Riverview writer shares love of food photography at Frye Fest

The Northrop Frye literary festival is underway in Moncton with authors of all kinds sharing their stories through workshops and readings.

Dennis Prescott of Riverview is a contributor to Food & Wine Magazine and a recipe developer with more than 100,000 followers on Instagram and a blog where he shares photos of his favourite meals.

On Sunday he shared the secrets of his food photography with people at a Frye Festival workshop.

"Natural light is the best way to do it. We have the sun, the sun is free … so try to photograph during the daytime, try to shut off the lights in your kitchen if you can cause they kind of have a yellowish hue to them, and just be creative," Prescott said.

"Think about what story you want to tell through your dish."

Prescott says his love for cooking came from spending 10 years on the road as full-time musician during which time he was exposed to many different kinds of food.

"Unfortunately it's a lot of fun but it doesn't really pay well so I learned that if I really want nice food I'm going to have to learn how to cook that," he said. "So food and recipe development and writing about it kind of bred out of that."

Prescott says he has been able to turn his love of food into a career thanks to social media.

"I'm able to do this and travel around and take shots at different restaurants and also work on recipe development of my own," he said.

Prescott admires the adventurous spirit that the younger generations are bringing to eating and cooking and says most of the people who respond to his posts are between 25 and 45 years old.

"They'll try anything. It doesn't matter what the food is, they'll try absolutely any dish and they might not like everything, but they'll try eating anything or making anything and they're fine with failing."

He says social media has changed the way people approach food.

"They want to know where does their food come from and how do I make it. You can go on to YouTube and watch someone make it. You don't have to go to culinary school."

Prescott admits that as a musician he was often annoyed by people who would come to a concert and spend the entire show recording with their cell phones.

He says the same risk of missing the moment exists for those who photograph every meal they are served in restaurants.

"I would say there is a certain joie de vivre that may be lost in being constantly concerned about what that picture is going to look like on social media."

Prescott believes people should save their food photography and social media posts for the meals they prepare at home.