Category Winner – Pink Lady Food Photographer of the Year 2021
On this their 10th Anniversary, the Pink Lady® Food Photographer of the Year 2021 competition attracted over 10,000 entries from 80 countries, so I’m enormously proud and delighted to say that I won the Marks & Spencer Food Portraiture category with this image of Mulled Pears.
“Pink Lady® Food Photographer of the Year was launched in 2011. Open to professional and non-professional, old and young, the Awards celebrate the very best in food photography and film from around the world.
The categories cover the full cultural range of the depiction of food in society – there is something for everyone. From styled food for magazines to images of families eating together in celebration of religious festivals, from depictions of the realities of food production to food growing in its natural setting. Since 2011, over 70,000 images and films have been submitted from over 77 countries.
Pink Lady® Food Photographer of the Year was founded by Caroline Kenyon and her team at The Food Awards Company. The idea for the Awards arose from two decades of experience commissioning photography and the wish to see this wonderful and vibrant sector of photography given the recognition it deserves.”
Pink Lady® Food Photographer of the Year.
Here’s what Emma Sleight, Head of Marks & Spencers Food Content: Social Media, Editorial & Art Buying had to say:
“An absolutely stunning image of mulled pears from a Perth-based photographer and worthy winner this year. When we talk about food photography, we talk about it in a sense of it being a piece of art, which it very much is. But when it comes to the subject of food, it has to bring an appetite appeal. This image embodies that undeniable, tangible sense of appetite appeal; it is a gorgeous, glossy, rich, luxurious, picture. There is a tenuous iridescent drizzle of sugar syrup falling in from the top of the frame and languorously sliding down the side of one of the plump, shining pears.
It is a perfect example of beautiful food artistically shot, but not inaccessibly so. Yes, you want it to be so beautiful that you’d choose to hang it on your wall, but it’s also enticing enough that you’d also want to stick your face in it! This shot is multisensory to me; it is beautiful to look at, but it is also messy and sticky and evocative enough that you can also almost smell it. It is warmth on a plate, and I really would love to eat it.”
Destined for a Mulled Pear, Blue Castello and Pecan Salad recipe, the pears looked so pretty after I cooked them that I coudn’t resist giving them their own little moment in the spotlight. While shooting tethered to my laptop, (the camera, not me) I was pouring the syrup with one hand while pressing the shoot button on the laptop with the other.
Photography & food styling: Harriet Harcourt
