--- title: Classic Food Photos From LIFE Magazine's 'Great Dinners' Series description: Fifty years ago, LIFE magazine launched a monthly series focusing on fine food, and helped re-imagine what food photography could be. canonical: https://time.com/3879318/classic-food-photography-from-life-magazines-great-dinner-series/ author: Liz Ronk article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-03-10T19:41:44.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T05:03:45.877Z og:title: Classic Food Photos From LIFE Magazine's 'Great Dinners' Series og:description: Fifty years ago, LIFE magazine launched a monthly series focusing on fine food, and helped re-imagine what food photography could be. og:url: https://time.com/3879318/classic-food-photography-from-life-magazines-great-dinner-series/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb5bd454a0b864e55/69884b730b72e36abf6e3846/140306-great-dinners-dominis-01.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Trout Amandine og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Classic Food Photos From LIFE Magazine's 'Great Dinners' Series twitter:description: Fifty years ago, LIFE magazine launched a monthly series focusing on fine food, and helped re-imagine what food photography could be. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb5bd454a0b864e55/69884b730b72e36abf6e3846/140306-great-dinners-dominis-01.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Tasty: John Dominis' Classic Food Photography by [Liz Ronk](https://time.com/author/liz-ronk/) ## Liz Ronk Mar 10, 2014 7:41 PM UTC  A hooked trout "flies" from a bed of almonds in preparation for Trout Amandine. A hooked trout "flies" from a bed of almonds in preparation for Trout Amandine.John Dominis—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images by [Liz Ronk](https://time.com/author/liz-ronk/) ## Liz Ronk Mar 10, 2014 7:41 PM UTC The art and craft of photographing food is now so much a part of our visual landscape—in [magazines](http://www.realsimple.com/), on billboards and subway posters, on [websites](http://www.foodandwine.com/) and elsewhere—it’s easy to imagine that inventive food photography has been around since the dawn of the medium. In fact, for a very long time, the vast majority of pictures of food were just kind of . . . _blah_. Appetizers, entrees, desserts and drinks—a cake, a pot roast, a salad, a martini, whatever—were arranged in a straightforward way on a table or a kitchen counter, exactly the way one would encounter the delectables in real life. Fifty years ago, however, in its Jan. 31, 1964, issue, LIFE magazine launched its famous (among foodies, anyway) “Great Dinners” series, and helped re-imagine what food photography could be. “The dinners are festive,” LIFE’s editors wrote of the meals they would present in the series, “and yet simple to cook. Because no feast is created entirely in the kitchen, the stories will offer—along with recipes—advice on how to prepare ahead, shop efficiently, serve with style. A complete menu will be given for each meal.” Throughout the long and popular run of the monthly series, some of LIFE’s most celebrated photographers contributed to Great Dinners, with one name in particular, John Dominis, appearing again and again, in issue after issue. Throughout his career, Dominis’ uniformly excellent work across wildly disparate subjects pegged him as one of LIFE’s most versatile talents—and his photos of food certainly contributed to that reputation. As LIFE.com wrote in a [Photographer Spotlight on Dominis](http://life.time.com/culture/john-dominis-celebrating-the-work-of-a-master-photographer/#1): --- > “” --- --- > “” --- Here, LIFE.com presents a sampling of Dominis’ food photography—pictures that came naturally to the man, in a sense, as he loved to cook. (His father was a chef and restaurant owner in Los Angeles.) “We decided to shoot large close-ups that made the food look good to eat,” Dominis once wrote about the Great Dinners pictures, “instead of the popular style \[at the time\], decorated with flowers and candles.” Dominis also found creative ways to make dishes look especially enticing. For example, his picture of a Rolled Roast, photographed in a roasting container that’s been cut in half (slide #5 above), appears to have been pulled moments before from an oven. But that’s cigarette smoke, not a savory steam, pouring from the pot—smoke blown in there, Dominis later noted, “to make it look yummy.”  A hooked trout "flies" from a bed of almonds in preparation for Trout Amandine. John Dominis—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Great Dinners, LIFE magazine. John Dominis—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Great Dinners, Beef Stew. John Dominis—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Squab garnished with grapes. John Dominis—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Argentinian matambre, a slice of beef rolled with vegetables and chilies, photographed in a roasting pot that's been cut in half. (The smoke is from a cigarette.) John Dominis—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Pot-au-feu, with chicken, beef and Polish sausage. John Dominis—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Great Dinners, LIFE magazine. John Dominis—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Choucroute garnie, a meal of sauerkraut and (left to right), kielbasa, veal sausage, knackwurst, pork butt and bratwurst. John Dominis—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Steak au poivre. ("I photographed the pepper mill and the steak together in one exposure," Dominis said, "then I put a large amount of pepper on a piece of glass, and made a second exposure on the same film.") 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