The Precision Food Styling Tool you Can’t Show Up on Set Without

Beauty lies in the details! Food photography that really blows people away always takes into consideration every subtlety. There’s one precision food styling tool that nearly ever professional has on hand, and it’s small enough to fit in your back pocket.

Open up your manicure set or make a pit stop at your local drug store – tweezers are the precision food styling tool that no one should go without. They’re not high tech or flashy. Nevertheless, they’re absolutely one of the most helpful items on a food photography set. The reason for this is simple. A pair of tweezers makes it possible to make the slightest adjustments to your food subject without ever having to use your hands or fingers.

Tweezers date back to ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt, and it’s little wonder why. They provide a controlled way to perform the smallest tasks without disturbing surrounding areas. Most of the time, they’re reserved for menial tasks. But, creative food artists around the world will attest to their value.

Why food stylists use tweezers?

How exactly do these tiny forceps make life on set a little easier? Some might be skeptical of just how much power these everyday objects hold. But, if you’ve ever struggled with a particularly distracting red pepper flake resting on the delicate yolk of an otherwise perfect fried egg, you’d understand just how much the precision food styling tool can accomplish. What’s more, they can do more than take away unwanted details. They can also add elements to a food item without causing disruption. Can you imagine trying to individually arrange flakes of sea salt atop a caramel creme brûlée? Using your fingers alone, the task would be practically impossible. Using a set of tweezers makes it feasible within a matter of seconds.

What is I can’t afford it?

In fact, it’s possible to purchase nice and pricey professional set of culinary tweezers designed specifically for chefs and food stylists. However, if you want a similar product at quarter of the cost, your neighborhood auto supply or 99 cents store will almost certainly have some tweezers (complete with precision tips) for working with cars and electronics. For one shoot, I even had the opportunity to work with a state of the art brain surgeon’s set that the collaborating studio inherited. Though certainly unconventional, they made even the most meticulous tasks go extremely smoothly.

Being a food stylist can be a costly, time-consuming job. Therefore, it’s important to take advantage of any tool that provides a shortcut. Tweezers, aside from being a precision food styling tool, are a way of making everyday tasks just a bit less taxing.

Inside the Food Stylist’s Tool Kit

Have you ever looked at a food editorial or advertisement and wondered how they’re able to get subjects as unruly as spaghetti sauce or ice cream looking absolutely pristine? As it turns out, the art food styling is a precise one that requires quite a bit of patience, precision, and improvisation. In the Inside the Food Stylist’s Tool Kit segment Phoode examines the unexpected tactics stylists employ by digging through the tools they use on set.