Interview with Caroline Kenyon, Founder & Director of Pink Lady® Food Photographer of the Year

Founded in 2011 by Caroline Kenyon, Pink Lady® Food Photographer of the Year has grown into the world’s leading awards that celebrates food photography and film. This year, the awards return to Mall Galleries for the first time in five years – and we couldn’t be more thrilled.

We had the pleasure of interviewing Caroline about the appeal of the awards, the practice of food photography and some of her favourite photos from previous years.

Are there any categories of the awards that is a particular favourite of yours?

That is like asking a parent to choose between their children! I love them all, for different reasons. For example, Tenderstem® Bring Home the Harvest always attracts dramatic and exciting images of gathering in food. While unearthed® Food for Sale shows the fascinating interactions between people in the selling and buying of food around the world. And then, MPB Award for Innovation is a showcase for wit and inventiveness.

To someone who has never heard of the awards before, what would you say to entice them to come and see the show?

You will find it full of surprises. It’s not an exhibition that looks as if pages have been pulled out of cookery books and stuck on the walls. It’s a storytelling journey around the world and through every stage of food, from growing, farming, harvesting, cooking, to family, community, celebration and deprivation. It will amaze, delight and move you.

It has been five years since the awards last took place at Mall Galleries – and we’re very excited! What in your opinion is the benefit of returning to the venue?

We are very excited too! It was a huge honour to be invited by the Royal Photographic Society to show our exhibition in their gallery in Bristol, and we did that three times post lockdowns. But the Mall Galleries is not only prestigious and in the capital, but also benefits from such an expanse of beautiful space. The exhibition now comprises 180 images and film as well, so it really does need a great deal of wall to show it off to best advantage. 

Why, in your opinion, is food an engaging subject of photography?

It is the link between every single human being on the planet. We all need to eat to survive. Food is the means by which we come together as social animals, it’s how we demonstrate love for our family and friends, it's how we celebrate. Food photography encompasses not only the stunning styled food photography people immediately think of, which reflects the mood and the values of society at the time, but also brings in landscape photography, travel photography, photojournalism, almost every genre you can think of. 

Could you briefly talk about 2 or 3 images that have stuck with you since the inception of the awards?

If you could look inside my head, you would find it stuffed with thousands of incredible images I have seen over the years. These are just a very few that have made it through to the finals over the last years: 

Lumiere d’automne by Deborah Trocchia 

This has the magical aura of a fairytale. The pumpkin - is it to become Cinderella’s coach? - rests royally on a gilded chair, with a heavy silken curtain falling beside it. The gleam of the pumpkin is echoed in the sheen of the carved chair and the sumptuous fabric of the curtain. There are no people in the shot, but there is atmosphere and anticipation.