Welcome to the first Seeds of Change Photography Competition in association with Observer Food Monthly. OFM and Seeds of Change have a shared passion for great food and have teamed up for the first time to provide readers with the opportunity to win £10,000 for the best photograph inspired by the phrase 'feed your imagination' - a platform for people to share great food moments and memories, to push boundaries and, as with the best meals, try something new.
The first prize is £10,000 and the winner and runners-up will see their work published in September's issue of OFM and displayed alongside some of the magazine's best work as part of a major exhibition at the.gallery@oxo, at the Oxo Tower on London's South Bank in September. Entrants also have the chance to see their work displayed on OFM's online gallery www.observer.co.uk/seedsofchange).
The Feed Your Imagination competition comprises three categories - portrait, stilllife and reportage. There will be runners-up in each category and one overall winner. The next seven pages showcase some of OFM's best photography in each category to inspire you to 'feed your imagination'.
Our judging panel includes some of the foremost names in the worlds of photography and food including Robin Derrick, creative director of British Vogue, photographers Martin Parr, Harry Borden and John Reardon, plus Nigel Slater, The Observer's cookery writer, Olivia Cheng, brand manager of Seeds of Change, Greg Whitmore, picture editor of The Observer, Nicola Jeal, editor of OFM, and Andrew James, editor of Practical Photography (who are kindly supporting the competition - see practicalphotography.co.uk/exclusives for hints and tips).
Photography is very important to us at OFM whether it's a greasy burger or Fergus Henderson and pig suspended from a ceiling. We can't wait to see what you can do.
Portrait
Portrait photography can be a tricky business - especially if you are trying to photograph people as full of life as foodies and chefs so often seem to be. Add a few chickens or a cow intent on fracturing your shin into the plot and things get messy. Just ask portrait judge John Reardon about his experience of photographing five chefs in drag - chef's whites, miniskirts, size 12 stilettos - it beggars belief how many pairs of fishnets got laddered. However, it was worth it in the end as John has just won Photographer of the Year at the Glenfiddich Food and Drink Awards 2005.
Our other judge is Harry Borden, who took the fabulous picture of the Duchess of Devonshire. His picture was recently exhibited in the National Portrait Gallery for the Schweppes Photographic Portrait Prize 2004. Harry is famous for his iconic portraits of everyone from actress Rachel Weisz, to politician Harriet Harman via boxer Prince Naseem
Portraiture can mean many different things - Harry Borden's Duchess is so different to 'The Last Supper', a studio shot by John Reardon. Just the logistics of getting such busy people in one room at the same time was hard enough. It was then pure chance that the cheese thrown by chef Marcus Wareing hovered for thatone perfect second over Gordon Ramsay's head, just like a halo. And how lucky that no one had their eyes shut.
Murdo Macleod's portrait of Conran chef James Walker with a freshly killed stag caused something of a stir among some of our readers, although the stag had been killed as part of a controlled cull. Daubed in blood and face to face to with his victim, it is certainly an arresting picture and captures the spirit of their challenging day in the Highlands.
Reportage
Reportage ia a very active style of photography, potentially involving travelling distances to follow a story, and putting up with small privations like ankle-deep mud or freezing gales. Judge Martin Parr is well known for his distinctive documentary style of photography, which is particularlyparticularly recognisable in his book Think of England (an affectionately satirical photoessay on modern England). His new exhibition, Fashion Show, opens at Rocket Gallery in London on 20 May and accompanies his latest publication, the wonderful Fashion Magazine.
Palani Mohan knows how it feels to travel the world for a story. He regularly travels with journalist Alex Renton on the trail of fascinating food stories - his picture of chillies strung up on a beach was taken when they visited Chennai in the Bay of Bengal - a city of mostly teetotal vegetarians - where they nonetheless found a great dinner.
Karen Robinson travelled to the Windward Islands with writer Joanna Blythman to investigate the plight of banana farmers. Her picture of the Bruney family illustrates just how many generations will be affected if the EU changes the regulations that maintain their national banana industry.
Karen also took the photograph of JohnWilson, a cockler on Morecambe Bay, when Rachel Cooke investigated the industry after Chinese migrant workers died while hunting for cockles there.
On a happier note, Murdo MacLeod took a lovely picture of Alex Renton's family crab barbecue on the beach at Tiree in the Inner Hebrides, illustrating his piece about sharing the food memories of his youth with his own children. It wasn't so much trudging about in the wind, as happily tucking into a rather lovely supper.
Still life
The still life category will be judged by Robin Derrick and Nigel Slater. As well as being creative director at British Vogue Robin Derrick is a renowned photographer, art director and graphic designer. His own work has appeared in British, German, Russian, Spanish and Japanese Vogue. In 2004 Galerie Gordon Pym et Fils, in Paris, hosted a major exhibition of his photography. He is also author of Unseen Vogue. Nigel Slater is OFM's contributing editor and The Observer's cookery writer. His book, Toast: The Story of a Boy's Hunger won a British Book Award for biography of the year.
Entrants can use full artistic licence when interpreting 'Feed Your Imagination' for a still life. Our own photographers take still life pictures in a range of truly different ways, as these examples illustrate. Pictures can be challenging, or eye-catching or just plain tempting. Romas Foord's crayfishwith syringe was inspired by an article on food scares which we ran in February 2004 - examining whether the Sun's headline 'Natural prawn killers' was accurate. His 'Happy Vegetables' illustrated an article on the links between diet and cancer in October 2004, while 'Pear Shaped' was for a piece about the science behind the GI diet in March this year.
Nigel Slater's wonderful, mouth-watering recipes are photographed every month by Jonathan Lovekin (they also appear weekly in OM magazine) who uses no chemical trickery to get Nigel's food looking great - it just does.
Rob White, on the other hand, does use digital techniques to create amazing images for our 'What's in your basket?' section. He was inspired to submerge swimmer Sharon Davies's daily diet in a pool last year while art critic Brian Sewell saw his dinner on the wall - the Dalí-esque avocado being particularly eye-catching.
