Matthew Benson Foto

Matthew Benson Foto Matthew Benson Foto - Food / Garden / Lifestyle / Travel Photographer Photographer specializing in Food, Gardens, and Lifestyle.

05/25/2026

coming soon!

05/25/2026

After more than two years of writing and image making, my latest book is in my publisher's hands! Prequels and pre-orders to come :)

Keep it simple… fiddlehead tart shot for the cookbook. In a brightly renovated farmhouse in Weston VT, I spent half a d...
02/22/2023

Keep it simple… fiddlehead tart shot for the cookbook. In a brightly renovated farmhouse in Weston VT, I spent half a day masking window light with black foamcore to create all of the atmospheric shadows and light that I wanted for this period piece about rural cookery in Vermont. Creating a visual palette and vibe for each cookbook project is a big part of my job, as is understanding the context, narrative and intent behind it. Storytelling vs. simple picture making…

Tenderness, integrity, and a measure of toil is revealed in these weathered farm hands shot for my book Growing Beautifu...
02/22/2023

Tenderness, integrity, and a measure of toil is revealed in these weathered farm hands shot for my book Growing Beautiful Food.

As a grower and , I get the appreciative grace of this gesture: After a long season of care — in this case, globe artichokes that not only take three months or more to fruit, but need to be vernalized (a challenging process where the seedlings need to experience artificially cool temperatures for a few weeks in order to accelerate flowering).

These hands say so much: Thank you for coming through, for flowering at last despite all the vicissitudes of weather and pests and predation. I have a lovely vinaigrette and a pot on the boil for you. Bon appétit!
Nikon D4, 105 2.8 lens. Hands: Barbara Damrosch


I wrote (and photographed) the goings-on of rural life at in my 2015 book Growing Beautiful Food. It’s been eight years...
02/22/2023

I wrote (and photographed) the goings-on of rural life at in my 2015 book Growing Beautiful Food. It’s been eight years (time for another?) and my disposition towards chickens hasn’t changed much:

"There’s nothing like a few hens strutting and fretting around the farm to bring the place to life. For all their magic, walking about is something earthbound plants don’t do. Chickens, on the other hand, peck and flutter like feathered perennials on legs. Brightly plumed and insatiably curious, chickens spend the day foraging for insects, seeds, and scraps; taking long, languorous dust baths; and murmuring praise to themselves for producing one of nature’s truly elegant wonders: the egg.

Pulling a warm egg from beneath a broody hen is a magical thing: the ruffled murmur as she relinquishes; the egg’s perfect, spherical warmth, its bone-smooth promise. And fitting so perfectly in the palm of the hand, as though the relationship between laying and gathering always was" (Growing Beautiful Food, Matthew Benson, Rodale Books/ 2015).


















Today’s mood: side-lit, simple, somewhat solitary.Crab cake and mixed greens with a lemon wedge and green hexagonal tumb...
02/22/2023

Today’s mood: side-lit, simple, somewhat solitary.

Crab cake and mixed greens with a lemon wedge and green hexagonal tumbler.

Shot a while back for the cookbook by , the chromatic simplicity of the propping in this shot let’s the recipe shine.

Save for the Bakelite-handled vintage fork (propping from the prop swag ), which warms the set to the temp of the meal, everything else is muted and somewhat a-tonal. Like the moody sky today.

As Joni sings in Hejira “There's comfort in melancholy, When there's no need to explain, It's just as natural as the weather
In this moody sky today” (although I used to malappris it, for some high-minded reason, as “in this cruel misguided age.”).

Food to conjure meaning.

Shot with a Nikon D4 and a 110mm 2.8 in rural Vermont.


Pattern language… The effect of the whole in this shot is greater than it’s parts alone, but without the right propping,...
02/22/2023

Pattern language… The effect of the whole in this shot is greater than it’s parts alone, but without the right propping, that macro Gestalt (the word Gestalt is used in modern German to mean the way a thing has been “placed,” or “put together”) would be lost.

In this case, the worn pewter platter, crazed and pocked by time and use, is the frame. It sits on an antique tollware tray with some simple, warmly-rendered botanicals There’s an embossed leaf form on the upper left of the platter, but other than that its form is simple, neutral.

The Homer Laughlin plate from the Forties is delicately patterned in monochrome botanicals, and picks up where the platter left off: there’s more detail and expression as we move inward toward the meal.

The inlaid, three-tined pewter fork and knife also lead the eye toward the marinated venison at the center, and skew some of the symmetry of the circles.

The warm tones of the plated venison stew draw and keep the viewer focused and engaged (the bay leaf also repeats the botanical forms on the periphery).

The goal of any cookbook shot is to seduce you into wanting to prepare that recipe. All of the propping and food styling are major players in that seduction. The interaction may only take seconds, but the impact should linger.

Visually, it’s a form of Group Theory: the mathematics of patterns as fundamental forces in the universe. We are pattern-seeking animals, and as a photographer, my job is to create relationships between patterns that please the eye.

Of course, on set, this understanding needs to flow unburdened by the theoretical. It needs to come to you intuitively and unbidden. Your visual brain will know when it’s right. That’s why you’ve been hired.

Props from the barn studio . Shot for the Vermont Country Store Cookbook by . Food styling by .


Smoked oysters on the half shell shot in the barn studio for ’s Project Smoke. Hours of childhood rambling through Euro...
02/22/2023

Smoked oysters on the half shell shot in the barn studio for ’s Project Smoke. Hours of childhood rambling through European museums, on the lamb from my parent’s absent grasp, came back in the making of this image (my father was also deeply obsessed with the gloss and brine of oysters...) I lived in the Netherlands as a child and took in enough still life to permanently infuse my visual psyche. These glinty bivalves were shot low angled and intimate, with just enough atmospheric smoke picking up light to tell the story. Their foreshortened tumble across the grill, with an old tin-over-copper platter and antique spear-tined fork, and the low, directional light, create the perfect timeless vibe. We broke out the Moët after this one! Nikon D4, 85 mm f 2.

Speaking and workshopping with garden groups around the country gives me so much creative and interactive joy! As much ...
09/26/2022

Speaking and workshopping with garden groups around the country gives me so much creative and interactive joy! As much as I live in my own inner flow, helping other to problem solve visually is always meaningful.


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