Known for his beautiful food photographs, Francesc Guillamet stars in this new episode of the Stay to eat podcast. The photos of Met, as many know this character who has lived and contributed to the rise of haute cuisine in recent decades, have served to record the creations of chefs such as Ferran Adrià, Carme Ruscalleda, Paco Pérez, the Roca brothers or, currently, the three partners of Abiertor. Born in Figueras, from a young age he fell in love with this profession, even though he was not initially well regarded at home, and in gastronomic photography he found his passion. Although he maintains that it is a profession that is not always highly valued – he assures that now “a lot is published and little is paid” – Guillamet has been in charge of immortalizing the essence of some chefs who, like him, will go down in history.
The photographer talks about the nature of his profession and highlights the importance of creating an environment of complicity at work. “There is no level photography without a good team behind it,” he says. He remembers some of the people who were part of his team, such as the photographer Maribel Ruiz Erenchun, who died in 2018, with whom words were not needed to understand each other, he explains. .
He began his journey in gastronomic photography with the help of El Bulli and its creator, Ferran Adrià. “I had the great luck of going even with another person who stood out,” Guillamet modestly admits, who considers it essential that there also be complicity between photographer and cook. The first book they published was The Taste of the Mediterranean, which marked the beginning of Adrià’s work at the Cala Montjoi restaurant. That first delivery, with a great prominence of the sea and the landscapes that Guillamet is so passionate about, marked a change when it came to cataloging and leaving graphic testimony of each of the dishes that came out of a restaurant.
He spent many years at El Bulli and experienced first-hand everything that happened inside and outside the kitchen. “That first Ferran had a way of being that could have convinced me of anything,” he asserts, still admired by the creativity of which he was a witness for years. Perhaps that is why it is now much more difficult to surprise him: “I know very well everything that happened in El Bulli. And when I go to other restaurants, I always see something I’ve seen before. Always always always”.
When Guillamet entered this profession, photography books were not abundant on the shelves of bookstores, “not like now, when they are everywhere,” he explains. He remembers his trips to a bookstore in Perpignan to buy Vogue magazine, in its American edition, in which one of the masters of the time, Irving Penn, published a still life monthly.
The reality of a profession that is not always highly valued, a change in the scale of priorities, fashions in restaurants, photography in the era of social networks or artificial intelligence are some of the topics he addresses in a conversation in which delves into the importance of trying to fight to achieve what one is truly passionate about.
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