Yup Yup, That's me ! A cook...and a food stylist. Yes, I live in Paris, home of the Eiffel Tower and a rich food culture. Innumerable three star chefs, amazing markets of fresh seasonal produce and immigrants from all over the world, each adding their own story, their food culture to the mix.
Me too! I'm an immigrant ! Funny to think of myself that way but it's true. Paris has been my home for some twenty plus years.
My profession - "Food stylist" gets quite a bad rap. I guess I'm as guilty as anyone of wanting to make food look good uh...perfect! Some friends call that "food porn". But like anyone doing this job, as you gain confidence in your cooking, in your ingredients, in years of experience and in your photographer, your work should come pretty close to reality. The aim is to photograph real food not just food that looks real.
Food stylists, especially American food stylists have quite a reputation for fake ice cream, fake turkeys, fake everything! A really dated cliché. There is some truth to the fake stuff in food styling of say 15 years ago. Lights were hot and food had to stay beautiful and fresh looking for hours at a time while we fiddled with numerous polaroids and tweaked the lighting which came from all angles. With today's digital cameras, Adobe Photoshop, flash and soft daylight, this becomes unnecessary.
Years ago people wouldn't have accepted photographs taken with "daylight", a roasted turkey with puckered not taut skin, Ice cream melting...Today we not only recognize beauty in the "not perfect" or the "happy accident", we look for it !
I should also add that here in France, we food stylists are also our own prop stylists. This aspect of the job means that we source backgrounds, tableware, cookware and linens to suit each client. This is a huge job. Being your own prop stylist takes an immense amount of time and effort. It also means that you have a huge collection of objects related to food presentation. I do!
That said, I love this part of the job. Especially when it comes to working with chefs. Chefs have the techniques of cooking down pat. Of that there is no question! Visual presentation is often their weak link. With careful listening and observation while in a chef's world, I offer dialog, riffing with them on new visuals for their cooking. It's really important to respect and understand their vision.
The idea is to offer a chef , any client for that matter, visuals that reflect their world, their ambitions and their life experience.
I scour the world looking for potters, glass artists, woodworkers, antiquarians, metal workers, vintage tableware, contemporary tableware, traditional tableware elements, new ingredients, recipes from the world over...the list is really endless here. The days of a food stylist being a simple "home economist" are over !
Why not take a look at how we can incorporate our stories, our travels and yes, real life, into how we see and experience food ? I'm not the best photographer so you will have to bear with me as the majority of my posts will be with my own pix!
I do work with some of the best food photographers in the world so hopefully from time to time, I'll be giving you a window onto food photography and the teamwork involved.
Welcome to Cooking and Looking : Paris!
