Viva Brighton Issue #80 October 2019

PHOTOGRAPHY
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Emma Croman
Foodie photographer
How did you come to
be a food photographer?
I used to be a picture
editor for magazines,
and after I packed that
in, I decided to become a
nutritional therapist and
did a three-year course.
I had a car accident, and
taught myself how to use
a new camera while I was
recovering. So food was a
natural subject for me. It’s
not the only thing I do – I
take a lot of portraits, for
example – but a lot of
my work is food-focused
editorial.
Can you sum up your
philosophy? I like to see
a natural scene in a frame. Some people shoot
very conceptual food shots, and it looks nice, but
it doesn’t happen in real life. I like all the asides:
close-ups, individual ingredients, prep shots,
someone putting a record on, empty plates at
the end of the meal, that sort of thing.
Is a good food photo more about the photographer’s
eye, or the equipment they use?
It’s two-thirds the photographer’s eye, I’d say.
You can take a good food shot with an iPhone if
you know what you’re doing. A lot of the shot is
about the styling, and framing.
Everyone’s a food photographer nowadays…
It’s great that food is encouraging people to
get creative. And it helps me that everyone
puts their dinner on social media. My clients
want pictures that are better than they see on
Instagram: as long as I keep upping my game, I
can provide that.
What camera do you generally
use? I use a Canon
Mk 4, with a 50mm lens.
It hits the sweet spot – you
can go as wide or as tight as
you like. I always shoot on
manual: for close-up shots
I’ll shoot on an f5.6 aperture
and adjust the shutter
speed accordingly.
Does the food generally
get cold while you’re at
work? Do you get to eat
it? Some foods, like soup, or
freshly cooked meat, need
to be shot while they’re hot.
Most other dishes go cold
during the shoot, and you’d
never know. You can get to
eat them afterwards if you
want, but usually they’ve been prodded around
with so long, you don’t want to.
Are you a cook yourself? By no means a chef,
but a home-cook, yes. I love cooking in the
evening, with my partner or for dinner parties.
Big spreads with lots of different dishes. My
favourite chefs are Yotam Ottolenghi – I love
his Simple cookbook, and the Persian cooking
of Sabrina Ghayour. Luckily, we have Taj, so the
ingredients are easy to find!
Do you ever meet food producers? I often go
out and shoot them at work. It’s a real pleasure
working with such passionate people, and an
education seeing the source of the food that
ends up on our plate.
Give us a top tip… You’ve got to know what
you want to communicate with the image before
you even pick up the camera. As told to Alex Leith
emmacroman.com
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