Spotlight On: Jean Cazals
The Art of Food Photography Foodie Craze In the last decade, food photography has accrued a cult-like following, thanks in part to digital platforms such as Instagram. The meals once recounted on personal blogs (think Nora Ephron’s film, Julia and Julie) have now been replaced with imagery of one’s breakfast, frothy cappuccinos in southern Italy, or the perfect slice of pizza in some dilapidated Brooklyn borough. You get the picture. No stranger to this is Jean Cazals, a French food and lifestyle photographer based in London. For the past 35 years, Cazals has photographed food after 10 years of shooting portraiture, witnessing all its trends and guises, or what he refers to as the “fashion of food.” “I originally wanted to be a heart surgeon,” said Cazals from his Notting Hill home base of London, “But I did not have the grades, and my parents urged me to explore something else, which then led me to photography.” The visceral element of Cazals’ ambitions to be a doctor permeates much of his work. His unconventional approach …
