10 Sneaky Tricks Used in Food Photos

The foods you buy in the store and at restaurants are never as tasty as they look in advertising photos, but what many people might not know is that you probably wouldn’t enjoy eating the foods seen in those pictures. The reason is because commercial food photographers use all kinds of non-edible products to cleverly make food look delicious in front of a lens. Here’s a 9-minute video on 10 of those tricks.

Here are the 10 different techniques covered by Top Trending in the video:

1. Cotton balls soaked and heated to add long-lasting steam
2. Mashed potatoes used to fill out meat, add consistency to foods, and serve as an ice cream replacement
3. Glue used as a milk substitute
4. Steak grill marks painted on with shoe polish
5. Shaving cream as whipped cream
6. Spraying fruit with deodorant for an ultra shiny look
7. Using colored wax to improve the look and consistency of sauces
8. Cardboard used for separating cake layers and burger fixings
9. Raw birds stuffed with paper towels and painted to achieve a golden brown look
10. Spraying pancakes with fabric protector and pouring motor oil as syrup

Here’s a longer list of different things you can use in food photography. Last year, we also shared a meta photo project titled Faking It that reveals the secret tricks of food photography.