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The Naked Lens


Andy Lynes

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I recently had the priviledge of spending a day with the UK's top food photographer Jason Lowe. If you collect cookery books, read food magazines or the food pages of the quality press in the UK, then you will have seen Jason's work. He travels the world for his job and his photographs are published on both sides of the Atlantic, but I was lucky enough to catch him at his home studio in London during a shoot for chef Mark Hix's new book Fish Etc. I watched him work and talked to him about his methods, beliefs and career. Click here to read the article.

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Glad you enjoyed it. It really was a pleasure to research and write. Jason's a very nice man who has a reassuringly straightforward approach to his art/craft. He was great fun to be around and apporves of the article, although he really is mystified as to why I included the technical detail. I thought it essential in order to give a rounded picture of what he does and how he does it, but he sees it as entirely irrelevant and uninteresting.

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Your best article yet, Andy. Thanks.

"I've caught you Richardson, stuffing spit-backs in your vile maw. 'Let tomorrow's omelets go empty,' is that your fucking attitude?" -E. B. Farnum

"Behold, I teach you the ubermunch. The ubermunch is the meaning of the earth. Let your will say: the ubermunch shall be the meaning of the earth!" -Fritzy N.

"It's okay to like celery more than yogurt, but it's not okay to think that batter is yogurt."

Serving fine and fresh gratuitous comments since Oct 5 2001, 09:53 PM

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although he really is mystified as to why I included the technical detail. I thought it essential in order to give a rounded picture of what he does and how he does it, but he sees it as entirely irrelevant and uninteresting.

As an exhibiting artist (and former pro photographer), I agree with you, Andy. It is interesting.

"Portion control" implies you are actually going to have portions! ~ Susan G
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You could interview a chef for example and quite easily not ask him about the make of stove in his kitchen or the knives he prefers to use. However, the choices a photographer makes about the equipment he uses could be deemed to be part of the creative process as they have such a profound effect on the finished product.

I found it difficult to make a clear distinction, but also I anticipated that readers would simply be curious about Jason's gear. The fact that he uses so little, i.e. no lights, just one camera and one lens for the entire shoot, no filters etc is indicitive of his "keep it simple" approach that you can see in his photographs.

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He was great fun to be around and apporves of the article, although he really is mystified as to why I included the technical detail. I thought it essential in order to give a rounded picture of what he does and how he does it, but he sees it as entirely irrelevant and uninteresting.

Andy, I just got around to reading this one. Nice work! I really enjoyed the article. As a passionate (yet inept) amateur photographer, I would have loved more technical detail. You know, one of those "Aha!" moments where you can fool yourself into thinking that the pro's work is so much better than yours only because he has a high-speed, synchronized photomic renoberator and you don't :laugh:.

Chad

Chad Ward

An Edge in the Kitchen

William Morrow Cookbooks

www.chadwrites.com

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The second photo in the article, what is that a picture of (forgive me for asking but I have a crummy little monitor)? And thanks for an interesting article.

Hard words break no bones, fine words butter no parsnips.--fortune cookie.

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The photos are excellent as photos, but they make me long for the days when they were intended to be instructive rather than inspiring. What contemporary publisher would commission books like Pepin's La Method and La Technique? Food photographs have become decorative, serving much the same function as the illuminations in mediaeval manuscripts. They relate, one suspects, to the number of people who merely read cookbooks rather than working out of them.

John Whiting, London

Whitings Writings

Top Google/MSN hit for Paris Bistros

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If you look at Lowe's work in "Cooking At The Merchant Huose" for example, you'll see that he has both bases covered. Pictures of the food, some purely decorative shots of the local surroundings and a number of step-by-step sequences that illustrate a particular technique.

My guess is that the format will be similar in Hill's new book with Lowe "How To Cook Better", which is a technique driven manual rather than cookbook per se.

But I basically agree with your assertion, the pictures are there to look pretty and sell books to the armchair chef, which was partly my motivation in wantingf to talk to Jason. The photographer these days is arguably as important as the chef in creating a commercially viable book, but get virtually no exposure or credit in their own right, which was something I wanted to try and put right. In particular I felt Lowe deserved recognition as an artist/craftsman as one of the finest food photographers working today.

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Andy, no argument with your article, which I thought was excellent journalism. And we seem to be closer on my basic premise than I thought we might.

The photographer these days is arguably as important as the chef in creating a commercially viable book
Indeed, if not more. Grub Street, a small food press in London, is one of the last to publish unillustrated cookbooks.

John Whiting, London

Whitings Writings

Top Google/MSN hit for Paris Bistros

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The photos are excellent as photos, but they make me long for the days when they were intended to be instructive rather than inspiring. What contemporary publisher would commission books like Pepin's La Method and La Technique? Food photographs have become decorative, serving much the same function as the illuminations in mediaeval manuscripts. They relate, one suspects, to the number of people who merely read cookbooks rather than working out of them.

There are still several available, There is one I bought for an ex girlfriend, whose title I have completely forget (I think it was written by Anne Willan), but it taught the basics, with pictures of things, under, over and perfectly done, with ideas on how to rescue the disasters. It was all a bit Mumsy and old schoolbut could be useful for a novice cook.

The cross section pictures of the various degrees of 'doneness' for beef I think was what sold it, thought I could try and convince her that medium did not mean cremated.

I love animals.

They are delicious.

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Great job. I loved it.

I think silver suits me so...

...but red is also for me!

Iron Chef Morimoto all the way!

From me, a fan of Iron Chef.

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It was all a bit Mumsy and old  . . .

The unillustrated books tend to be old-fashioned (or classic, depending on one's viewpoint) precisely because they date from a time when illustrations were unnecessary. No modern author would attempt a cookbook lacking very large and seductive photos.

Well, almost none. The Chez Panisse cookbooks continue to appear with beautiful drawings.

John Whiting, London

Whitings Writings

Top Google/MSN hit for Paris Bistros

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John, do you think illustrations were unnecessary per se or do you think maybe this had more to do with the limitations of technology? At the time some of those old all-text cookbooks were written, would it even have been possible to include photos?

Steven A. Shaw aka "Fat Guy"
Co-founder, Society for Culinary Arts & Letters, sshaw@egstaff.org
Proud signatory to the eG Ethics code
Director, New Media Studies, International Culinary Center (take my food-blogging course)

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Steven, I'm certainly not so antedeluvian as to object to photos per se. I think that all the classic books would have benefited from honest photos or even drawings of some of the finished products -- not to show the reader what they had to look like, but to indicate what the author had in mind.

What makes me sad about the contemporary insistance on photos, artistically taken and lavishly printed, is that it makes virtually every cookbook a high-budget project. This makes it much more difficult for an unknown cook/food writer to get a book published. Ironically, it doesn't mean that only the best make it into print, but rather those the publisher thinks can be promoted into instant best sellers, which ususally means celebrity chefs or sexy women.

The best colour pictures don’t come cheap. The total cost of producer, photographer, food stylist, ingredients, crew and post-production may well stretch to a couple of thousand pounds a day before the book so much as reaches the printer (or so Ann Dolamore of Grub Street tells me). The bottom line, as publishers are now so fond of saying (having scrapped the top line) is that an orgy of photography will multiply the already high publication costs.

Edited by John Whiting (log)

John Whiting, London

Whitings Writings

Top Google/MSN hit for Paris Bistros

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