Cuisine

THE COVER STORY

camillawordie.com joakimblockstrom.com manicphotography.co.nz @fionalascelles

Cusine art director Fiona Lascelles tells a tale of going rogue in lockdown.

THERE WAS NO QUESTION that it had to be cherries, and with that came all sorts of challenges around timing, seasonality and local availability. Should it be a bunch of cherries or just one? In a glass, a box, or just on a stem? Cuisine art director Fiona Lascelles tells a tale of going rogue in lockdown...

Cherries have such specific aesthetic references for me: pinup girls from the 50s; 80s shiny advertising photography. It was crucial to move past these tropes, and God forbid it look like a Kim Bassinger-style scene from the movie 9½

Weeks. As cherries can so easily go down the food porn route, I felt my reputation was really on the line with this one :-). But at the core of this cover was the need to convey the anticipation of the cherry season in Aotearoa New Zealand, and to highlight again the amazing produce grown here. What is at the heart of both the relief and excitement when boxes of wonderful Central Otago cherries appear in the supermarkets and roadside market stands in time for our Christmas tables? Bursts of intense colour, texture and flavour in such tiny packages... this was the key for our decision to shoot one cherry REALLY BIG.

When we suddenly found ourselves back in level 4 with a print deadline hurtling towards us, unable to get our team together to create and shoot the image, we needed to think about shooting our ‘proudly made in New Zealand’ cover elsewhere…

A COLLABORATION

STYLIST CAMILLA WORDIE: I have followed Camilla’s work on Instagram and also in UK magazine Rakes Progress. Her approach is considered, multidisciplinary and collaborative. Her minimalist aesthetic can be traced back to her Scandinavian roots and time spent in Tokyo, where she produced her first solo exhibition. As a stylist, Camilla has gained a reputation for turning everyday essentials into modern, sophisticated and well-balanced images.

PHOTOGRAPHER JOAKIM BLOCKSTROM: recommended by Camilla, Joakim has a keen eye on the details of great food photography. He began communicating through photography when, at the age of 14, his father’s friend gave him a camera. His aesthetic is clean and minimalistic and what you’d probably call ‘Swedish’. It’s all about composition and light; the object of the pictures dictates the rest. Passionate about anything food-related, his backpack usually contains chef’s knives and an apron.

With our New Zealand team beaming in via Zoom in the middle of the night, our new London-based team were ready to go. They had received my crude mock-up with a cherry made of Blu Tack and spray-painted red, with a twig jammed in the top for a stem – the best I could do while being confined to the house. Together we picked a perfectly shaped fresh cherry then teamed it with the perfect stem; the cream would not behave and needed gentle coercion; the delicate chocolate shavings had to own their own space.

Camilla and Joakim tied this project together with their uncompromising understanding of how colour, form and texture combine to create timeless compositions. The success lies in the detail: moving objects by millimetres, adjusting angles by the degree, and sourcing the perfect prop… or not.

Our cover story does not finish in London.

JASON CREAGHAN RETOUCHING: A crucial and often uncelebrated element of getting our covers to their deeply nuanced and authentic outcome, is Jason Creaghan’s extensive understanding of photography alongside the retouching prowess that he brings as the final ingredient. For many this skill seems geeky, and uses terms like bokeh, lens optics, chromatic aberration, light-spill and image grain. In Jason’s words, “Light doesn’t travel in a straight line, it wraps around things – like the cherry – so anything to be altered in the image needs to emulate the original.” It’s an integral part of our cover process that enhances a stunning visual, without manipulating the truth.

CONTENTS

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2021-11-01T07:00:00.0000000Z

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https://cuisine.pressreader.com/article/281621013502018

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