Having worked for a professional photographer, I know the length of time that goes into setting up a shot for food photography, and the lights, overhead, backlit, reflectors. With digital photography you see your results instantly and can adjust so quickly and move a light, fix a leaf, move a lump, get another drip of syrup going and photograph it in different positions. It was very special to be able to watch stylists and professional photographers work in sync. Sometimes you would only get through 3 or 4 food shots in a day. You needed steam or you needed a drip or something that was just a little special to that image that you were shooting.

I can remember when we were photographing ice cream. Under all of those lights, I was wondering how on earth do we photograph ice cream with all these lights? The stylist arrived, produced packets of mashed potato. It's dehydrated mashed potato called Smash. So you mix that up it looks identical to ice cream. It's got the same texture. It's got the same look. You can smooth it, you can, you can scoop it, you can get that the same texture as vanilla ice cream. If you put food colouring into it or chocolate sauce, you could colour it to whatever flavour you needed. And it didn't melt under the lights, so you could take your time and shoot ice cream and the results were spectacular. I'll never forget that. Had a giggle on set about that one.

The other thing that I remember was when foods used to look incredibly dry and unappetising. We used to just get a spray bottle and a little bit of vinegar and oil and water and you just spray the food and it would put this shiny coat on the food and you would get your highlights. It would completely bring back the appetising look of the food. There was some wonderful little tricks.

These shots that I'm posting here today, where not shot in a studio and were completed in a couple of hours. I also did a fair amount of retouching.

Smoked mozzarella - oooh



The story is that I travelled out to a farm whose neighbour was a dairy farmer and provided the milk for homemade production of cheese. Self taught, they produced smoked cheese and mozzarellas and these these flavoured cheeses and were were absolutely gorgeous. Not only were they just beautiful, they were delicious. They invited me out to the farm where they made this cheese and they showed me how they made it. Right from the beginning of the process, to the end, the smoking, the hand work, the waiting, lots of waiting.

There were four variants at the time, and we decided to shoot inside the farmhouse, they had this huge kitchen, and there were 2 or 3 stoves with these beautiful big chimneys I photographed these cheeses on the this huge, this long, long kitchen table. Must have been about a 5 metre table. Obviously, everything happened in the kitchen, that's where you ate, it was where you cooked, it was where the warmth was. They grew their own herbs and spices so there was an abundance of ingredients to throw on the cheese.
What I don't remember so well. is the amount of Brandy that was consumed. Sure its why I am still proud of these shots.