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Here's what your favourite foods look like sliced directly down the middle
The images weren’t easy to create.
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WHEN PHOTOGRAPHER BETH Galton and food stylist Charlotte Omnès decided to collaborate, they wanted to take a critical look at foods we eat every day.
During the process of choosing those items, they realized that pairing various foods together would be more efficient and visually appealing.
“Shown together, they create a stronger statement about their symbolic nature,” Galton told Business Insider.
It’s not the first time a photographer has tackled bisected foods, but it’s not a common practice, either. The images are technically difficult and time-consuming to make — but in the end, they are truly eye-opening.
We talked to Galton about how she created the series.
There is no set approach to the process of slicing and shooting. “Each item had its own set of issues that both Charlotte and I tried to solve,” Galton says.
While they were able to slice some of the foods in half easily, there were some cases where multiple images had to be taken and then later pieced together with Photoshop. A seasoned stylist, Omnès was able to create solutions to various problems they would run into, including adding gelatin to the soup in this shot.
They also worked with two digital retouchers. “When our ideas could not be created realistically, they would help guide us with creating enough images for them to assemble the image we wanted,” Galton says. “They both added their creativity as well as their technical expertise to the process.”
The retouchers helped finish the image below. “[Retoucher] Daniel helped create the cup of coffee cut in half, Ashlee had to rebuild the bottom of the chicken bucket and work on the pour shot of the gravy,” says Galton.
Galton has several favorites, and this coffee shot is one of them.
Another favorite was the cereal box. “Charlotte’s first pour was almost perfect,” Galton says. It only took a few attempts to get it all the elements together the way they wanted.
The turkey image was one of the most labor-intensive shots. They initially tried to cut it in half with a hacksaw while frozen, but eventually used a band saw to get the slice just right.
To keep their series visually stimulating, they were very careful in their food selections. No big surprise — they decided not to include a cake.
Because they stuck to the foods that visually appealed to them both, Omnès and Galton were very happy with all the images included in the final series.
When asked if they ever ate the leftovers, Galton says, “never!”
After dedicating a lot of focus and time to this project, Galton and Omnès are letting it breathe for a bit, leaving time to experiment with other ideas. “That’s not to say we won’t go back to it,” Galton says. “But nothing is planned.”
Read: Is the food in those perfectly sculpted ads fake? We asked an expert >
