25 Tantalizing Photos From The World Food Photography Awards

The shortlisted images from the World Food Photography Awards are a tasty celebration of the universal language of food.

From growing, farming and harvesting to cooking, eating, celebrating and surviving, the finalist photos selected from thousands of entries from more than 70 countries, offer a unique insight into the lives of people around the world through the lens of food.

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The World Food Photography Awards sponsored by Broccolini and regarded as the world’s greatest celebration of food photography are open to professional and non-professional photographers.

The overall winners for all the categories will be announced on May 20 in London at the competition’s Awards Evening hosted by renowned chef and food writer Yotam Ottolenghi.

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The Overall Winner of the competition will take home a prize of £5,000.

A free-to-enter exhibition of all the finalists’ images will premiere at The Mall Galleries, London, running from May 21 to May 25.

The Joys Of Sharing Food

After a day of shooting at the Moulin Rouge restaurant in Paris, Fanny and Grace, two dancers from the revue, taste the dishes that photographer Franck Tremblay had just photographed for a magazine.

One of the most renowned dishes of modern Italian cuisine, the iconic saffron risotto with golden leaf dish, was created in 1981 by Maestro Gualtiero Marchesi and became one of his most famous signature dishes. It’s now served exclusively at La Terrazza Gualtiero Marchesi at the Grand Hotel Tremezzo on Lake Como and each dish is accompanied by an authenticity certificate.

In the Yi ethnic area of Daliangshan, Sichuan Province, China, people gather together and share happiness — or sadness — through meals.

A lobster cocktail fit for a king is a promotional shoot for The Ivy restaurant in London Victoria. This starter dish was part of their commemorative menu to celebrate the coronation of King Charles III.

Elderly people in their 80s, wearing the unique, colored cotton padded jackets of the western Sichuan Plain and wool caps, sit under two old photos while happily enjoying the famous local Sichuan snack, “spring rolls.”

Carina and Sven cut a cake made by their friend at their wedding. Unfortunately, the complicated concoction had become unstable and poor but happy Carina attempted to prop it up. They arrested its decline just in time.

Food Photography: The Harvest

A towering harvest on two wheels is steered with skill and resilience. Along Tanzania’s Swahili Coast, farmers master the art of balance, moving their bounty with quiet determination. This is how the harvest finds its way home.

A farmer offers his produce at a betel nut market in Bangladesh. These apparently humble nuts act as a mild stimulant when chewed, with a buzz equivalent to six cups of coffee. Despite attendant health risks, they’re an important part of many Asian cultures and a major cash crop.

At the tip of a small peninsula near Maputo, Mozambique, sits the community of Machangulo, home to 3,500 residents, mostly farmers and fishermen. Food and supplies are transported from Maputo via wooden dhows under sail. After many storms and boat impacts, their only pier is no longer safe to use so the locals have to wade out to the arriving dhows to unload in choppy and quite chilly waters.

After the rice harvest, the river water filled the paddy fields and at some point fish found their way there. After school, two children went to the field to catch them with their covers. Approaching quietly, leaping vigorously, they pounced on their prey.

A woman works at the traditional olive harvest at Solto Collina, Italy. The Pedonier Farm, an artisan family business, grows its olive groves on the hillsides of Lago d’Iseo near Bergamo. Harvested by hand, the olives are combed off onto nets, collected into crates and rushed to the mill to be pressed within 48 hours to guarantee oil of highest quality.

In Jiangxi Province, China, Plate duck is a traditionally famous dish. Its production requires material selection, slaughter, cleaning, pickling and air drying. The picture shows a worker at a duck-making company air drying ducks.

Freshly-harvested Cabernet Sauvignon grapes glisten in the early morning sun moments before transport to the destemmer at Agur Winery in the Judean Hills in central Israel.

Pascal and his mule weed the steep hillsides of the Saint-Joseph appellation which overlook the Rhône in France’s Saint-Désirat region.

Mu Cang Chai’s overlapping high and low terraced fields in Yen Bai province, Vietnam, create a majestic yet romantic landscape, breathtakingly beautiful especially during the yellow rice season. During the ripe rice season, the “stairs” in Mu Cang Chai also come alive with the harvesting activities of farmers.

The Art Of Food Photography

“In this image,” Remko Kraaijeveld explains, “I wanted to capture in an almost painterly way, the delicate beauty, structure, color and shapes of different fresh ingredients.”

A photo to celebrate the beauty of imperfections. While each pasta shell is unique in shape, texture, and curves, all are beautiful.

On a spring day at my friend’s home, the dish was so gorgeous that he could not resist,” recalls Pier Luigi Dodli.

This photo was one of the series ‘Perfectly Imperfect’ capturing the process of baking sourdough bread while incorporating the symbolism of the Japanese Ensō sign (imperfect circle). Preparing food and photography are both mindful activities where calmness and creativity exist in the moment of creation.

Food Photography By Women

A Highlander cow greets its owner on a foggy morning, showing us the deep emotional bond that can be forged between humans and animals in rural settings.

This is Delfina and her portrait is part of a project documenting pasta grannies in Italy. This is in the region of Lazio. On the bed is an angel hair type of pasta called Fieno di Canepina that is technically quite difficult to make.

Delfina rolls out the pasta then flicks a huge piece the size of the table out like a bed sheet, folds it concertina style and slices it up finely. The best part is that she makes this huge amount then delivers it to the local church, where they cook it to feed homeless people.

The Tharu tribal women of the Chitwan district in Nepal plant rice in the fields at the end of a hard day.

“In Kalupur, area in Western India, the elderly live simple, content lives as their children work in distant cities,” Boskee Selarka explains. “Over time, I connected with them, capturing their stories, warmth and quiet longing. They find joy in routine, cherishing memories and embracing life with patience, love and resilience.”

“These tomatoes were grown by my 81-year-old mother,” Giedre Barauskiene writes. “Every year, I look for interesting, rarer tomato seeds and she grows them. I know she doesn’t have the strength to pull out weeds, but to me they are beautiful and together with the tomatoes they create a beloved jungle.”

See all the shortlisted images in every category here. The overall winners for all the categories of the World Food Photography awards will be announced in London on May 20.

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