While looking at the photographs of food in this humorous exhibition at the Photographers’ Gallery, I thought of how hopelessly outdated our own snaps will soon look. What seems fresh, clean and wonderfully modern to our eye — an Ottolenghi salad, say, dotted with pomegranate seeds and za’atar — will soon look almost tragic. How we photograph food betrays some of our deepest fantasies about ourselves. What’s more, good taste can quickly sour.
Feast for the Eyes brings together food photography from the 19th century up to the present day and reveals just how much our attitudes to food change. At first, photographers emulated the principles of still- life painting, using symbolic gatherings and classical references. When colour photography became available, the focus moved towards capturing texture and shape. The early colour images have a softness to them that disappears as food photography becomes a more commercial pursuit. Paul Outerbridge’s ‘Avocado Pears’ (1936) is a study of the fruit’s flesh and its subtle bruising.
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