The Sensitivity Required to Excel in Photography with Gus Filgate

Gus Filgate is a creative force behind BITE, working as a director, stills photographer, and content creator. Renowned for his talent, he consistently finds innovative ways to make his work irresistibly compelling, inspiring viewers to want whatever he's captured on film.

Recent clients include M&S Food, KFC, McDonalds, Ocado and Farrow & Ball to name a very small few.

LBB> Gus, you are one of the greats when it comes to food direction. Can you tell us how you started out?

Gus> Long before I got interested in filming food, I fell in love with photography. It happened when I was bunking off lessons at school by hiding in the school darkroom.

I discovered the magic of seeing black-and-white images appear out of thin air onto the paper in developing liquid.

With every photo it was a gamble and a surprise. Would it turn out to be a beauty? And I have spent my whole working life a slave to that moment; trying to capture images that will surprise and delight when they first appear like magic in the developing tray. I found food as my subject much later while studying photography.

You can approach it with the same technical sensibilities as you might with still-life photography. Considered. Thoughtful. Aesthetically composed. Yet the organic nature of the subject means it is evasive and tricky, like portraiture. It loses patience and it wilts, so to capture a really great moment you must also be quick.

LBB> Do you think shooting food is a particular skill to do well and how so?

Gus> I do. But it's a niche. We all have the tools and the tech to make great images these days.

All the skills that were previously the dominion of the specialists have been democratised by the smart tech that sits in our pockets. And because food is such a popular and forgiving subject we are all busy snapping our dinners.

But on the other hand (assuming that clients still want their product photographed) this just pushes the bar higher. To be skilled shooting food I think you need to have a sensitivity and love for the subject (which we kinda all do), but hopefully a wild imagination too for ideas, novelty and change.

One thing the tech can’t do for us yet is the lighting, which is perhaps the greatest skill we can bring to the table. Whether it’s striking sunshine or soft north light, food loves to be lit with love.

Generally, it hates front light and it hates top light, but loves to be bathed in anything else.

LBB> Was shooting food an obsession straight away or something that has evolved over the years?

Gus> A bit of both. One of the first things I loved about shooting food is that it doesn’t talk back. But then as I began to make a bit of a career out of it (shooting recipe books and magazine features) I fell in love with the ever evolving nature of making images of food. It's only an obsession inasmuch as I don’t think I can ever stop.

LBB> Can you share some of your technical secrets with us?

Gus> That's tricky. Not because I am secretive, but because we no longer do any of the stuff like lip-glossing on sausages or ice cream made of mashed potato. I’m not sure there are any secrets left.

One thing that people perhaps don’t often think about is what can be involved if you want to film something in huge screen-filling, massive-close-up detail.

Just following the action with the camera in your hands may no longer cut it. Like, if you wanted to follow the journey a prawn takes as it is lifted from a prawn cocktail, you may no longer be able to hold the fork in your hand either.

Too shaky. Too inaccurate. Too difficult to follow focus.

So you might have to get inventive with rigs that perform the actions for you and a robotised camera to follow that action. I love that stuff.

LBB> Can you give any examples of work where that obsession really came to the fore and elevated the final production? Can you tell us about it and share links if possible?

Gus> I get pretty obsessive about almost every project. But a fairly recent one was a clip I made (just for the fun of it) to celebrate the utter fabulousness of PARASOL MUSHROOMS.

The obsession part is because I made a (ply-wood) camera rig (the DEATH STAR) which exists just to be able to move a camera 360 degrees around a very small subject at any angle I want. Like a satellite going around the world I guess.

I’ve never come across anything that’ll let you do that, so I wanted to try. Without a client, I couldn’t afford any fix-it-in-post moments so it all had to be 100% in-camera, the way I like it!

Other elements that hopefully make the film feel different is a very graphic lighting-style, coupled with a filthy-dirty breakcore track.

What ChatGPT says is: extreme energy, chaotic structure, and aggressive manipulation of breakbeats in which artists chop, glitch, pitch-shift, and layer drum samples into intensely complex, fast, and unpredictable rhythms. There you go!

I also made a BTS film out of this project (below) where you can see the rig in action if you’re interested.

LBB> For anyone just getting into your field, what advice would you share to help them get their head around this particular thing?

Gus> I guess I would say don’t get too seduced by the attractions that AI offers. Go the long way round, there WILL be a backlash!