“Can you make me famous?” a model insists, while trying to arm twist me into creating an image that will propel him to the fabled pages of Vogue and into a Prada campaign.
I tried to gently explain that it takes a lot of time and testing to get there, and models don’t always have the ability to control their fate; simply being “hot” is not enough. I started working with food shortly after that conversation happened for the third time in a row, with three different doe-eyed faces. A model concerned with fame never makes good pictures, and they have yet to give me the look I need to move forward. It’s allabout the picture and I have yet to have a kiwi, pomegranate, or alligator claw be concerned with their own stardom.
That being said, I’m ready to get back to testing and creating fashion images. Working within the photo and working with single ingredients and patterns has taught me about filters and backgrounds, sculpture and transformation. Food is ever patient and finding the prefect subject is as simple as going to the farmers market or grocery store or taking walks in Chinatown.
When I started reading Just Kids by Patti Smith, a book about her youth and relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe – her roommate and occasional lover – I thought the process of creating work would be wholly different and unique to a bygone era. It’s not. Creating work, finding resources and models, discovering patrons and buyers, getting a gallery – it’s all the same.
Tags: book, Botticelli, column, food photography, Just Kids, Nan Goldin, Patti Smith, photography, Prada, Robert Mapplethorpe, Tim Walker, Vogue
