We live in a time when just about everybody takes pictures of their food, posts it on various social media in anticipation of getting not one, but numerous “like’s”. Therefore, my expectations were also not that high when we were invited to the opening of yet another food photographer’s works at Galleri Grefti.
But OH MY GOD!
Rarely have photographs made such a big impression on me – and the woman behind it all, Swedish-born Ilva Beretta is the proof that images of food in fact can contain emotions, memories and sensory impressions far beyond the usual!
Ilva Beretta is a Swedish food photographer who lives in Italy and has a somewhat unexpected approach to food. Her amazing pictures are atmospheric and emotional, they never get boring – and in a very marvelous way they tell a story.
For some reason, one as a viewer want to touch her photographs that seem very sensual.
Ilva’s photographs have harvested piles of recognition; The prestigious SONY Photography Awards, the International Association of Culinary Professionals, the International Color Awards, the IPA Awards and the Pink Lady Photography Competition are just some of them.
Ilva herself tells that she always tries to take pictures of something real. Of situations that exist. Experiences that have been lived. Of feelings that have been felt. Therefore, she does not use artificial light when she photographs, but that she only uses the daylight in her apartment just outside Pistoria in Tuscany.
But why take pictures of food?
“In my professional work, I am a food photographer. It’s a wonderful thing and I’m very happy to be able to do something for a living that I love. But at a more creative level, it’s not enough anymore. I need the challenge of expressing me artistic, in projects that need thinking and emotions, series of photos that work together – and so it should move both me and others, ” says 
Ilva Beretta, who in her current exhibition has a number of photographs, where the motifs are blurred and almost seem like they are moving.
“In fact, they are a picture of my memories from childhood. I had incredibly bad eyesight, and was very vain as a child and teenager – so I would not use glasses. That’s why I saw the world as blurred and unsharp. I recognized people on their way to moved, not looked. Until I finally had to surrender and get glasses.”
That we all have memories we can recall through food, is one of the reasons why Ilva Beretta loves to take pictures of food.
“We have all childhood memories that can emerge when we taste an orange, or when we meet the smell of freshly picked strawberries. A lot of memories and the best of moments are created around food, like a nice dinners with good friends. These are the memories and feelings I try to recreate for thepeople who look at my pictures, “she explains and adds:
“Food is something constant. It’s a solid line through history. A lemon has always looked the way it does – and will probably continue to look like this. It does not change – not in a thousand years. It is in one way or another constant in a changing world. As humans, we have always been depending on food to survive and we always will be. That’s why it’s fascinating to take pictures of it. ”
And should anyone be in doubt let me just say I’m a fan! Ilva Beretta’s photographs are incredible – even though they are “only” pictures of food. And should any of you encounter her name on a flyer, a poster or on a door into a gallery – here is my advice; get in there as fast as you can! To make food to look the way that Ilva does, is undoubtedly worth experiencing!
Read more about Ilva and see some of her amazing works of art here:
www.ilvaberetta-art.com
