Sarah Cave – Andrew Purcell – Carrie Purcell
In the labyrinthine prop houses, where strange and wonderful objects are stacked to the ceiling, you can always find dark corners of dusty and forgotten things. Scraps of metal from obsolete and unidentifiable machines. Porcelain trinkets whose only timeless quality is to remain perpetually out of style. Awkward dishes and broken lamps, stained fabrics and ornate oddities from some foreign country. The kinds of things that would never be used on a photo shoot.
In most of our normal assignments, the props are there to make the food look its very best. While they might set the tone, highlight a recipe’s origins or tip the scale modern or classic, colorful or muted, they are usually expected to take a background role and not compete for attention. The creative team standing around the monitor can always agree on one thing: your eye should go to the food, and that way of seeing will dictate all other choices.
This project began with the inverse approach: We searched specifically for orphan props, then dreamed up the food that would make them look their best.
Our compassion for neglected objects grew as we went, as did our tolerance for the slightly ugly, the ill-advised designs – who says? The magic of still life photography is that in the right light anything can be beautiful. We designed these shots right on the tables of prop rental warehouses, with spontaneity and real love. It was a lot of fun and this is only the beginning; there are so many more under-loved props out there!
