Phagomania: Henry Hargreaves

Welcome to a land where deep-fried Gameboys and bacon letters can roam free...

Feature by Lewis MacDonald | 04 Jul 2012

This month’s Phagomania, normally a food and drink section regular, germinates and sprouts out across the magazine to say ‘hello’ to the creations of Henry Hargreaves. The Brooklyn-based photographer, originally from New Zealand, can certainly catch an eye with his unorthodox food photography projects. Behold, both food and less edible objects as you have never seen them before. Is it ridiculous? Is it amazing? No, it is okay, you are in good company, you are in fact correct, it is ridiculously amazing. Intrigued to find out some more, I chewed the fat a little with Henry.

Clearly a big part of your food images are subversion and contradiction of expectations. But why food? Is there a particular attraction for you as a subject matter?

 I just think it's a really untapped genre. There are a lot of people who shoot it to make it look tasty but few people who play with it to tell a story. It’s also easy to have access to, I see the supermarket as my art supply store.

Your food photography is clean, bright and fun, presenting the subject in a celebratory manner. But they could also be read as a commentary on consumerism and greed. Do you have an intended message?

Yeah I hope it gets people thinking, but I don't try to preach a message. Say with the deep fried gadget pictures, it could be seen as a comment about people's consumption of the latest gadget, but fuck it, they are just fun images. Take from it what you want. I'm not saying it's bad to want the latest iPhone, I sure do. For me I just wanted to see what the results would be, to see something that looked like this deep fried because it was the most unlikely thing to go in a fryer.

Looking to the future, have you had food project ideas that have been too outlandish or wasteful to carry off? If there were no limits, have you had any bizarre concepts?

Of course, and I deliberately do not take on things that are a gratuitous waste of good food. I work on a very limited budget as these rarely generate any income. I shoot what I would like to see, and get a kick out of that which makes it worthwhile to me. Although I'm very conscious of waste. I try to reuse what I can and we do often eat the things I use. There is of course some waste, I'm always staggered by reader comments ranting about how there are people starving in Africa. I mean that gets to me as well, but that bacon was never going to find its way to the Congo. I'm sure the food wasted over my entire career is a fraction of that wasted at a modest wedding reception.

 

 

http://www.henryhargreaves.com