Seasonal styling: the art of autumnal food photography 

For our creative team, autumn’s arrival signals a shift from the bright, fresh styling of summer salads to the moody, rustic appeal of hearty stews and warming soups. We sat down with food stylists, Joe Wright and Emma Whitehead, to explore how they bring the season to life.

What is it about autumn that you love so much?

Joe: Autumn is like the chef’s larder of seasons – you have an abundance of ingredients, which is great from a styling perspective. You’re moving from summer’s fresh salads and alfresco dining to stews, soups, casseroles – that comforting style of food. That’s my kind of cooking to be honest!

Emma: The aesthetic changes completely too. We move to moodier lighting and much cosier setups.

You mentioned working with seasonal ingredients, but don’t you often have to work ahead of the seasons?

Joe: Absolutely. And that can be tricky because you might need ingredients when they’re completely out of season and don’t look their best.

Emma: Strawberries are a good example. In winter, the green leaves are bushier and they’re not as easy to shoot because they don’t look like the perfect, juicy, ripe strawberry you imagine.

How do you deal with that?

Joe: You just have to adapt. If we need strawberries in January, we’ll buy loads of punnets and hope to find two or three perfect ones. It’s a quantity game – you buy in bulk to get the quality you need. But, again, that’s why we love autumn. There are loads of great ingredients available!

How do you style hearty autumnal dishes to look delicious?

Joe: The way you eat our food is with your eyes, so making it look delicious is the most important thing for us. And that can be difficult when we’re making dishes that might sit on set for three, four, even five hours! But there are ways to do it, even down to cooking things differently than you’d expect. Take a chicken casserole, for example. Instead of cooking it as a stew, we might cook the carrots separately, brown the chicken in a pan first because we want to highlight those different textures and preserve the colours and vibrancy.

Emma: We also undercook a lot of things. If you overcook green vegetables, they go brown and limp. So, we’ll undercook where needed, then cool everything down so it’s not just sitting there steaming on set.

Joe: People think autumn food has to look beige, but there’s real beauty in those richer tones – the oranges, the purples, the caramelisation. I actually prefer that to just relying on bright greens to make something look eye-catching.

Do you use any tricks to make things look tastier?

Joe: Emma and I don’t really tamper with things too much. We like to make sure that what’s meant to be in that product is in that product – no trickery, no weird substitutes to make it last longer. We only use the fresh ingredients we’re allowed to use. I find it’s often better to simplify things. Some stylists try to use too many tricks to make something look “perfect” and they end up making it look fake. They’re doing the exact thing they’re trying not to do.

Emma: It’s not just on us either. We work as a team. How the photographer lights our food – and the angle they shoot from – influence how we style it and how everything looks when it comes together.

Joe: Exactly. And the props are just as important as the food in telling the story you’re trying to tell. For something autumnal, you probably wouldn’t place a hearty dish on clean white marble, for example. You want rustic oak surfaces, linen tea towels, earthenware bowls. Everything needs to feel in keeping with the season.

Can you give us an example of autumn styling in action?

Emma: We recently worked on a selection of soups for Co-op’s ‘Irresistible’ range and there was a gorgeous butternut squash and sage soup. It’s a perfect example. Beautiful lighting with a very autumnal feel. It’s not specifically marketed as seasonal, but if you’re shopping in-store during this time of year, the aesthetic will pull you in. There’s a gorgeous macro shot of raw squash and sage that just screams autumn.

Finally, if you could choose your dream autumn dish to style, what would it be?

Emma: A beef bourguignon. I think it’s quite nostalgic and perfectly captures that autumn feeling.

Joe: It would be something like a proper pie for me.

Emma: We could do a beef bourguignon pie!

Joe: Now there’s an idea!

Thanks, Emma and Joe. We look forward to seeing your beef bourguignon pie on Instagram soon!

Ready to bring your seasonal products to life? Our team of food stylists and photographers know how to make your food look irresistible all year round. Email us at hello@equator-photography.com to discuss your next project today.