Last Updated on 08/21/2014 by Chris Gampat
All photographs by Dan Bannino. Used with permission.
It’s in the superfluous as well as the deprivation that Italian photographer Dan Bannino’s Still Diet series takes inspiration from – from the excess of alcohol, cigarettes, and even food and from the lack of moderation and a well-balanced diet.
From the get-go, Dan wanted to actualize a project that “capture(s) the beauty that lies in this terrible constriction of diets and deprivation” while “giving them the importance of an old master’s painting.” According to Dan, “I wanted to make them significant, like classic works of arts that are becoming more and more weighty as they grow older. My aim was to show how this weirdness hasn’t changed even since the 15th century.”
And thus, Still Diet was born. Similar to Peter Augustus’ Mystery Meat series, which also illustrates the horrors of food but focuses more on what the masses consume, Still Diet takes our attention to the other end of the anthropomorphic food chain where celebrities and influential people dwell.
Brutally honest and hypnotic, it’s a series that illustrates the reality behind the lengths and constraints people in the limelight go through, in the way they consume food, to look and act the part they’re expected to play, from Matthew McConaughey’s protein diet to Mariah’s bizarre Purple Diet to Henry VIII constant and extravagant feasting, all wrapped up in classic painting-like packages.
See the whole series after the jump.
For more of Dan Bannino’s work, visit his website or follow him on Facebook.
