Cellphone cameras and social media have made amateur food photographers of us all. In any high-end restaurant on any given night, you’ll see diners snapping pics of their plates.
Of course, the quality of those images varies. Try as we might, most of us don’t have the skills or know-how to capture photos as drool-worthy as a spread in Bon Appetit. Many professional photographers don’t, either, and rely on food stylists like Skyler Myers.
A freelance food stylist based out of Des Moines, Myers is quick to clarify that she is not a photographer. Rather, a food stylist is an artist hired to make edible products look their very best for ads, magazines and cookbooks.
“I have a background in fine art. I studied it in college, and I work in a lot of mediums: textiles, resin, fiber. With food styling, the food is the medium,” she said.
Myers works out of Primary Image, a local studio that specializes in food photography. Though they offer a helpful in-studio kitchen, many of Myers’ jobs take her on location.
“I have a kit that I take to every shoot; every food stylist has one,” she explained. “Mine has tweezers, Q-tips, toothpicks, skewers, pins, Windex, paint brushes and cooking spray. That’s a stylist trick — you can spray Pam on anything to make it shiny. And if I’m going to a shoot onsite, I’ll bring an induction burner, all the pans and knives I’ll need, and maybe chafing dishes.”
Her clientele is about 75 percent commercial: businesses like grocery stores and restaurants. Kum & Go and Pancheros, for example, are two of her highest-profile commercial clients. The remaining 25 percent is editorial work for cookbooks or magazines such as Fine Cooking Magazine and Better Homes & Gardens.
Every project generally starts the same. “I’m given recipes, I buy the ingredients and I actually cook every dish that is going to be photographed. And afterward, we get to eat it all,” Myers said.
“It’s all real food that can be eaten. It has to be or it’s false advertising. And we don’t use chemicals to make it last for a long time or add anything that would make the food inedible. When the shoots are done, we all get to take home leftover food and groceries.”
These shoots can often push 12 hours, most every minute coordinated by the food stylist.
“When I’m styling a commercial shoot, it’s more structured because you’re selling a specific product or meal and you want to make sure that’s the star of the shot,” she said. “If the product is ranch dressing, for example, you would see a lot of that dressing very prominently dripping off a salad or a burger so it’s the main focus. But in an editorial shoot, we take a looser, more natural approach to the styling. We want you to be able to imagine making those recipes yourself. In that scenario, the ranch would be mixed into the salad because that’s how people actually use it.”
Typically, she is given six to 10 recipes to work with. Shoot preparation includes shopping for ingredients and figuring out the order in which the food should be cooked.
“Deciding the recipe order is really important because obviously some things can sit longer than others. So I might make a casserole early in the day that won’t be photographed for a few hours, but something like ice cream has to be photographed immediately.”
Speaking of ice cream — “It’s so hard to work with,” Myers said. “You can’t shoot it in heat or humidity. If we’re doing ice cream, sometimes the studio will be so cold that people are wrapped up in blankets.”
Cheese is another challenging subject.
“I hate cheese pulls. They’re so time sensitive. You know that classic image of a slice of pizza with the melty cheese dripping off? That is so difficult to get right. Sometimes you just have to make a bunch of pizzas and do it over and over until you get the right shot. Cheese pulls are so hard that there are stylists who specialize in only that.”
Conversely, desserts, while also difficult, are Myers’ favorite subject. “They’re so pretty; a pie is always beautiful, you know? And they’re durable, they hold up well. It’s also a fun challenge for me, because I don’t have as much experience with desserts.”
Her art chops come in handy. “I’m a weaver and I also do embroidery; I have a very detail-oriented approach, so I love fiddly tasks like hand-decorating cookies.”
A Dallas Center native, Myers studied art and literature at Kirkwood Community College and the University of Iowa. She spent seven years living in Portland, Oregon, before returning to Iowa and finishing her education at Grandview University in Des Moines. After college, she faced that great dilemma many creative people do: choosing a career that would utilize her skills.
During school, she’d planned on becoming a teacher, but later realized that wasn’t the right fit. She found her current career by happenstance.
“I didn’t take a direct route into food styling. I love to cook, but I didn’t go to culinary school or work in kitchens,” she said. “I found out about food styling through my best friend Annie. Her father is a photographer, and she was working with him as a food stylist. She started styling shoots for other photographers and eventually became a food stylist for [what was then called] Meredith. Then she hired me to be her assistant, and that’s how I started learning.”
Myers spent five years working as an assistant and then became a food stylist at a commercial studio. “That job really allowed me to grow and see how much more I had to learn. I had mentorship, I was able to experiment and fail and it helped me find my voice as a food stylist.”
In 2020, after five years at the studio, Skyler made another transition — this time to working for herself. “The pandemic was such an upheaval, and I was ready for a change.
“When I decided to go freelance, my best friend and my husband were so supportive. They both told me I was ready and I could do it. But even with so much experience under my belt, I had an attack of impostor syndrome when I booked my first freelance job. They sent over the recipes and they were all unfamiliar to me. I called my best friend crying, convinced I couldn’t do it. She came over and helped me test the recipes and prepare for the shoot, and I nailed it.”
Myers and this friend, Annie Peterson, have gone on to develop a food blog called Forks in Orbit.
“She has an urban farm here in Des Moines,” Myers said. “We take things from the farm and develop recipes and cook them.”
Myers loves cooking in her free time, especially with her husband, though their approach is slightly different: “I don’t really use recipes at home.”
She also enjoys sewing her own clothes, as she has since high school, and craft earrings out of resin. Honestly, it all begs the question of what exactly she doesn’t do.
If you ask her, Myers would say she doesn’t do anything alone.
“I’m always working with a photographer, of course, but there’s also often a prop stylist choosing the dishes that food will be plated on and any other items that will be in the photos. There might be an art director who’s setting up the shot and making sure the lighting is right and that the images match the tone of the story. And I work with two assistants who do everything from washing dishes and making sure we have all the utensils we’ll need for plating to helping to cook all the food,” she explained. “Every shoot is a team effort.”
If you want to keep up with what Skyler Myers is doing and making, you can find her food styling at skylermyersfoodstyling.com and @skyler_myers_foodstyling on Instagram. She posts her jewelry and weaving work on another account, @sky_made_that, and her food writing and recipes on forksinorbit.com.
Basic food styling tips from Skyler Myers
- Natural light always makes food look good. Try to place your food near a window or even take it outside.
- Check the angle of the photo. Most people photograph food from above, but you lose a lot of height and depth that way. Try getting lower — it makes food look taller and gives it more dimension.
- Don’t underestimate the impact of garnish. A sprinkle of herbs or fresh-ground pepper can really make an image pop.
- Don’t over-style the shot or try to make it too perfect.
This article was originally published in Little Village’s 2024 Bread & Butter special issue.
