Victoria Granof

I am often asked what put me on the career path I've traveled to get where I am. It started with a degree in Visual Arts. Then a stint baking cakes for a local coffee bar, which led to Le Cordon Bleu culinary school (I was named Alumnae of the year in 2019!), followed by a rise up the kitchen ladder at several Los Angeles restaurants. Then, a blind date with a food photographer introduced me to the world of food styling. After spray mounting sesame seeds on hamburger buns too numerous to count, I decamped to New York City to combine my love of both visual and culinary arts into food styling of a more "off-piste" nature. At that time - 1998 - food photography was analog, and the food was styled to an unattainable perfection. Photos were painstakingly composed with the Rule of Thirds and Fibonacci spirals, crowded with all sorts of unnecessary props and anything but compelling and provocative. I wanted to make pictures that made you think and feel and CRAVE, but I could only convince still life photographers to test with me to create a portfolio - food photographers were too freaked out by my vision. But as it happened, the late great Irving Penn was NOT, and 1999 began our decade of collaboration until his death at age 94 in 2009. With him, I created the food images that appeared in American Vogue, which led to collaborations with some of the very best still life photographers in New York and abroad, who were beginning to get commissions to shoot food, but in a more conceptual way. The first time I insisted the photographer shoot an ice cream cone just as it began to melt, it caused an uproar. It was for the cover of Bon Appetit magazine and half of the people thought it was horrific and just wrong - while the other half thought it was brilliant. With that image, I began pushing at the boundaries of food imagery, with crumbs and drips and what is now commonly called perfect imperfection. Over the past 22 years, my love of food has led me to other facets of the food cosmos; I've designed and crafted food-based sculptures (life-sized Marie Antoinette out of candy, anyone?) developed hundreds of recipes for books, brands and magazines, authored a few of my own cookbooks, conceptualized and creative directed campaigns and personal projects, hosted and cooked pop-up dinners, and in the past two years have begun directing food commercials for broadcast and digital platforms. Included among Cherry Bombe's 100 Most Inspiring Women In Food, I create compelling, delicious and meaningful food and food design, concepts, still and moving imagery, recipes and content that move brands both large and small forward or maintain a well-loved course.