Hi, I’m Meryl .
I grew up between France and Spain, and so much of what I do today comes from the time I spent with my grandparents. School holidays meant early mornings, local markets and long meals. One of my grandmothers owned a delicatessen, and she would wake my sister and me at five in the morning to go shopping. We'd ride home in the back of her old car, surrounded by tomatoes, peaches and melons. Looking back, those mornings shaped the way I think about food more than anything else.
My other grandmother lived a completely different life. She grew up on a small farm and understood the seasons, produce and the land in a way that always fascinated me. She taught me that good food starts long before it reaches the kitchen.
Today I'm based in Melbourne, where I cook, style and create food imagery for stills and motion. Over the last 13 years I've worked on more than 1,000 projects, from TV commercials and packaging to cookbooks, magazines, restaurants, websites and food brands.
Alongside styling, I build and hire out my own collection of props, and I make handmade ceramics for chefs, restaurants and fellow stylists. Most days you'll find me cooking, hunting for beautiful produce, or covered in clay at the pottery wheel.
I studied Arts in high school, specialising in ceramics and photography, before completing a degree in Film & Media in Granada, Spain. I was originally drawn to food photography, but I quickly realised that if I wanted to create meaningful food imagery, I needed to understand food itself. That curiosity eventually took me to Buenos Aires, where I spent a year studying food criticism. Along the way I learned about food anthropology, ingredients, cooking, table settings and the stories behind different food cultures, while figuring out how to survive in one of South America's biggest cities.
Everything seems connected. Photography led me to food, food led me to travel, travel led me to styling, and ceramics somehow found its way back into my life. Today all of those worlds come together in the work I create.
Photo courtesy of Georgia Gold.