The Dream of White Space

What advice would you give to somebody reading this who thinks he or she can be a food stylist?
Don’t overthink it. Everything you see has the potential to show up in a picture. I mean, I’m sure that’s true for any kind of design or art. I think they really should know about the principles of design. They should know about space, they should know about proportion. Anyone can cook. Food bloggers are a dime a dozen with their little cameras and their depth of field and the select focus and the light coming in through the window. Dime a dozen. But to have vision, to actually have vision, it’s like having taste to have vision; you have to have a structure behind it. I remember [Irving] Penn’s thing: “You have to have a program.” But that program can be anything, from just keeping your eyes open when you’re walking down the street to really studying photography, and really studying… It’s how you filter it and how you deflect it through your hands. Filter it through your own sensibility. Just cook and take pictures and keep your eyes open and learn about proportion. Definitely learn about proportion. Learn about negative space. Risk leaving space free. There was a guy who used to letterpress for me and he taught me the saying “To give something the royal treatment.” You knwo where that came from?

No.
In the old days, when paper was very expensive, when you would write a letter, you would write horizontally on the page. And when someone wrote back, they would write on the same paper in different ink or write perpendicular… and the only people who could afford to leave empty space were royalty. So leaving gratuitous empty space in an image or on a printed page is called “the royal treatment.” Risk leaving space open.

The dream of white space.
The dream of white space.

What’s your perfect meal?
Oysters, soft-shell crabs—it has to be a little bit of rice flour and get very crispy. That and crème brûlée. It’s all white food, isn’t that so funny? I dream of white space.

- Food stylist Victoria Granof for Cherry Bombe Magazine