Food photography in the mainstream is clean and beautiful, with the end-result being something that is appealing to the senses. Only in fine art do we see a darker side to food photography, however, it is usually Avant Garde or showing food that has rotted. Photographs of food in magazines, on websites, and on social media platforms like Instagram and Pinterest show food that is oddly revered, such as a bundle of grapes styled and lit like it was the star of a Rembrandt painting.

The truth is, for the vast majority of Americans, food does not come that way or look like that. Most of our food, regardless of whether it is processed or a naturally occurring substance (like fruits, eggs, and vegetables), comes to us in packages. There are logos, bar codes, and slogans and often the packaging is plastic. We generally ignore this in mainstream food photography and instead choose to focus on the way our food should be rather than the way it actually is.

“Neat Little Package” helps us question the current inundation of pretty food photographs, the packaging our food comes to us in, and the multi-billion dollar food industry that benefits from the way our food has been taken from the average person and turned into a commodity.