I eat with my eyes. Perhaps you do too? When I look at recipes in books and online, it is the photography that either has me salivating or moving on.
So, when I was writing my book From Crabshack to Oyster Bar (that was in 1997) I had a very clear idea in my head of how I wanted the food that I was writing about to be photographed. I spent two weeks touring the Seafood Trail (which is essentially what the book is about - the people, the places, and the food) with the photographers who worked with me on the visual images and I think that this is where my love for food photography began.
There were lots of times when I wished that I could have grabbed the camera from the photographers' hands. They were seeing things differently to me but I didn't know anything about photography at the time and so was reliant on them.
Ever since, I have practiced and practiced and developed my own style of food photography. Sometimes it's about the food; sometimes it's about provenance; often it's the story behind the food itself that is perhaps the most interesting. Enjoy!
