Outdoor Photography

February 2018 Outdoor Photography 59

appreciate the appearance of the food

and determine how the lighting has been

achieved. This is just the sort of thing

I did when I started out photographing

nature 40 years ago, and the same thing

avid new photographers do (or, I think,

should do) today. The result is the same:

I end up making photographs that look

like those of the photographers I admire.

For most of us, I think that this

type of emulation is a necessary step

on the journey towards photographic

enlightenment, at which point we will

fi nd our own creative voice. But this is

a station to travel through, rather than

to disembark at, and the journey is

often a long one.

On my journey so far, two strong

parallels between food and landscape

photography have struck me. This gives

me hope that I can produce distinctive

work in the future as I combine ideas

refi ned over the years in my own

discipline into a new body of food work.

Perhaps the clearest parallel is a

profound devotion to nostalgia. This

is most evident in the on-trend food

photography style known as ‘mystic

light’. In the same way that most

landscape photographers eschew fences,

bungalows and phone masts in favour

of drystone walls, ruins and lone trees,

mystic light stylists just love the old.

Tarnished cutlery, weathered wooden

surfaces, stained porcelain crockery

and carbon-encrusted pie dishes all

speak of a time past. Stylists are highly

skilled at making the food look enticing

in this setting (let’s think of it as clever

composition) and use actual food rather

than the ‘stunt doubles’ that are often

employed in product photography (such

as PVA glue in lieu of milk because it

doesn’t make the cornfl akes soggy...).

Many landscape workers shoot only

around dawn or dusk, and I see the same

rigid adherence to a lighting formula in

a lot of food work. Mystic light pictures

are characterised by the chiaroscuro light

familiar from Renaissance-era paintings.

The lighting is low-angled, soft and

low-key, with that on the subject rapidly

feathering into obscurity. This reinforces

the sense of an old space with natural

light coming though a small window.

It’s quite at odds with the slightly

garish, brightly lit, shallow-depth-of-

fi eld ‘fashion shots’ that dominated

mainstream food photography until

recent years. And it is totally beguiling.

Having got to grips with various

styling concepts and nailed the lighting

techniques it would be very tempting to

continue in this vein, but then

I would be the fellow taking yet

another photograph of Bamburgh

Castle at dawn or Mont Saint Michel

at dusk – the very one who had me

scratching my head a few years ago.

I’m fortunate that I have ideas that

I have developed over the years to apply

to my food work in future, which will

make it less generic and more specifi c

to me. However, even without a pool

of experience to dip into, photographers

stuck in the emulation loop can

still escape it by learning another

photographic discipline, learning it well,

and then allowing a cross-fertilisation

of techniques and ideas to take place.

It’s fun, rewarding and will take you

that bit further down the line towards

photographic enlightenment.

The photograph above of the elements of limoncello contains the same themes evident in any number

of landscape photographs: nost algia, a desirable degree of shabbiness and some st rong colours.

The photograph of a doorway in Bohinjska Cesnjica, Slovenia (opposite) disp lays clear parallels.

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