Food Photography: The Glorious Eggroll Part I

Ah, food, glorious food. We all love looking at shots of delicious dishes, and I know as a Dallas food photographer I love taking them. Today’s shoot was squarely focused on the eggroll, and capturing it in all of it’s rolled up, or I guess wrapped up glory.

It’s such a relatively simple product, yet in its simplicity it is so tasty. A mixture of cabbage, veggies and perhaps even a protein, all wrapped up and lovingly fried to create an awesome medley of flavor and texture. That crispy exterior and soft interior packed with goodness… Ok, so you can tell I’m a foodie. Let’s get back to the shoot.

My client, who produces eggrolls here in Dallas, commissioned me to capture Dallas food photography of their eggrolls in a variety of ways. I captured beauty shots of the eggrolls by themselves, with assorted dipping sauces and even as featured components in a variety of recipes that are perfect for busy moms. They wanted to keep everything simple and delicious.

For the lighting, the entire feel was to keep things feeling light, fresh and contemporary. The styling was also kept to a minimum so that you would focus right in on the eggrolls in every shot. That went for the background too. We wanted it to have a good feel and give a hint of Asian flair, but not go overboard in any way. I am a big fan of keeping things simple and clean with all of the Dallas commercial photography that I do, and food is no exception.

I always try to make sure that my food photography is lit in such a way that it looks like the food is sitting in a windowsill and has a great natural feel, but is angled so that the textures really pop out at you. Eggrolls are nothing but texture with that crispy wrapper, so they made for a great focal point throughout the different dishes I shot. Whether they were incorporated into a salad, put into a Tom Kha soup (which is one of my favorite soups ever, btw), or added to a stir-fry, the eggrolls looked every bit the hero.

In addition to the lighting, my food stylist and his assistant worked their tails off to ensure that every detail was in place, and that each and every eggroll looked absolutely beautiful. I can’t tell you how many dozens of eggrolls we went through to get just the perfect ones, but it was totally worth it in the end. We shot so many recipe and sauce combinations, and I am really pleased with the final food photography that resulted from the shoot. As I like to say, the food was looking sexy!

Even with all of this eggroll shooting, I actually didn’t eat a single one that day. I did develop some craving though, and thankfully those were satiated at their next shoot, when we actually went and captured some of the production process at the factory. Be sure to check back soon for those too so you can experience both the beauty shots and get a feel for some of the behind the scenes action on eggroll making.

What’s funny is that after the shoot, my equipment still smelled like eggrolls, for the next few weeks after the shoot even. It was especially noticeable with my softboxes. There are worse things for your gear to smell like, though I can’t seem to stop craving eggrolls for some reason…

I hope you enjoy the photos, and make sure to go out and enjoy some of these eggrolls as well!