Food Photographer: Fanette Rickert's Journey and Advice

Food photography is everywhere: on packaging, in magazines, on brands' social media, all the way down to the flyer at your local supermarket. Yet few photographers know how this market actually works. Fanette Rickert makes a living from it in Washington, D.C., where she photographs food products, recipes and eco-friendly products for American brands.

In this episode, she tells Anthony Heukmes how she got started without any formal training, how she works with her clients, and what she recommends to photographers who want to branch out into food photography.

Who is Fanette Rickert?

Fanette Rickert is a French food and product photographer. At the time of recording, in early 2021, she had been living in Washington, D.C. for eight years with her American husband and their son, and was getting ready to move back to France.

• A complete career change: a former executive assistant in Paris, she left everything behind in 2004 for a trip around the world that was supposed to last a year.
• A brand photographer: food products, recipes, tea, cosmetics and eco-friendly products, for social media, packaging or magazines.
• A coach: since 2020, she has been helping other food and product photographers run their businesses, in English.

Her style is bright and editorial, but she can also produce very commercial images on a white background when a client needs them.

1. How do you become a food photographer with no training?

Fanette's path was anything but linear. She set off for a year, stopped on a small Thai island known for scuba diving, became a dive guide and then an instructor, and ended up shooting underwater videos for a friend's studio. That is where she got hooked on the technical side, even though she had come back from her travels with “10,000 really bad photos”.

Between Thailand and the United States, the couple spent a year in France WWOOFing (volunteering on organic farms). She learned to milk goats and make cheese, an experience that gave her a love for products made “the way our grandmothers did it”.

Eight hours of YouTube for a first assignment

Once in Washington, she first learned graphic design. Then a friend who sold a product asked her to photograph it. That same evening, she spent eight hours straight watching YouTube tutorials to figure out how to photograph a product. One job led to another, she started her own product photography business, and then focused on what she was truly passionate about: food.

“I knew I didn't want to do what I had done in my previous life anymore.”

Fanette Rickert

Her story is reminiscent of Emilie Zangarelli, who went from teaching to photography: in both cases, the career change was built step by step, starting with a first request from someone close to them.

2. What does a food photographer do day to day?

When Anthony asks her what her job involves exactly, Fanette answers: “a bit of everything”. Food photography covers very different types of assignments:

• Restaurants, a large part of her business before Covid.
• Food brands, which send her their products to feed their social media.
• Packaging, for which she has created many images.
• Magazines and the food press in general.
• Grocery retail materials, such as the weekly ad circulars at the entrance of supermarkets.

The example of a recurring client

For almost two years, Fanette has been working every month for a producer of locally grown greenhouse salad greens. The company sends her around twenty boxes, along with recipes or a theme (festive visuals for New Year's, for example), and she produces photos and short stop motion animations for its social media.

Over time, the brand has made her part of its marketing team. She knows its colors, its tone, its priorities: the client sets the direction, Fanette decides on the image.

“If you look around you, there's food photography everywhere.”

Fanette Rickert

3. How does a food photographer find clients?

Unlike a wedding photographer, whose style is recognizable from one gallery to the next, a food photographer adapts their images to each brand. Fanette combines two approaches:

• Instagram, where many clients discover her and reach out because of her style.
• Outreach: she spends a lot of time writing to brands she would like to work with.

The three types of clients

With experience, she has identified three profiles, and only works with the last two:

Assignments are rarely one-offs. Many brands come back with every new product or for a special occasion (Valentine's Day, the holidays). Some book a shoot every quarter: Fanette then teaches them how to repurpose their photos so they last three months on social media.

4. What props and studio setup do you need for food photography?

Fanette's studio is in her home. An entire closet is filled with props, which she admits to buying “way too much” of:

• Backdrops, her real passion;
• Dishes and tableware, in large quantities;
• Wood and bamboo props, notebooks and pencils, to accompany a cosmetic or eco-friendly product without stealing the show.

Photo backdrops, a booming market

There isn't really any tableware designed for photographers, but more and more makers produce photo backdrops, often former food photographers themselves. A backdrop measuring about 1.5 m by 2 m (roughly 5 by 6.5 feet) costs between 50 and 70 euros, is easy to store and lets you change the scene in seconds. These makers, like some tableware brands, are often happy to collaborate with photographers.

A table rather than the floor

Many food photographers shoot on the floor, from above. Fanette prefers a table, for the sake of her back: one backdrop laid flat, a second one set upright behind it, and the scene gains depth. From time to time, she goes further with a large 2 m by 3 m backdrop (roughly 6.5 by 10 feet) that she built herself: it acts as a wall, in front of which she recreates an entire dining room.

5. Can a portrait photographer switch to food photography?

Yes, but they will have to relearn how to use light. Fanette is convinced of it: she herself wouldn't feel able to shoot portraits overnight, because the two disciplines have opposite goals.

“Unlike people who shoot portraits, what we're trying to show is texture.”

Fanette Rickert

In portrait photography, you try to soften the skin. In food photography, on the contrary, you want to bring out the crispness of a crust or the shine of a sauce. The technical foundations are the same, and there are plenty of resources shared on Instagram: according to her, a portrait photographer can master food photography in a few months.

6. Where should you start as a food photographer?

Anthony asks the question on behalf of photographers who would like to diversify after a difficult year. Fanette's advice comes down to two steps:

1. Practice at home and build a portfolio of ten to fifteen images. You can't pitch a restaurant by showing portraits.
2. Reach out to small local brands: winemakers, charcuterie producers, artisans. They need photos, often take them themselves with their phone, and are far more accessible than big national brands.

“There are so many small local brands that need photos.”

Fanette Rickert

As for the French market, which she was just starting to discover, she rejects the word “saturated”: many photographers do quality work, but there is still room.

7. How do you price your work and handle usage rights?

In food photography, everything is custom. Some projects require creating recipes, others a lot of shopping to find specific ingredients or props. As a result, prices can vary “a hundredfold”, and it is hard for a beginner to find the right rate. That's why it's important to calculate your prices based on your time and your actual costs, rather than matching the lowest bidders.

Fanette knows this firsthand: when she started out, she charged 7 dollars per photo. “I'm embarrassed when I think about it,” she says with a smile.

Two ways of working

• For product photography: packages of 5, 10 or 15 photos, because the setup is simpler and there is nothing to cook.
• For food photography: a quote for each project, with the number of photos set when the contract is signed.

If the contract covers five photos, she still delivers a gallery of about twenty images, so the client can choose the ones that best match their needs. No extra fees afterwards, and no prints or products to sell: it's simpler than wedding photography.

The photo belongs to the photographer

This is the point Fanette spends the most time explaining. When a brand commissions photos, it doesn't buy the images: it buys the right to use them, on certain media and for a defined period. If it wants to use them for longer or elsewhere, it comes back to the photographer, who grants it additional rights.

“When we take a photo, even if it's a product photo for a client, the photo belongs to us.”

Fanette Rickert

Many clients don't know this, but neither do many photographers, who sign away all their rights for next to nothing. For Fanette, educating beginners is also a way to protect the whole profession.

8. Do you need to know how to cook to be a food photographer?

Often, yes. When a client provides a recipe, Fanette is the one who does the cooking. A few examples:

• a flour brand that wants to see its product in a pie;
• a chef working on a cookbook who can't cook every dish during the shoot;
• food bloggers who no longer have time to photograph their own recipes;
• a meal delivery service: the dishes arrive frozen, taste good but aren't very photogenic, so she recreates the dish at home from the recipe.

Some food photographers go further and offer recipe development. Fanette, who isn't trained for it, doesn't.

Plating for the table vs. plating for the camera

With a chef, a conversation is a must before the shoot: a plate arranged to be served is not a plate arranged to be photographed. Does the chef want to see their dish exactly as it is, or a more styled version?

Food styling, a profession in its own right

Fanette does her own styling. But on big advertising campaigns, one or two food stylists prepare the dishes down to the last detail, and the photographer focuses on the lighting. The burgers in commercials, glued together and partly cooked so they hold their shape, are the most striking example. And what about having an artistic eye? For her, it can be learned, like everything else.

9. Coaching other photographers and starting over in France

In 2020, Fanette launched a group coaching program for about twenty food and product photographers. It doesn't teach how to take photos, but everything that “creatives don't know”:

• getting organized and setting up systems, processes that run without reinventing everything for each client;
• building a consistent price list;
• polishing the client experience, with documents that stand out.

The format evolved after a first round: teaching everything live meant too much information at once. The lessons are now pre-recorded, with workbooks and one call a week. She also invites other photographers, so her students don't think her method is the only one possible.

“There were a lot of people teaching how to take photos, but how to build your business, there was nobody.”

Fanette Rickert

This activity also gave her security for her plan to move back to France, scheduled for 2021, to Paris or the Nantes area: her coaching income allowed her to relocate without depending on new clients right away.

Episode recorded in early 2021: the plans and programs mentioned here reflect that period.

Mistakes to avoid when you start out as a food photographer

FAQ: how to become a food photographer