Photographer Isaac Zambrano and his culinary styling graphics debut at the Guayaquil International Book Fair

Isaac Zambrano compiles his culinary styling charts to show them to the public: the Ecuadorian photographer, expert in gastronomic styling, debuts at the Guayaquil International Book Fair

In the world of Photography, many may want to follow the same paths: artistic, editorial, fashion, advertising photography, among others. Just then Manabi photographer Isaac Zambrano, better known as Zaky Monroewas preparing to start his career six years ago, these were the same dreams he had set for himself.

But life circumstances led him to look for other possibilities in a seemingly little-explored facet: food photographyin which food and dishes from restaurants, companies and culinary products are positioned.

Now the fruits of their labor will be showcased in their first exhibition, which will take place during the first edition of the Guayaquil International Book Fair, in the House of Ecuadorian Culture, core of Guayas (Av. 9 de Octubre and Pedro Moncayo). The cultural event runs from Thursday, November 9 to Saturday, November 11. Zambrano’s exhibition will take place on Saturday the 11th at 4:45 PM.

“Through work situations I met the culture manager Alan Morales, who comes from Peru to hold the first International Book Fair in Guayaquil. He told me that in addition to literature, he also wanted to provide space for other forms of art, such as music, photography, painting… I made him the proposal and he accepted it,” Zaky recalls how he got involved in organizing the event .

The theme of the first exhibition is culinary styling. “The aim of gastronomic or culinary styling photography is to produce attractive and evocative images that invite consumption. Unlike a food photo, culinary styling is about maximizing the prominence of food, but without neglecting its staging. The exhibition is based on that. They are beautiful compositions, if you look at them very closely, they even look like paintings and canvases.”

Together with Zaky there will be the producer Erika Fernandezwho is responsible for shaping and putting together the aforementioned outfits for these memorable photos.

Isaac Zambrano, 28 years old and a resident of Guayaquil for almost a decade, remembers that his original vision of photography was working with models and on a catwalk. “As time goes by, you see other branches and you realize that photography is a whole wide world. When I was in college, a friend who studied gastronomy asked me to take pictures of his desserts. I had the knowledge, I just had to see how this type of photography was done, on YouTube we saw instructional videos. We started it and it turned out well. They were simple photos, but anyway he encouraged me to create a profile on social networks and offer these types of services.”

From there, the @luzentph profile was born, where Zaky exhibits his ‘still lifes’ that he has created for various companies. However, from his account @zaky.monroe, the author also shows his other facets of photography, such as the portraits that appeared on the covers of La Revista, the Sunday supplement of the newspaper EL UNIVERSO.