When Brian Preston-Campbell reflects on his work, he sometimes thinks of the Hamburger scene in Michael Douglas’ film To fall. The anti-hero of the film, a besieged man on an armed outburst, has just won a quick restaurant after receiving bad service. When he finally gets his double Whamyburger, he looks at him with sadness.
“Look at this,” he orders the manager, pointing to the beautiful photo of the burger on the screen behind the register. “It’s dodue, it’s juicy, he is three inches thick. Now look at this sorry, miserable and crushed thing. Can anyone tell me what’s wrong with this photo?”
This scene, says Preston-Campbell, 41, describes “what many people think of what I do in life”. As a professional food stylist, it is the work of Preston -Campbell to make food that seems – and often – too good to be true. But if the hero happy of trigger To fall had considered the time and the skills that had entered this photo of Hamburger, he could have felt reluctant respect for the craftsmen behind. Hamburger to photograph is much more difficult than doing one to eat.
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(More than Narratively:: You were served)
Preston-Campbell described the tips behind the manufacture of pancakes worthy of Glamor. First of all, he said, fry the hamburger just enough to brown outside, leaving the rare meat and the non-shrunk cake. Then erase it on paper towels and pinch yourself on a mixture of caramel color and transparent pastry piping gel which gives the hamburger a more loaded appearance. (Yes, you need non -speed products to make it appear “more busy”.) Follow this with burned grill brands with a hot skewer or a lighter of electric electric. Repeat six or seven times and choose the best (the “hero”, as food stylists call) while your assistant makes bags of breads. Starting with the best bread, build the hamburger from bottom to top, fixing the fixings according to the specific “construction order” of the customer. Build everything forward, so that all the elements can be visible in a single stroke. If there is cheese, you may want to melt it by distributing the pin-meeting, which decomposes it chemically without the browning too much. Apply a little fixed to stick the lettuce on the bun or hamburger below, and fix the tomato and onion towers in place with toothpicks. If you need it, you can dig the upper bun so that it is flatter on the products. Put the condiments last, using a plastic syringe without needle. If you have done your job carefully and the photographer is talented, you will end up with a completely non -edible hamburger – but a suitable image to sell burgers per million.
Preston-Campbell has built his share of burgers, but these days, he generally works on editorial filming, where he can be more creative and food is less manipulated-sometimes even edible. His evolutionary career reflects the quiet revolution which takes place in the food style profession itself. Traditionally, food photographs in magazines have transmitted an inaccessible feeling of perfection. Photos in Journal for the house for the ladies In the 1950s – the Boyardee Ravioli chief served in a beautiful copper urn; JELL-O dishes retouched in colors of skull-crown-with luxury deviations from roasted duck and cakes on several levels Gourmet Or Enjoy your food 30 years later, stylists and photographers aimed to create images that had the majestic quality of the paintings of a still life.
Although food stylists were almost always trained, their work at that time was more like the construction of a plane model. Food style for photographersA practical book that details conventional methods includes a list of recommended equipment that does several pages. “My favorite pinching”, writes the author, “come from Electron Microscopy Sciences, style 24, part n ° 72880-DS, which has a right end.” Deborah Mintcheff, who worked as a food stylist in the 80s and 90s, remembers that to prepare a bowl of Cornflakes, she could not use milk, because she made the cereal soggy and non -photographic. Instead, Mintcheff would built a vegetable shortening base inside the cereal bowl, tweeze in the flakes one at a time (each having been selected by an assistant), then used a veterinary syringe to inject wild cream oil, a white lotion designed like a hair slick for men, between each flocon. Likewise, a plate of spaghetti would be built at a bit at a time, and a cake would contain reinforcements in cardboard and petroleum jelly. Mintcheff remembers dragging around a 50 -pound toolbox (“the largest fishing kit that I could find”) to his jobs.
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(More than Narratively:: The future of agriculture)
But things have changed in the past 20 years. Perfection by bombardment is now reserved for fast food advertisements, and magazine shoots now have a more naturalistic look.
The food on the photo has gone from a symbol of status to an object of immediate desire – from something you want to show to something you want to eat this moment (“food porn”, as legions of food bloggers call it with Photo -Hauteux). Exactly when it happened is not clear, but most people on the ground agree that it started in the early 90s and that Martha Stewart was a driving force behind her.
The photo spreads Martha Stewart Living The magazine perfected a style that quickly became gastronomic fashion. The Australian restoration photographer Donna Hay (who now has her own Stewart Empire) is often recognized for having popularized the shooting technique with a shallow depth, so that a single dish – or a bite – is deliciously to the point and everything else is blurred. “My favorite artistic direction during (the mid-90s)”, writes the stylist of accessories Francine Matalon-Degni in Gastronomic“was:” You know, give me this non-look look of Martha Stewart. “”
The introduction of digital photography has also played a role in relaxing the way food could be turned, because the meticulous fine adjustment of the look of a food could be made on Photoshop rather than a person.
Since the peak of Stewart, food photos have not become naturalistic. The creative boom continued while stylists and photographers feel free to experience.
(More than Narratively:: Cultivated at State)
“People discovered the texture – charred edges, collapsing,” said Mintcheff.
Perfection has come out, to the point where a high concept dietary stylist, Victoria Granof, who draws for customers such as Enjoy your food,, GqAnd Absolut, summarized his work in this way: “I do beautiful damage.”
Whips, burnt, sauce pools, grass spray, bites out of cake or sandwiches, even stained tablecloths and coated icing – all options are, so to speak, on the table. Food photography, once again or less a disguised body for an open scrap visualization, is now a new crime scene. Delores Custer, a food stylist for over 30 years who now teaches lessons on the subject, likes to show her students an illustrated painting that she calls the chronology of turkey. At one end is an image of a strongly golden turkey garnished with carrot flowers and rest on an elegant tray; To the other is a juicy bird still in its roasting, seeming to get out of the oven. The latter Türkiye illustrates the Holy Grail of each current food shoot: “Appeal Appeal”.
When I left for a recent shoot with Preston-Campbell, he could not tell me from the top of his head the brand and the model of his tweezers. They were not the 72880 delicate and with a fine point developed for scientists, but instead, enormous and formidable things of more than one foot long – the largest tool in its kit. The kit, which holds in a suitcase, includes brushes of different sizes (to put a sparkle of water or glycerin on food); an electrical device to burn marks on meat; a short oily flush pan to eliminate excess liquids; Floss dental to attach things discreetly; X-Acto knives; And a white glove, to collect glasses without leaving fingerprints.
Read the rest of this story to Narratively.
Narratively is an online magazine devoted to original, in -depth and unpublished stories. Each week, Narratively Explores a different theme and only publishes one story per day. It was one of the top 50 Time websites in 2013.
