Mimi Sheraton started this thread on eGullet about the photography in Gourmet Magazine. Not exactly complimentary. And some writers in the thread shared her opinion.
I dabble a little in food photography (for my own use). And I've read a little - like Lou Manna's book Digital Food Photography. Although - according to Manna - there's an older style of food photography (very stylized with lots of props) - and a newer one (which seemingly consists mostly of tighter food shots) - there's no question that all the photographs he shows are really "pretty". His food needs more stylists than the average high fashion model 
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Although I didn't say anything in the eGullet thread - what I see in Gourmet these days looks a lot more like "real food" - food minus the food stylists. The food that I take pictures of. And eat. Not a bowl of glue with cornflakes placed on top with tweezers (this is one of the "tricks" Manna discusses). Doesn't bother me at all. In fact - I rather like it. I find real food - like real people - kind of refreshing. And it's certainly not "ugly" (if someone wants to see ugly - he or she should attend a fair number of contemporary photography exhibits).
Is there a philosophy of - or approach to - food photography at Gourmet? Has it changed since you've become the editor? Is it fixed - or still evolving? In other words - tell us what you think about the photography. Robyn
Our philosophy is to make the food look as good as possible without playing any tricks. it's all real food,, and at the end of the shoot (provided it hasn't taken so long the food is scary), we eat it. A lot of the shoots are done in real time: the people there are actually eating the food as we're shooting.
We spend a lot of time and energy thinking about where to shoot, how to shoot, what mood we're looking for. We think about the locations, the people, the way the food should look.
The food department, the art department and the editors sit down and work out every shoot before it happens. And on every shoot we have prop stylists, the food editor who developed the recipes, a food stylist and a whole range of people from the art department. We spend a lot of time thinking about which photographers to use for which meals as well, and we try to use photographers who are not specialists in food. You get a different look.
This is very different than it was when I got to Gourmet. The whole art department has grown in the past 6 years. The magazine's Creative Director, Richard Ferretti, is, I think, incredibly talented. (Not to mention nice, smart and a complete joy to work with.) He came two years ago, and started pushing the envelope. I can't take a lot of credit for this: It's pretty much Richard and his department who are giving the magazine its look. I trust him, and I think that what he is doing is important for the magazine. My basic philosophy is that pictures are the one thing that magazines can do better than anyone else, and we need to put our resources there. You can get recipes from the internet and books, but only magazines give you these kind of pictures.
You may not like what we're doing, but a lot of people do: We won the ASME (American Society of Magazine Editors) award for photography last year.
Incidentally, we don't use digital. Richard doesn't think the quality is good enough yet.
