Food Processors

What does it take to make a surreal series of landscape photos where food is the star? We really had no idea. When we started conceiving this issue’s cover story, a broad exploration of the food that defines western Mass, we were convinced that making the food into western Mass was a must. But figuring out how to pull that off was an open question.  

For a helping hand, we turned to intrepid local food stylist Joy Howard, who had never done a project like this before, but was eager to figure it out. Her skillset is such that she has a “special technique” for popping popcorn for maximum fluff, so snowy corn was on the way—and by the way, had we considered using dark blue corn kernels to make a “driveway”? We had not! 

Joy was full of ideas, and equally full of precision. For two days, in always-game university photographer John Solem’s basement studio, we played arts-and-crafts. The end results are served up in “Setting the Table.” Take a peek inside the kitchen to see how these food scenes were chopped, popped, and skewered together. 

Read “Setting the Table” from our fall 2024 issue and see the final results of these photo shoots.