CAB® 3QQ
Three quick questions with Mark Merryweather.
Anyone who has taken family pictures with toddlers or bull photos for a sale book knows that getting it just right can be a challenge. Compared to all the moving kids or bovines, one might think food photography would be easy. The official Certified Angus Beef LLC (CAB) food photographer would disagree. Graphic designer Mark Merryweather says there is way more that goes into that perfect picture of a sizzling steak or a juicy burger. And he knows by comparison because he takes a lot of pictures of his preschool-age son, too.
He is an artist through and through. From high school classes to previous jobs where he served as photography director on set, Merryweather honed his talent behind the camera. Now he uses that craft for the good of the Certified Angus Beef® (CAB®) brand. All the work that goes into these food shots is toward one ultimate goal: selling more CAB.
Walk me the through the process. How do you design, set up and take these mouthwatering shots?
First, I learn what it will be used for and get a feel for what the final picture should look like. Then I start making sketches. I'll draw out what I think it needs to look like and share those sketches with our culinary team; then we make adjustments. It helps me understand what I want to do with lighting, props and backdrops and share that with the food stylists.
We have some props here, but if it's something specific, we have to go out and purchase it. I'll go to a kitchen supply store or an antique mall. We've used barn wood. I bought tile from home improvement stores. I've asked people to bring in props. Or I'll walk around the office and borrow things. It sounds like a small detail, but those types of things are what really make the photos stand out. The object is to make the food look good, but part of it is to sell the ambience. If it's a high-end steakhouse and you've got some bright colored napkins or rustic plates just because that's what you had available, it's not going to look authentic.
After the prop-shopping is done, all the food needs to be purchased. Sometimes that can be a challenge. Some ingredients need to come from a specialty vendor. The food stylists have to look everything over. If they have tomatoes, for example, they have to make sure there are no bruises or mismarkings. There are lots of details in making sure everything looks just right.
The day of the shoot, the stylist will do a quick mock up of the dish so I can set lighting and get a feel for what it's like. We spend a lot of time with that stand-in. Once we get everything right, we bring in the actual product and move quickly because we have a very small window while the food is fresh. Every time we take a photograph, it's a different story. That's why there are so many unique elements.
Now I've got an appreciation for the amount of planning it takes to execute these shoots, but why go to all that work in the first place?
That food has to look good because we want to make people's mouths water when they see it. If the steak is not cooked right or you cut into the steak and there's some gristle or anything that's unappetizing, you've kind of lost all your time. It always puts a smile on my face whenever somebody looks at one of our photographs and says, "You know, I just ate lunch, but looking at those photographs makes me hungry." That's the greatest compliment I can get.
Chef Michael Ollier (left) helps Mark Merryweather (right) set up a photo shoot.
People are surprised to learn CAB has its own graphics department that works as an in-house ad agency. Most of them probably figure the food photography is "farmed out," too. What is the benefit in you and the culinary team working together to create these shots?
We still hire food photography out, but we have been doing more and more in-house. We have been able to produce photographs with little to no budget. When we send photos out, they're the high-end shoots, so we use photographers with sophisticated studios and many, many years of experience. With our staff, we've been able to really take some nice, very useable photographs. We're accomplishing our mission and the cost difference is huge. We're able to take photographs when we otherwise wouldn't have and extended our library immensely. They'll go up on our website. They'll go onto a package of beef for one of our processors. They'll go into sales materials, catalogs; they'll go on menus and in print. The list is endless.
Merryweather's photographs are regularly featured on the home page and accompany recipes at www.certifiedangusbeef.com.