Food Photography

This frying egg has appetizing color and contrast, and its shape defines a trajectory across the pan—more like a comet arcing through space than a breakfast staple sizzling on a griddle.The concept may seem easy, but shooting it wasn’t, and the strategies that Seattle photographer Ryan Matthew Smith employed illustrate how important it is to fully understand your subject. “The bubbles in frying eggs are created by the water that occurs naturally in egg whites,” says Smith.

For Los Angeles food photographer Steve Anderson, a new Scottsdale, AZ restaurant’s need for images of its complete menu offered him a challenge he couldn’t pass up. Why photograph every menu item? Because customers of the restaurant who would first be attending films at a neighboring theater would also be ordering dishes on iPad menus with choices beamed wirelessly beamed to its kitchen, and making their selections based on Anderson’s images. For Anderson, the creative challenges were both logistic and aesthetic.