Penny De Los Santos is one of the world's premier culinary photographers, and while her exotic food photos will make your mouth water, they're also a gateway to the larger bond that food creates across all cultures.
"I realized that through the avenue of food there was this whole entire storyline that I had never though about but quickly realized was incredibly amazing," says De Los Santos, 42, who is based in New York City.
For seven years now, De Los Santos has been traveling the globe shooting food and the people who make and enjoy it. Her photos have a depth that goes beyond just plates and ingredients; they capture the stories and moments around one of life's necessities.
When she was fresh out of graduate school, De Los Santos won a prestigious internship with National Geographic magazine that helped launch her photojournalism career. For years she covered more traditional photojournalism stories as a freelancer that she says explored everything that is "weird, fucked-up and wonderful" in the world.
Then one day she got a call from Larry Nighswander, a former editor of hers from National Geographic who was then at the food magazine Saveur. He wanted to send her to cover a story about some of the last icehouses (local coolers where locals meet for beer and food) in Texas. Not knowing how to photograph "food," she tentatively said yes.
"He said don’t worry too much about it, just focus on what you do know about photography," she says. "He told me to do the same things I normally do to cover a story but to do it around food scenarios this time."
Scared to death, De Los Santos said she shot the hell out of it to try and ensure she delivered what Nighswander wanted. She shot the food and the beer, but also tried to give a sense of place, relying on the storytelling techniques she was used to as a photojournalist.
A month passed and all of a sudden she got another call from Nighswander, this time asking her to travel to Peru.
"He was like, 'It's the same thing this time, look for moments, look for light, tell a story and keep an eye out for the food,'" she says.
Peru is where things finally clicked. Wandering through the rich markets of this South American country, she figured out that she'd found what in many ways was a magic door and a new way to enter people's lives and create compelling photography.
"I was like, 'Shit, this is an untapped market and I really, really like it,'" she says. "I haven't looked back since."
De Los Santos has been to more than 35 countries for Saveur alone, but her work isn’t all glamorous globetrotting. To pay the bills she does quite a bit of advertising and cookbook work. She's had to work hard to master the art of shooting actual food, which takes a lot of styling and relies on good lighting.
Today she says she is just as particular about the plates of food as she is about the people who make and enjoy them. She often works with a food and prop stylist and she isn't afraid to ask things to be re-plated, or re-cooked until it looks perfect.
"It’s the same principals of great photography," she says. "Even though it doesn’t move, food still has a moment."
