Meatscapes

Imagine my delight when I stumbled across Foodscapes by photographer Carl Warner. I love art. I love meat. To combine them in meatscapes is simply sublime!

Salami Stream by Carl Warner

Salami Road by Carl Warner

Even I can see the the beauty of a vegetarian composition.

Celery Forest by Carl Warner (image updated 12-5-2010)

Fruit Balloons and Cart by Carl Warner

Warner's Foodscapes delight like bonsai -- playing with textures, scale, light and perspective. But really, I just love that they make me drool. I think I might order a print of Salami River for my crate.

How does he do it? Warner's website describes the team process of creating each Foodscape:

The ‘Foodscapes’ are created in Carl’s London studio where they are built on top of a large purpose built triangular table top. The scenes are photographed in layers from foreground to background and sky as the process is very time consuming and so the food quickly wilts under the lights. Each element is then put together in post production to achieve the final image.

“Although I’m very hands on with my work, I do use model makers and food stylists to help me create the sets. I tend to start with a drawing which I sketch out in order to get the composition worked out, this acts as a blue print for the team to work to.”

“I’ve always enjoyed the discipline of working in the studio, and the spontaneity of working outdoors in natural light, as you never know what you’re going to get. With my ‘Foodscapes’ I can now put together the knowledge of natural light with the control of recreating it in the studio in order to bring out the colours and textures as well as the beauty of a scene”

These images can take up to two or three days to build and photograph and then a couple of days retouching and fine tuning the images to blend all the elements together. Carl spends a lot of time planning each image before shooting in order to choose the best ingredients to replicate larger scale shapes and forms within nature, so he spends a lot of time staring at vegetables in supermarkets which makes him seem a little odd! However, he is careful to point out that finding the right shaped broccoli to use as a tree is an all important task.

Read all about it and see his works in their full glory (plus moving Foodscapes made with stop frame animation) on Carl Warner's website.