Culture

Meet the 2017 SAVEUR Blog Awards Finalists: Our 6 Favorite Food Photographers

Your dinner never looked this pretty

By SAVEUR Editors


Published on August 14, 2017

The SAVEUR Blog Awards are here, and from a pool of tens of thousands of reader nominations we've selected 72 finalists in 12 categories. Now it's your turn to vote for a winner. Cast your ballot here early and often; you can vote as many times as you like by September 6th. Today: meet the finalists for our Best Photography category, in their own words.

Cast your vote!

It's not easy to take a great food photo, but these six photographers seem to get it right every single time. They can take even the most normal sandwich and make it into something extraordinary.

The Blog: The ephemeral beauty of simple and everyday things, of which food certainly plays an important role, is, for Zaira Zarotti, a pretext of a visual research. Food is nourishment, but it is also culture and represents everyone. At The Freaky Table, Zaira tries to investigate these aspects in a contemporary key that can be tied to her roots, her lands and her own time, the most intimate one in which she is able to lock herself into the silence of a dark room, just watching light shine on things and exploring the poetry of impermanence.

The Blogger: Zaira Zarotti was born and raised in Venice, Italy into a non-conventional family of artists. She enjoyed an art education at the High School of Arts and at the Academy of Arts in Venice and she was trained as a photographer for three years at the Bauer Academy in Milan. She's a professional freelance photographer who collaborate with well-known photographic agencies, and with several magazines who have published her work. She began her blog mid-2015 alongside her work as potter, together with her boyfriend Francesco with whom she has founded "The Freaky Raku," a brand of handmade ceramics.

The Blog: The idea of a simple and no-fuss-portfolio with just a few explanatory words about each project was the beginning of claudiagoedke.com. By now it is both a blog and a portfolio, showcasing work Claudia did for clients as well as personal projects in a clearly structured timeline hat sets focus on the moody images rather than text. From time to time a recipe will make its way to the blog, always making sure that it's not just a strict rule or "the best recipe you'll ever try!!" but more of a loose guideline with countless possibilities, encouraging readers to step out of their comfort zone, be brave and try something new.

The Blogger: Claudia Gödke is a freelance food photographer living and working in Berlin. After completing three years of photography studies in 2012, she barely photographed for about a year but rather focused on creating an underground cake business and baked up to nine cakes a week in her tiny one-room apartment. Realizing that cake doesn't always pay the rent, and inspired by the food photographers who used natural light, she started to photograph her edible creations and reached out to online magazines and publishers. Four years later, she photographs recipes for books, brands, magazines, and as many personal projects as time allows!

Krautkopf
Krautkopf

Krautkopf, Yannic Schon and Susann Probst

The Blog: With Krautkopf, bloggers Yannic and Susann combine their two big passions: photography and cooking. The website is their playground on which they can let off steam creatively and reinvent themselves. Beside presenting their favorite recipes, cooked with seasonal products, they tell culinary stories and take the readers on their adventures and journeys. Since they find the social aspect of cooking and eating very important, they do not only want to communicate virtually. They organize private dinner and cooking events, and pass on their knowledge as trained photographers at food photography and styling workshops.

The Bloggers: Susann and Yannic have been in love with each other for more than 11 years. They need photography as much as they need air to breathe; it is their diction. Through photography they can carry their thoughts and feelings into the world without using words. Based in Berlin, they photographed weddings all over Europe for the past seven years. Beside photography, food is another big passion. They love eating and cooking, and have been living vegetarian for many years. In 2013, they created their blog Krautkopf to share what they brew in their pots and what finally lands on their plates.

Lab Noon
Lab Noon

Lab Noon, Saghar Setareh

The Blog: Lab Noon is a virtual laboratory for encounters of mostly flavors, but also of cultures and stories. The blog is a reflection of Saghar's own life, in recipes remembered and learned. Here she tell the tale of her Iranian culinary heritage combined with what she learns everyday from the spectacular food culture of Italy, where she immigrated a decade ago. Lab Noon is in search of similarities from the Middle East all the way to the Mediterranean, rather than differences. Because where planes and boats don't suffice to cross distances, recipes and shared meals can take us far.

The Blogger: Saghar Setareh is an Iranian food photographer and writer and she has been living for the past decade in Rome, Italy. She studied visual communication in Tehran, and later continued her studies in editorial design and photography in Rome's Fine Art Academy. In short, she works with and around food, mostly through beautiful images. Her food photography is the development of her design studies. She makes art meet business through blogging, content creation and professional food photography for editorial and commercial commissions. She doesn't function before a good breakfast and she never says no to homemade baked goods.

The Blog: Each day counts and blogger Marta Greber likes to start it as well as possible, because it influences what happens next. Some mornings are too fast, some lazy and long, but we can always have a nice bite, even if we grab a jar of a strawberry shake mixed with chia seeds from a fridge. If you have more time, get creative and take it outside, create memories and make your taste buds happy.

The Blogger: After three years of working as a lawyer in cold Warsaw, Marta Greber moved to hot Sydney. That's where she discovered what breakfast really means. Taking way too many pictures of it eventually led her to changing her career path. Within next years she moved around the world trying to find the best place possible to live. One thing did not change however—she still celebrates mornings, and each one has to start with a good cup of coffee and an awesome bite.

Rozkoszny
Rozkoszny

Rozkoszny, Michał Korkosz

The Blog: Rozkoszny is a Polish word that means delightful. It refers to those magical moments of the human experience and the most pleasing sensations in the world—which, in this case, are the sensations of making food. The blog creates an environment where readers at first will feel fuzzy inside, then suddenly have an overwhelming appetite. This results in the need to run into the kitchen and recreate the delectables which will make one's day more "rozkoszny."

The Blogger: Michał Korkosz, AKA Rozkoszny, is a 19-year-old food enthusiast, cake lover, croissant gourmand, and food journalist in the making. He was born and raised in Poland, a place with excellent products and cozy cuisine. Though he loves his country, he feels that his soul is spread out like butter over a warm croissant all over the world. He cooks with a passion every day for his family, so blogging is only an excuse to connect this love with another hobby - food photography. It started with a plate, a smartphone, and a share on Instagram. Today, he pushes to create images to capture the essence of his delicious masterpieces.

Meet the rest of our finalists

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