The Food Photography Blog

I don’t know if anyone else has noticed the latest food styling trend that’s been creeping in to the upmarket food magazines lately. I refer to it as “styling that looks like a stylist hasn’t been anywhere near it.” My wife and stylist, Clare, is more succinct. She calls it “splodge styling.”

To put it simply, it’s styling a shot to look like it’s been cooked by Mum and snapped by Dad with his digital point-and-shoot while she’s in the act of serving. The fact that Mum couldn’t cook baked beans without ruining them and all Dad knows about photography is what he’s gleaned from late-night sojourns on porn sites doesn’t matter. The point is to give the impression that the average punter could easily cook, plate and present a dish just as easily as a fully qualifed chef. It’s all part of the dumbing down of our society. People feel they have a right to be able to do something simply because they want to, whether they have any training and experience or not. It’s their right to be able to do it.

So the professionals pander to that perception by producing images that are “splodge on a plate.” If you’re lucky; often the splodge is on the background, again conveying the impression that the dish has been prepared by your average punter.

So it was with great pleasure that, browsing the food magazines in my local newsagency this morning, my eye landed on the latest (June/July 2010) edition of Donna Hay magazine. Recognised for her beautiful food styling - Delores Custer refers to her as one of the most influential stylists in the world - surely Donna Hay isn’t likely to have succumbed to the latest no-styling fad.

And I wasn’t disappointed. The cover shot was a superb image of pasta with pancetta and porcini crumbs. The pasta was beautifully presented, curled, layered with not an end in sight, let alone pointing at the camera. The pancetta and porcini pieces were placed with great care and the parmigiano had obviously not simply been shaken over the top. The dish was presented on a gorgeous blue antique-patterned plate. I sighted with relief and opened the magazine.

Inside the food shots were mostly presented in the by now traditional style of white on white with the front of the dish in focus and the back out of focus to varying degrees. We’ve seen so much of this during the noughties; I’ve been responsible for much of it myself.

But then, as I turned the pages, I came across several images which were presented in the current “splodge” styling. Pieces were cut out of food with crumbs scattered on table top or in the pan or burnt pieces adhered to the inside of a baking dish. Dirty knives were laid across food while milk or cream was artistically splattered on the background.

Then I realised something else; there was a clear difference in some of these images. While some were, clearly, “splodge on a plate” others drew me in to the image, making me want to taste the food that was on that page. And I realised something else - while this type of styling looks deceptively easy; to do it well is really very difficult. And while there are currently very few who do it well, that number can only increase as more stylists embrace the “deliberately unstyled style” as I know refer to it.