Hiring a Food Photographer with Christina Branco of Starving Artist Food Photography
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Christina Branco grew up baking in the kitchen, watching Martha Stewart, and absorbing the visual language of food long before she made it her career. After years in graphic design, she followed her passion and went all in on food photography. Today she runs Starving Artist Food Photography, working with restaurants, CPG brands, and food founders to create images that make products instantly recognizable.
Most recently, Christina served as the photographer for the Food Business Bootcamp® cohort, working with multiple founders to capture the images they need to go to market.
In this conversation, Christina breaks down her entire process from the first client conversation to the final image, and shares the one question that changes everything.
Subscribe to the Food Means Business Podcast with Hudson Kitchen founder Djenaba Johnson-Jones to hear the personal stories and "secret ingredients" of abandoning your day job and starting a CPG food business.
Tune in to hear…
When food founders should invest in photography and why timing matters more than you think
How Christina walks a new client from first conversation to final image
How props and styling guide the viewer's eye and keep them engaged
The most common challenge she sees when working with early-stage food founder
The one question every founder should ask before hiring a photographer
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About Christina Branco
Christina Branco is a New Jersey-based food photographer who believes great food photography tells a story. Her work is rooted in her background in graphic design and social media management, which means every image she creates is as strategic as it is beautiful. She helps food brands create photography that connects with their audience and works across every platform and format.
Connect with Ryan and Morty's Brands:
Visit the Starving Artist Food Photography website
Follow Starving Artist Food Photography on Instagram
Stay Connected with Djenaba Johnson-Jones:
Visit Hudson Kitchen
Follow Hudson Kitchen on Instagram
Connect with Djenaba on LinkedIn
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Djenaba Johnson-Jones (00:36)
Today I have with me Christina Branco, founder of Starving Artist Food Photography. Hi Christina. I'm good, how are you? Great,
Christina (00:42)
How are you today? Doing well.
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (00:47)
so we've known each other for I think quite some time. I think it's been probably about six years or maybe longer. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Christina (00:54)
Yeah, I think so. We both launched our businesses, I think, about the same time.
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (00:58)
yeah, yeah.
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (00:58)
Yeah, so we most recently worked together on our food business boot camp program. You served as a photographer for our cohort. So I do want to jump into that. But before we do that, can you just give us a little bit background about you, how you got started in food photography, and about your business?
Christina (01:16)
Sure, so yeah, I've been doing food photography solidly for I guess probably about six, seven years now is when I really decided to focus strictly on food. Before then I was doing a lot of graphic design and I was doing retouching and photo printing and I was in that kind of that part of the industry. And then I decided to focus on my passion, which is food. And I kind of grew up just, you know, baking in the kitchen and...
Christina (01:43)
watching Martha Stewart and always just kind of started to hone in on like all the visual images that went into that. And it kind of just started as a hobby and it just became something that I really just dove into and it's been it's been fun. It's a fun journey. Food is a very interesting industry to be in.
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (01:59)
It is for sure. It's a very fun industry to be in as well. So you work a lot obviously with food founders. So I wanted to talk about when is the best time for folks to invest in food.
Christina (02:14)
say as soon as they're ready to start marketing, if your food is ready to bring to the public then it's time to start thinking about photos. We're in a very visual world right now. Everybody is looking at you on social media, they're googling you, they want to see your website, and if you don't have those strong images they're going to move on to the next person. It's just that simple. If you're not grabbing their attention in about
Christina (02:41)
10 seconds, they've already scrolled on to something else.
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (02:44)
It is so
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (02:45)
true. So when you're working with a client, can you kind of walk through the process after somebody engages you, contracts are signed and things are moving forward. What are the steps that you take to kind of work with them to get them to the final product?
Christina (02:57)
Sure, so my goal is always to kind of make it as painless and straightforward as possible. I know everybody's busy, they have a lot to do, and they don't want to have to go through 10,000 emails to make this happen. So we'll usually have a quick discussion on what their brand is and what their goal is with their images and how we can work together to make that happen. So first we discuss the specifics of their product, and then I need to know who is using it and how they'll be using it.
Christina (03:25)
because I work with all different types of brands. Sometimes it's restaurants, sometimes it's for packaging, sometimes it's for something that's gonna be on a POS system. Like it's all over the place. So I really need to know how they wanna use these images and then who is going to be viewing these images. Sometimes they're in house purposes, sometimes they're for social media and other things. So I need to know the specifics in order to get into that. And then we would discuss our concepts.
Christina (03:49)
how we need to photograph this. Do we need models? Do we need studio space? Do we need to shoot on location? Can you mail me the product? There's a lot that goes into just the logistics of where we're going to shoot. And then we have to decide on how it looks. Is there a vibe light and bright, dark and moody? Do they have a colorful palette? Do they have inspiration they've been eyeing up? I like to see what their competitor is doing and then see how we can make it fresh and put our own take on it and make it really personal. My goal is to always make it so that when somebody is looking at
Christina (04:18)
images for a brand, it's instantly recognizable as a them. You know, if they're seeing the food, I want them to know that, this is that cafe that I love, or hey, this is that, you know, that pasta sauce that is really delicious. And I just, they know right away who it is. So that's my goal is to always keep it really clear whose product it is. I don't want it to ever feel generic.
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (04:40)
And how do you think about like styling and props? Things that like the regular person like me doesn't think about there's a lot of detail that goes into that. So can you talk a little bit about that?
Christina (04:48)
is, I mean, again, a lot of it comes down to who their target audience is, who is going to be looking at these images, and then it's kind of their overall vibe. Are they a classic food? Are they, again, more like eclectic and fun? but the the propping is always there at the end to support the product. So sometimes less is more. It's really there to support the product and tell that story. And I use the props to guide the viewer through the image.
Christina (05:15)
So you may start at something, but you're always gonna end up honing in on the product and that's your goal. You want to keep the viewer's eye moving through the image so that they're engaged longer. If you're going to have a scene with a bowl of pasta, if you just have the pasta in the center, you're like, hey, that's great, it looks delicious. But if you have
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (05:32)
Yeah.
Christina (05:33)
a drink in the background and you have a couple of little props and things to, and maybe some seasonings and other things around it, it's going to draw your eye through the image a little bit longer and make you ponder it just that little bit.
Christina (05:45)
which is then going to stop people for that extra second that you might need on social media to get that like and hopefully click on a follow through.
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (05:53)
So when you worked with our boot camp cohort, was for a half day shoot. I'm just wondering what kind of, you worked with all of our cohort members, what was the challenges or some common themes that they would have faced during that time?
Christina (06:08)
So I would
Christina (06:08)
say the biggest thing is that everybody knew how their food was going to be enjoyed and who would enjoy it. But then there was a lot of thought on the supporting foods. Like, you know, if it was a topping, was like, here's all the different things we can use as a topping. But then I had to hone in and go, okay, well, we're selling the topping, not the food. So we need to use those serving suggestions as a...
Christina (06:36)
secondary element in our image. the topping always needs to be what you are focusing on. So that definitely poses a challenge, especially when I'm working quickly, because I had multiple clients in such a short period of time with various setups and different lighting and everybody had their own vibe and their own aesthetic and things that they wanted to do. in that short timeframe, I had to go, okay, so as a new viewer of your product,
Christina (07:04)
what grabs me right away? And then how does this look delicious? And then how do I emphasize that? So that's definitely, you what you have to kind of step away from your product and not be too personal in how it's enjoyed, but how you can make it stand out amongst the things you're going to be enjoying it with. So that was definitely, I would say the biggest challenge.
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (07:28)
So if someone was gonna hire a photographer like you to photograph their product, what questions should they be asking?
Christina (07:34)
So to me, the first question that I was sitting in to ask themselves is how do you want to use the images? What do the images need to be doing for you? Because they should always be working for you. You know, I've shot products and then I don't see those images. I don't know where they went. I shot them, I delivered them. Everybody
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (07:50)
Yeah.
Christina (07:52)
said they're great. And then I don't know where they went because I don't see them. And so it's really important that you have a plan of how you're going to follow through with those images once you get them because
Christina (08:03)
I believe everybody needs the images, but they need to be put to use. They have to be on, if you're going to put them on social media, if you're going to be using them for packaging, for menus, for, you know, all of it, or even just for flyers or business cards or all, there's so many different ways that you can be using these images. So when I shoot, I like to ask them what their plan is so that I can work accordingly. Because if they're going to be working with a graphic artist, I need to plan in my shots.
Christina (08:30)
negative space where text might be going or where it might be have to be cropped to fit into a brochure. So to me that's the biggest question is always how do you want to use these pictures? And if they don't know then I will kind of hold their hand and walk them through the various ways they might need images and we might keep them a little more organic so they can work for various things.
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (08:52)
So I'm gonna switch gears a little bit here and I wanted to find out what are you celebrating in the Hudson kitchen? ring a bell when we're celebrating something and so we'd love to hear from you.
Christina (09:02)
Well, I've been celebrating this this quarter.
Christina (09:05)
I've gotten a lot of new clients and they've kind of all happened very organically and it's been a very exciting time for me and my business that I've had a lot of new new places to work with and it's been great.
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (09:17)
So thank you for being here. Let everyone know where they can find you.
Christina (09:21)
Okay, you can find me on my website at starvingartistfoodphotography.com or on Instagram at Starving Artist Food Photography.
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (09:29)
All right, thank you.
Christina (09:31)
Thank you.