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Seattle photographer, Christopher Boffoli, is widely known for his series of work called Big Appetites. Using food as a prop in his photographic storytelling, the images show an affection for the miniature and the playful. The work is significantly more evolved than the airplane spoon of dinner that is “coming in for a landing” in a baby’s mouth, but perhaps both share the concept of bridging food and play. The photos create imaginary worlds and alternate realities. It’s a world where broccoli can becomes a lawn and spaghetti can become a car wash.

In the artist’s words:

“The figures in this work are all hand-painted and their meticulous detail is a big part of why the images work. On occasion I’ll re-paint or modify figures to suit my purposes. They’re designed to be glued down so they don’t stand on their own. The trick is getting them arranged. A lot of food is soft so I can use a toothpick to make a small hole into which I can insert one of the feet. Other times I use agave nectar or a proprietary putty to get the feet to stand on hard surfaces… Other than some light and color adjustment, the images are not heavily manipulated with image processing software. The food I use is even totally real. Especially with commercial food photography there is a lot of cheating, for instance, using white glue in place of milk or glass cubes instead of ice. But I don’t really need to cheat with the food either. It is not always something you’d want to eat at the end of the shoot. But it is real.”

Broccoli Mower (above): “Douglas stubbornly refused to accept his wife’s opinion that he had let the lawn go too long without attention.”



Linguine Car Wash: “The deluxe carbonara option was canceled after too many customers lost mirrors and antennas.”



Unjolly Rancher: “A cowhand’s work is never done.”



Lemon Cupcake Sledding: “It seemed an opportune time to school little Danny on the pitfalls of eating yellow snow.”



Tiramisu Takeoff: “Soft runways made landings a pleasure, but takeoffs risky.”



Noodle Haystacks: “During harvest time, all the cult members had to pitch in, even Prophet Geoffrey himself.”



“When I was young the cones were so big you could drive a car through them.”



Pie Excavators: “Despite their best efforts, they never did manage to find Cecil’s lost wedding ring.”



Swiss Chard Couple: “Grace and Kat bonded over their mutual love of high places.”



Cookie Bear Ambush: “An elite squad was not always successful against superior numbers.”

via NPR