Yoichi Nagano has photographed the teenagers of Japan's islands throughout his career, and alongside that work he has spent more than ten years making food pictures for magazines such as ku:nel. With social media and blogs, food photography has become part of daily life, and this book looks at it afresh.

Food pictures are usually expected to be faithful and, unlike advertising, are rarely allowed to stand on their own. Nagano's pictures show the dish as it is, and the story behind it: natural light and shadow, the grain of the wooden table, tableware used for years. Glimpses of the life of the cook make the pictures as expressive as portraits. If a portrait in oil can pass its subject on to later generations and still be an object of art appreciation, can a picture of food also be a portrait? The book 'deliciously' asks this question.