Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - July 24, 2024, Winnipeg, Manitoba SUMMER 2024 ISSUE DON’T MISS THE Read online at winnipegfreepress.com/fp-features Available at Manitoba Liquor Marts - while supplies last! P i c k u p y o u r c o p y t o d a y ! S HEL Zolkewich has made a career of playing with her food. Born in Gimli and raised in a Ukrainian household where it was practically “against the law not to have an interest in food,” Zolkewich fell into food styling entirely by accident. She was working as a journalist and travel writer (occasionally for the Free Press) when she was contacted by a producer who noticed the food content she was sharing on social media from trips and home-cooking experiments. They were looking to hire a food stylist for a series of local commercials. “I hung up the phone and immedi- ately googled, ‘What is a food stylist?’” she says with a laugh. “I had no idea.” In the decade since, Zolkewich has learned how to make food look its best for photo and video shoots. Her exper- tise can turn an off-putting plate into an appetizing meal. While she holds no specific creden- tials — there are no major institutions offering food-styling programs — she has studied food photography, as well as the principles of composition, de- sign and colour. The tricks of the trade have come through online advice and trial and error. Something Zolkewich learned early on was to prepare an excess of ingre- dients, especially for video reshoots. Her first gig was a Dairy Farmers of Canada commercial consisting of a farmer sitting on a tailgate enjoying a short rib and smoked gouda sandwich. “I made lots and lots of short ribs and I shredded lots and lots of smoked gouda. We did a total of nine resets, which was good because I had ingredi- ents to do 10,” she says. Zolkewich has worked for a range of clients, from agriculture commodity groups to tourism companies to restau- rants. Sometimes the job includes developing recipes and taking photos; other times she’s putting finishing touches on a chef-plated dish and collaborating with a photographer or videographer. N EXT month, her work will make its movie debut in a Hallmark flick entitled The Magic of Lem- on Drops. (Zolkewich isn’t at liberty to talk about what exactly she made for the production, but lemon drops may or may not have been part of the assignment.) For someone who jokes she grew up in “show business” because her family owned the Gimli movie theatre, working on a film set was an exciting challenge. The days were long and last-minute script changes often meant coming up with dishes on the fly. She had to prep enough ingredients to ensure continu- ity while making sure those ingredi- ents could withstand a lengthy wait between scenes. EVA WASNEY WEDNESDAY JULY 24, 2024 ● ARTS & LIFE EDITOR: JILL WILSON 204-697-7018 ● ARTS@FREEPRESS.MB.CA ● WINNIPEGFREEPRESS.COM ARTS ● LIFE SECTION C CONNECT WITH THE BEST ARTS AND LIFE COVERAGE IN MANITOBA ▼ Food stylist adds extra flavour to photos Appetizing art IAN MCCAUSLAND PHOTOGRAPHY Making brown foods, such as meat, look good is one of Zolkewich’s favourite challenges. IAN MCCAUSLAND PHOTOGRAPHY JULIO CESAR ASSIS PHOTO Shel Zolkewich often makes and plates the food she styles for photo and video shoots. How is the stage lit? Who hangs the paintings? What happens in the dish pit? Behind the Scenes is a recurring series highlighting the important and often invisible work happening at arts and culture venues across Winnipeg. BEHIND THE SCENES ● CONTINUED ON C8 Recently unearthed documentary showcases work of George Cotter On the trail of a filmmaking Manitoba naturalist GEORGE Cotter didn’t shoot to kill. He shot to preserve. Born in 1915 in Cumberland House, Sask., Cotter revered the natural world. He was driven to school by a team of sled dogs, as a teen he worked the trapline, and after moving to Winnipeg in 1933, he thirsted for the twitter of the whiskeyjack and the first sip of ice water from a winter stream. In 1950, as the Red River Valley flooded, Cotter climbed onto his St. Vital roof, watching the drama flow past his viewfinder. More than 100,000 residents were evacuated, over $1 billion in damage was caused and the career of one of the province’s fore- most naturalist documentarians was launched. From the time George and Sally Cot- ter started Cotter Wildlife Productions in the late 1950s to George Cotter’s death at 96 in 2011, the longtime president of the Manitoba Naturalists Society filmed dozens of shorts with topics ranging from the great grey owl to cattails to the sealskin footwear of the Inuit. The Cotters’ reels were shown in schools across the province as sup- plements. With sharp scripts by Sally, the films were marked by Cotter’s devotion to conservation — of not just the terrain of his youth, but to the rug- ged ideals of a life in the bush, where animals came first and humans were required to stand at a remove. “Even in the winter, I prefer to stay outdoors all day, or for several days,” Cotter says in the feature-length docu- mentary Wilderness Trails. “That way I become just one more animal moving through the woods.” Since its 1976 première, the film has languished in obscurity in the Library Archives of Canada. But on Thursday, a digitally restored version will screen at the Gimli International Film Festi- val for its first major public showing in 48 years, offering a pair of filmmakers making sense of a landscape they knew wouldn’t last forever. ● ● ● Before he directed Wilderness Trails, Gunter Henning was shooting commercials for K-Tel. BEN WALDMAN MOVIE PREVIEW WILDERNESS TRAILS ● Gimli Film Festival ● Thursday at 5 p.m. ● Johnson Hall, Gimli ● Tickets $15 at gimlifilm.com SUPPLIED Cotter’s filmmaking was motivated by a reverence for the natural world. ● CONTINUED ON D2 How to take better food photos WHETHER you’re at home or a restaurant, Shel Zolkewich has some tips for capturing a memorable meal. ● Find the right angle: Does the dish look best from above or down low? Either way, get in close and turn the plate to find the best focal point. ● Clear away clutter: Remove any sunglasses or keys from the table. Ask your dinner guests to hold their hands out of frame while you get the shot. ● Follow the light: Restaurants aren’t known for their photogenic light- ing. If possible, move your plate near a window to snag some natural light. ● Learn how to use your equipment: You don’t need a fancy camera, but you do need to know how to use your device. Play around with your phone and get to know its built-in camera and editing settings. ;