To create images of food I needed some inspiration about how interesting images of food are actually made which meant that I had to keep researching. This time, again, I was referred to people I should check out. The names were two and the books these people created did captivate my attention and gave me food for thought when it came to contemporary food photography (pun intended).
The first one was the book Feast for the Eyes The Story of Food in Photography by Susan Bright. It is a collection of some amazing and really creative attempts to get out of the box and depict food in something other than just a white plate and a tabletop. The book is mostly about the history of contemporary food photography and features a lot of artists with their iconic and thought-provoking images.
As it is with any collection, some images 'speak' more than others so I went for the more conventional styled images of the lot. I had to work with screenshots of the book's pages since it is unavailable online and it would take more than a month to reach Bulgaria (if someone doesn't steal it in the process) so there was no point in ordering it at this stage.
Irving Penn's images (the image below - fig.1) were the first one that caught my eye exactly because they had something distinct that my images of food lacked - a signature style. He deconstructs the usual food and shows it in a quite unimaginable way. The first image that caught my eye was the one on the left - the deconstructed image of a salad with all its ingredients laid side by side but without mixing them into the dish we usually consume. This technique is really catchy so I totally intend to try it out on some of the Bulgarian dishes, just to see what happens.
When I had to research his work, it turned out that I am already familiar with it, even though I had no idea about that (and I by no means consider myself an expert in contemporary photography artists). There is something about Penn's style that definitely makes me look twice and think what is actually on the image.
The depiction of the classic combination of soft cheese and pears is not only novel as a kind of presentation but also looks quite tasty. I love his uncluttered presentation that draws the viewer's attention to the food in the picture and the simple and unornamented cutlery that does not look set up. After all, in real life most people use simple cutlery without any ornaments on it and eat in plain white plates and bowls.
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| Fig 1 - Irving Penn's images in the Book: Salad ingredients, New York, 1987 Ripe Cheese, New York, 1991 |
Some of his images even show food as something totally different from what we are used to seeing - like this deconstruction of French cuisine (fig. 2 below) - with its signature ingredients - frog legs, snails and I don't really know what the rest is, maybe an oyster (but that's something I've never seen in real life so it's just a guess). French cuisine is considered refined and the top of the top - when I look at this picture, however, I see the animals behind the dishes and it is a bit (in the case with this particular image - even a lot) gross.
Without the whole flavour of refinement and the aura of French gourmet, these ingredients look like animals normal people would never think of eating (unless there is a famine).
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| Fig 2 - Irving Penn - “Eat This!,” Vogue, May 1989 |
When it comes to deconstruction, Penn's work is probably one of the most interesting to see since it had been created to intimidate and attract the eye, yet provoke some reflection on the things people saw. Working for Vogue, maybe that was his way of creating something novel out of a mundane and highly exploited subject (such as food). I must admit, it definitely works and inspires.
As far as I know, no one in Bulgaria has tried out his approach to things and many of the Bulgarian dishes can be broken down to some basic ingredients that could be photographed in a similar manner, at least for the sake of showing what exactly goes into the dish. The plain white background is a bit dull to my taste but it can easily be changed into something else.
Penn inspires me to experiment - if he could do this back in the 1970s, I think I can do something too in the 21st century. However, he was not the only one that I was referred to.
The book Real Food by Martin Parr was also pointed out to me as showing the very opposite trend. While Parr tends to totally take food out of context - in many of his images he even refuses to present it cooked, Parr did the total opposite and entrench food within its cultural, historical and human context, showing meals just after someone has had a bite or at street stalls across the world. It is indeed 'real' food - not the polished compositions of food stylists or the detached and almost laboratory images Penn created for Vogue but a real-life bite that the viewer would like to have.
Some of his images even have some documentary qualities - capturing candid moments (fig. 3 and fig.4 below). This type of approach - showing the unaltered reality of food and food consumption - is no doubt a good idea as many of Parr's images are definitely mouth-watering as the viewer just feels into that eater's place and can almost smell the delicious flavours.
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| Fig. 3 - Martin Parr - GB. Scotland. Largs. Nardini's Cafe. 1999. |
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| Fig. 4 - Martin Parr - GB. England. Cambridge. 2005. |
Some images, like the one above, are quite funny and naturalistic but they do attract attention too. However, Parr's style is maybe too documentary and realistic for my taste. As much as I would like to go out in the streets and photograph people eating, that would be much more related to the human element of food consumption than to the food itself. Most of his images have that 'human element' - either a hand in the frame, or the food has already been eaten/ bitten into.
I would like to focus much more on the recipes than on humans that eat them for the time being since I aim at presenting the common cuisine of the Balkans to people who have no idea (or very little idea) of what I have in mind, whereas Penn and Parr worked with much more familiar ingredients and recipes.
Hence in my WIP, I need to find a balance between the documentary, the deconstructed and the highly styled and well-composed still life cook bookshots.
Sources
https://www.pushinsky.com/store/just-not-kosher/
https://aperture.org/shop/feast-for-the-eyes/
https://www.vogue.com/slideshow/irving-penn-archive-food-photos
https://atelierdyakova.com/The-Story-of-Food#.W2mnPr8VTIU
http://uk.phaidon.com/store/photography/real-food-9780714871035/
https://pro.magnumphotos.com/Package/2K1HRG6S7S7S
List of figures:
Figure 1 – Penn, Irving - published in Feast for the Eyes The Story of Food in Photography by Susan Bright
Salad ingredients, New York, 1987
Ripe Cheese, New York, 1991
Available at: https://atelierdyakova.com/The-Story-of-Food#.W2mnPr8VTIU
[accessed 08 August 2018]
Figure 2 – Penn, Irving - “Eat This!,” Vogue, May 1989
Available at: https://www.vogue.com/slideshow/irving-penn-archive-food-photos
[accessed 08 August 2018]
Figure 3 – Parr, Martin - GB. Scotland. Largs. Nardini's Cafe. 1999.
Available at: https://pro.magnumphotos.com/Package/2K1HRG6S7S7S
[accessed 08 August 2018]
Figure 4 – Parr, Martin - GB. England. Cambridge. 2005.
Available at: https://pro.magnumphotos.com/Package/2K1HRG6S7S7S
[accessed 08 August 2018]
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