The Pink Lady ® Food Photography Awards return with the same startling range, the same ambition, and the same reputation as the world’s premier food photography competition. Its twenty-five categories include the World Food Programme Food for Life and the Fujifilm Award for Innovation. That’s before we get to the Errazuriz Wine Photographer of the Year, as well as Champagne Taittinger Wedding Food Photographer and Food for Celebration sponsored by Champagne Taittinger.
A favourite of the Errrazuriz Wine Photographer of the Year Awards is the royal purple of vinification, whether bursting through tubes or squashed underfoot . It is, however, the people behind the wine that the award celebrates best. Some are hard at work in the cellar or the vineyard; some, like finalist Gilbert Bages’ ‘What Heaven Looks Like’, throw up their hands in tipsy celebration.
One photo stands out among the finalists of Food for Celebration sponsored by Champagne Taittinger. Maria Perez’s ‘Birthday in Isolation’ is bleak in black-and-white, with all the hope and frustration of the pandemic. Favourites from the past finalists of this category include Lars Renek’s portrait of the moment after a meal, knife and fork laid at the centre of the plate, when a Tuscan nonna puffs out her cheeks and says ‘Basta!’ Italians call this sleepiness ‘l’abbiocco’ and we at Vinaty have never seen it captured so perfectly.
Among the tall cakes, joy on different faces in different countries, one photo stands out among the previous finalists of Champagne Taittinger Wedding Food Photographer Award. A wedding band sit with their instruments on their knees, a bowl of soup raised to their mouths. David Martin Huamani Bedoya captures a different tone to many of the other finalists, but beautiful in its celebration of the many people who make a wedding – not just bride and groom. If your taste is for something brighter, though, this year’s winner is sure to be for you. In John Armstrong Millar’s ‘Many a Slip’, a couple cuts a birthday cake with a look on their face that speaks to the less-celebrated emotions of weddings: anticipation, silliness, and maybe a touch of nerves.
This year’s overall winner was Li Huaifeng with ‘Taste’, a portrait of a young family in Licheng, Northern China. Judges described it as “a tender and subtly powerful image” evocative of a year spent indoors. Caroline Kenyon, Director and Founder, called it “technically outstanding its use of light” With such a strong composition, we at Vinaty can see why ‘Taste’ was described as “historically important”.
All finalists: https://www.pinkladyfoodphotographeroftheyear.com/finalists-gallery-2021/
