REX BAKERY, Mumbai | Pink lady food photographer of the year WINNER 2018
Straddling a gutter, I captured the bullet-stricken walls of one of Mumbai’s oldest bakeries. The bakery churns out 18,000 paos a day, operating 24/7 selling bread through the keyhole counter overnight. Bread is given for free to those who can’t afford it... It’s places like this that knit communities together in India.
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I stepped into Rex Bakery and asked if I could take a photograph in Hindi, the only sentence I learnt to say, but unfortunately, post the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks, they refused to have the inside documented. It was the day before Diwali and the air was filled with vibrant energy and the inside of the bakery was sweltering. I went back outside and straddled a gutter across the road leaning back against the grubby wall. The natural light was beautifully soft and diffused due the heavy layer of smog carpeting the busy city. The sunlight was bouncing off the opposing wall evenly lighting the women in their saris and trainers and the father and son on their bike. The challenge was to ensure perfect alignment. The composition of this shot was important for me. The walls were filthy and tired and it felt messy. I waited until the women turned their backs and the bicycle rolled back to sit beneath the key hole counter. The well balanced clear structures that filled the frame held an element of simplicity amongst the bustle of the heaving market around me. I clicked the shutter.
Canon 5d Mark iii, Canon 24-70mm
Cooking recipes with grandma in memory of Chef Udit Sarkhel | calcutta, india | October 2017
Early Friday morning I received an email from my cousin Debbie in New York. She’d sent me a link to a google drive folder with unseen, unpublished recipes from my late dad who was once a well known chef with multiple award-winning restaurants and the writer of many cookbooks. Unsure of what exactly to do with them, I felt compelled to do at least something. In the hopes of reconnecting to dad through his recipes, I flew to Calcutta, where my grandma and aunty - the two women he learnt to cook from - lived to recreate these recipes in the kitchen he once learnt to cook in. The journey was emotional for me and even got picked up by India’s Telegraph with a feature in remembrance of Chef Udit Sarkhel having put regional and Bengali cuisine on the map in the UK. As we made our way through cooking each recipe, I realised that this project had much more sentiment to me than just cooking with my family. I had been hoping to re-connect with a piece of my fathers soul when I tasted the food as most of my memories of him were intertwined with food memories, smells of being in the kitchen and flavours. But, the connection just wasn’t there.
I later realised that it wasn’t his food itself that I was able to reconnect with him through, it was my heightened sense of taste and smell and a palette that I had inherited from him that allowed me to cook and enjoy food to an unusually intricate level beyond his presence. The food memories continue to grow without him and is now part of my everyday life as a food photographer.
MARKET STALL IN MARRAKECH | SHORTLISTED Pink lady food photographer of the year 2018
Captured in Jemaa el-Fnaa market, a sensory overload. It was just past 5pm and the market started to become dark. I had my 5d mark iii swung over my shoulder when I came across this market stall. I asked permission pointing to my camera to communicate, took several steps back and whacked up the ISO and used my elbow into my stomach as a steadying tripod. The image was dull and bleak but I spent time editing this shot to recreate what I saw with my eyes. It was quite magical, like something I'd see in the Aladdin market scene!
Sadly, this image was on the first ever external hardrive I owned which took a tumble and wiped all my raw files. This is the only version I have left of it!
Canon 70d, Canon 24-70mm
Capturing life at Blue Hill at Stone Barns with Chef Dan Barber | Pocantico hills, New york | February 2018
There are few chefs in this world that have as much curiosity and drive to challenge how we consume as @chefdanbarber - I was privileged enough to spend a day shooting @bluehillfarm with him and his team in New York this year.
The Yolks
I photographed this plate in the shed with natural light flooding in making this spectacular range of egg yolks glisten. Dan challenges us to not just think about what we’re eating but what we’re eating is eating. This plate consists of a range of hen yolks including immature yolks & his famous red pepper yolks produced by feeding the hens puréed high carotenoid red peppers. Pure magic.
Shooting inside HM brixton prison | Brixton, LONDON | APRIL 2018
The hands of an inmate at Brixton Prison rolling pasta dough...
I shot inside the walls of HM Brixton Prison last month for the The Clink charity. They are reducing re-offending rates by training prisoners at the Clink Restaurant (inside the walls of the prison) to qualify with an NVQ in food prep and service. The focus is on getting them employed on release to successfully re-integrate back into the world after their sentences are up. If you haven’t been to visit one of their restaurants... you must. If you’re a restaurant owner then please get in touch if you’d like to recruit through the programme. It’s a fantastic cause. Everyone deserves another chance.
CINNAMON BUNS at NUVOLA bakery | SHORTLISTED for the marks & SPENCER FOOD PORTRAITURE Award
A glorious dusting of sugar on these cinnamon buns made by Nuvola - A little Bakery in Tooting Market. Photographed on a cooling rack by her small window. They were still warm and reminded me of eating sugary doughnuts as a kids whilst trying not to lick my lips until the whole doughnut had disappeared.
Canon 70d, Canon 50mm