BTS timelapse of David playing the Food Face challenge in studio (0:21)
Beginning with my test in late June with Ebti, I shot my series in about 2 months. The main delay in time was in scheduling. To be honest, I invited participants based on convenience. Either, I knew we'd be hanging out or I wanted to hang out with them! Also, if I knew they had flexible schedules or could come to me easily, that influenced whom I invited. For some, we already had plans to get together and extended an invitation to participate as an option for our hang out, and for others, I invited specifically to do this with the option of hanging out before or after based on their free time. I was intentional about trying to get an even gender balance in my participants. 50/50.
Refined Rules
Participant brings one edible item.
I bring a few edible items, choose the second item for the participant, and allow the participant to choose the third item from my remaining items.
Participant has 10 minutes to style the two plates while presenting the plates.
Participant cannot cover the plate’s face completely.
Participant must use all three items for each face.
Goals
Play with friends and acquaintances
High fun, not high art
Complete a photo project with at least 10 images or sets of images
Food Face Set 3 - July 16, 2019
David Piles, was my next participant. David is an illustrator so it was fun to see him translate his illustrating skills onto a different medium.
He brought leftover pizza.
I gave him two celery stalks.
He picked the purple rainbow carrot from a choice of apple, nectarine, and banana.
I got really excited watching David style his plates because I could immediately tell he was going in a fantastical direction. It's so interesting that even though I wasn't sure what he was making, the celery hair immediately made me think of snakes. He later said that he was inspired by the celery to make Medusa's snakes and as he was working on her, he was thinking about what to do for the other plate that would complement his first Greek mythological creature. I loved that he went more 3D with the Satyr's horn and how versatile the leftover pizza ended up working for him. David actually mentioned that he might bring leftover pizza when I asked him to participate and before I said that I preferred not to know. He was my first participant to bring something prepared with different ingredients and not a single raw food item.
David’s Food Faces
Key Takeaways from This Play Date
Although I told everyone their participation would take no more than 30 minutes with instruction and execution, we usually ended up chatting for at least 20 minutes afterwards to debrief the experience. Sometimes longer! David and I had a great and extensive conversation after his food face challenge about creative process, making this more challenging for other participants. So after this, I started telling friends to budget an hour for the play date.