Ilva Beretta

Ilva Beretta styles and shoots Plated Stories

I’d like to think there is a connection between the fact that I can feel it in the pit of my stomach when a photo is right and me working as a food photographer. I don’t know but it sounds good.

My way of creating images is very instinctive, I often realize that I have subconsciously chosen props, colours and/or food that echo or underline/emphasize each other. A wavy plate with fusilli lunghi for example. Or some other detail repeated in colour or pattern.

Light fascinates me, I'd say that light and composition are the most important factors to me when I work. I live by the adage ‘Less is more’ as much as I can; If you can portray a 'naked' vegetable or fruit well, if you can somehow give a soul to it, then you are going in the right direction.

My images are my words.

I work primarily as a food photographer but I can’t resist a challenge; I have photographed cars, interior design elements (bed linens, bathroom and kitchen accessories, toys, etc) and portraits. My clients include Ferrari, Rio Mare, Esselunga (one of Italy's biggest food chains), Philadelphia Italia, Pernod Ricard (Havana Club) and Domaine Wines. I have styled and shot for magazines Sale&Pepe (Italy), Alice Cucina (Italy), Mat & Vänner (Sweden), Four Season’s Magazine (USA),The Art of Eating (USA), American Food Roots (USA), The Foodie Bugle (UK) and editors Q-A International (Canada), Conde Nast (UK and Italy).

I have been featured in the Italian art magazine Bang Art!, Italian food and design magazine DDN Cucine International, Culinate, an 8 page spread in Photographie (Germany) and in The Foodie Bugle.

I am a contributing writer at Photography Tricks and I am currently the photography curator at World-Eats.com. The last three years I have been the judge for the photography section at the Swedish Food Blog awards and in 2013, I presented an Experts Are in Session at IACP Conference with Jamie Schler with whom I also have been teaching workshops for several years.

Plated Stories won the Best Photography Based Food Blog at the IACP Media Awards in 2014 and the same year, I was one of the finalists in the International Colour Awards.

I had a one-man show in 2008 in Uppsala, Sweden; I was part of a group exhibition on food art in 2013 in Bologna, Italy.

I’m represented by photo agents DVMILANO in Italy and Europe and by MFAA in Asia; you can find me on my portfolio site, my blog Ilva Beretta Photography and on the stock agencies SucreSalé and StockFood.

 "Ilva's innovative vision infuses her food photography with a unique quality of beauty, harmony and light, at once simple and complex."