantry or fridge such as Betty Crocker, Sabra, Justin’s and General Mills. But Jeffra wasn’t always a food stylist. It took a small career shift – and a lot of drive – to get where she is today.

Jeffra said she’s worked with food for a long time, just in a very different way than now. “All my jobs growing up were in restaurants,” she said. “I’ve worked as a dishwasher, steamed crabs, shucked oysters… stuff like that.” Obviously, she’s someone who doesn’t mind getting her hands dirty, a skill that would come in handy later in her career.

Jeffra majored in graphic design in college and after graduating began working for an advertising agency specializing in food service and hospitality. Her task was to retouch images from photo shoots and to bring them into different formats, such as advertising banners. Jeffra said that while she liked her job, sitting in front of a computer all day made her feel a little nervous. At the same time, she began asking questions about what was happening on the photoshoot sets to learn more about how they worked. “The creative director told me there’s a photographer and then someone comes in whose job it was to get food ready for the camera,” Jeffra said. “I remember thinking, ‘Wait, is that a thing?'”

When Jeffra first started researching how to become a food stylist herself, she figured the best way to find out was to ask someone who had, so she invited a food stylist in her area to Lisa Cherkasky, for lunch. (Pro job tip for anything you want to do in life: find a mentor.) “Lisa gave me the best advice, which is that knowing how to prepare food for the camera is important.” said Jeffra. Yes, Lisa told her, it’s important to know something about photography—like how to use light—but it’s also important to know how to make food from scratch (quickly!) that’s for them camera is made.

Shelling oysters was one thing, but learning how to get food ready for photos was an entirely different skill. To improve her knowledge, Jeffra enrolled in a cooking and hospitality program at a local community college. “The restaurant chefs I worked with during my culinary school were supportive of my desire to be a food stylist and allowed me to come in and take pictures,” she said. Eventually she was able to attract clients and build a portfolio which resulted in more jobs being booked.

A day in the life of a food stylist begins before they arrive on set. The first task is to buy all the ingredients needed to prepare the meal. “Usually before the shoot, I get a shot list of all the photos they want,” Jeffra said. This helps her to prepare and style the food. For example, the turkey isn’t fully cooked in some Thanksgiving food photos, but Jeffra said that for the shoot she was working on, the shot list indicated the turkey needed to be carved in some photos, so that meant Jeffra did it would have to cook it all the way through.

Jeffra usually has a call time so she knows when to arrive on set. Then she gets to work, cooking and styling the food for each shot before a photographer snaps it. Attention to detail is a must. Jeffra often plucks tiny hairs from raspberries or sprays perfectly sized drops onto products. Sure, a photographer could edit or add those details later when retouching, but she does as much as possible herself so they don’t have to. “It makes it easier for the photographer and makes him love you more,” she said.

Not all of Jeffra’s dishes are actually edible: sometimes they are and sometimes they aren’t. For example, on tik tok, she showed that buttercream (a whipped icing) is often used instead of ice cream for shoots because it doesn’t melt. But if Jeffra is styling ice cream for a real ice cream brand, no fake ice cream is allowed — that would be false advertising.

“Ice cream and cheese are the hardest foods to shoot,” Jeffra said. “Both have to be melted in a certain way, and with cheese, some types become translucent when melted, like Swiss cheese.”

Jeffra said her job isn’t always glamorous either. She recently discovered that she was using a water fountain to make instant mashed potatoes because there wasn’t a full kitchen on set.

Maybe you don’t want to be a food stylist. Maybe you just want to give your food blog or Instagram photos an upgrade. Is there anything you can do to spice up your pictures without resorting to buttercream and par-baked turkey? Jeffra is happy to give a few tips. One is to use fresh ingredients, especially when it comes to produce and herbs. Then the colors are most intense.

“Adding little drops of water on top of food or drink, like on… a coke can, also makes it look super fresh and refreshing,” Jeffra said, offering another of her tried-and-true tricks. For some foods, like freshly baked buns or a hamburger bun, Jeffra said adding a bit of oil can add a nice shine.

It’s also important to consider your lighting, as it can transform a food item from a flat appearance to other dimensions and details. So if you really want to get the perfect shot, all you might need is your friend shining their cell phone flashlight on your food while you take your picture.

If you enjoy playing with your food, following in Jeffra’s footsteps and becoming a food stylist could be the perfect career for you. It takes hard work to get there and it certainly isn’t easy, but Jeffra said she’s glad she made the effort. “I can’t imagine doing anything else,” she said. “I love everything about it.”