Today we’d like to introduce you to Loren Wood.
Hi Loren, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
After graduating culinary school in 2002, I started working at a James Beard award-winning restaurant in Birmingham, AL. I focused on pastries and desserts but also enjoyed working saute and garde manager. The chef I was working with in 2006 was working on his first cookbook. I soon learned I had a passion for not only making delicious food but also making it gorgeous for photography. Soon after I began working for a national publishing company conceptualizing, developing recipes, writing and editing recipes and copy, and styling food for photography. After ten years there, I set my sights on other publishing companies to work on other titles, bigger clients, and the advertising world. Since 2015 I have been a freelance food stylist. It was a long hard road. Thanks to amazing colleagues, prop stylists, photographers, and art directors, I am constantly learning. Food styling piques the interest of most everyone who inquires about my job.
Most everyone thinks it’s all about fake food when in truth, we try to keep the integrity of the food and hardly ever use anything fake. I like to think we are the “hair and makeup” for the food. We make it look “perfectly imperfect” and also extend the life of the star to withstand light and time. It takes a certain skill set and personality type to achieve success in this industry. First and foremost, you must know how to cook almost everything and cook it well. Knowing food chemistry and how food reacts is another important factor. Some of what we do is trial and error, some is handed down from those who paved the road before us, some from research, and then some of it is earned through years of knowledge, blood, sweat, and tears.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
The hardest thing about being a freelance food stylist is the flow of work. It is said that it’s either feast or famine, and that could not be more true. You are either too busy and spread too thin or hoping the phone will ring. There is a reason the statement “comparison is the thief of joy” exists. It can be hard not to compare yourself to your colleagues, who are also your competition. What clients they have, if they are always staying busy, why them and not you, all those things can weigh you down if you let them. It is important to just do your best, let your work and your work ethic speak for itself, and keep pounding the pavement by promoting yourself. There is plenty of work to go around. And you are only as good as your last job. So, treat every job as it were your last!
Navigating through your own worth is a slippery slope. What should your day rate be? Too high and no one will call you, too low and you shoot yourself in the foot by setting that bar low. What does other stylists get paid? Are you getting that same rate for the same job? Time is money. It took me a lot of long hours, extra work, and learning the hard way to figure that one out.
It can take a while to build a steady clientele. Each job brings an opportunity to meet new people. Those people share your name, your work, and before you know it, you gain more clients. It didn’t happen overnight, but it did happen.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I am a freelance food stylist and recipe developer. I create the food you see on menu boards, ads, billboards, commercials, national branded social media posts, and magazines. Although my career requires that I style anything the job requires, I prefer styling desserts, beverages, and certain food items such as burritos, salads, sandwiches, burgers, and pizzas. It is my job to make sure the food not only looks fresh, delicious, and near perfect (or what we like to call “perfectly imperfect”) but also can withstand the lengthy time on set, the heat of the lights, the manipulation of the hands of the talent, and many times, crazy camera angles or treatments.
It’s like taking the skill set of Martha Stewart, MacGyver, Alton Brown, and Houdini and creating a new genre of careers. I may be brushing a turkey with marmite and stuffing a can in its cavity, making my own prop ice out of silicone rubber, or rolling burritos filled with masa. On my most recent project, myself and my assistant are making ice cream cones that can withstand pendant lights and also testing different marshmallows (homemade vs. store-bought brands and sizes) to see which ones toast better and what to toast with and what method to use to toast them.
Many food stylists have backgrounds in makeup, fashion, or art. It takes a knowledge of food, cooking, and food chemistry, composition and set/plate design combined with creativity, ingenuity, and patience. I learn something new on every photoshoot or production set I am a part of.
I am most proud of seeing my work on a super bowl commercial, a billboard while traveling with my family, and on the pages of national magazines. It is such a privilege to work with many other amazing creative professionals. I love that in my industry, we have a tight-knit group of women and men whom support one another even amidst the competition that exists. We share information, tips, work experience and refer one another.
So maybe we end on discussing what matters most to you and why?
First and foremost, what matters more to me than anything in this world are my two boys. I decided to be a freelance contract laborer to have more time for them. Sure, for some jobs I work out of town for several days on end, but I am also allowed to be home with them for weeks at a time. It gives me the freedom to choose when I work. If they need me, that comes before a job. You only live once and you don’t get any do-overs. I don’t think anyone ever looked back over their life and wished they would have worked more. Most of us would wish we would have given the gift of time to those we love. Time in the form of our attention. And my boys are worthy of my attention more than anything or anyone else.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.lorenbladornwood.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/lorenwood.foodstyling
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/lorenwoodfoodstyling
Image Credits
Stephen DeVries (photographer) Ande Fanning (prop stylist) Cait Bensel (photographer) Mindi Shapiro (prop stylist) Claire Spollen (prop stylist) Kamin Williams (photographer)
