Colors And Food; Food Photography Unlocks Vivid Colors
Color is an essential element of all design. Colors make any creation snap and sizzle with vitality, beauty, and creativity. Walk down the street of any metropolis and look into any shop window or any clothing designer’s storefront. You’re bound to be intrigued and stare agape at the colorful visuals you see.
One component of design often overlooked–especially in terms of the sumptuous colors it presents–is food photography. If food photography doesn’t intrigue you, you should definitely pay it more attention. Have you ever waded through the aisles of a bookstore and stopped to check out cookbooks, filled with a wide array of amazingly colorful images of recipes?
Perfectly captured photos of everything from creme brulee to Chateaubriand grace the pages of cookbooks and magazines. Colorful matchbook sticks of vegetables and globes of orange, green, and red fruit adorn pristine white bowls on earth tone tablecloths. If taken properly, the actual photos are the true focus of the book rather than the actual food being showcased–and the colors engage the viewer more intimately.

Perfectly blended colors and ingredients combine to make this the perfect dish to eat--and the perfect food photo. (photo courtesy of John Valentino)
I’m as intrigued by the colors of a perfectly coordinated and textured home as I am with a creatively designed meal. Not only does this meal look delicious, the careful construction of it and the different colored items used means the chef’s preparation was meticulous. That attention to detail goes a long way to creating the right taste.
How often do you look at a meal’s composition– the colors, the textures, the scale–before you eat it?