Annette Joseph stands at a wooden island in her Atlanta kitchen and flips over an iron skillet. Its contents, a tarte tatin, are stuck, so she gives the pan a few stern pats and out tumbles the tasty treat.
Joseph halts a photographer from taking photos of the unfinished dish. Digging her fingers into the tart, she rearranges the slices into a neatly spiraled display.
“Not everything you see in a magazine comes out looking like perfection,” Joseph confides. “We have many tricks.”
She should know. The petite brunette is a busy, behind-the-scenes lifestyle maven, working as a photo stylist for such magazines as Better Homes & Gardens and Country Home. When she’s not swooping into homes and decorating rooms to be camera-ready, she might be on a morning talk show sharing cooking and baking tips. On Monday, Joseph will appear on "The Today Show" to dish about Easter entertaining, and her styling work can be seen in this and next month's issues of BH&G.
She is as equally comfortable throwing a last-minute dinner party as she is overhauling a condo on a tight deadline, which she recently did preparing for actress Gwyneth Paltrow's arrival in Nashville, where she is shooting a movie.
“Styling brings it together for me, all of the things I like," Joseph explains of the variety of jobs.
Originally from Milwaukee, Joseph began her career as a window dresser in New York, and later discovered her love for photo styling. She and her husband Frank Joseph, who is a surgeon, moved to Atlanta about 25 years ago, where they've raised daughter, Alex, 21, and son, Levi, 16.
Joseph, whose work can be seen at www.ajphotostylist.net, has mastered the art of casual living in her home. It's simple, but it's not effortless. Linens are neatly folded in baskets at the foot of her dining table. A collection of glass jars is artfully arranged on a modern German buffet. Accent lighting features artwork and cooking spaces. Even her glass-fronted refrigerator is display (and eyebrow-raising) worthy, with its contents kept in baskets and lazy Susans.
Everything has, and is in, its place.
"I’m always moving things around. It bothers my eye otherwise," Joseph said. “It’s not easy to live with me, but it’s always photo ready.”
Oma Blaise Ford, now senior deputy editor of home design at BH&G, met Joseph nearly a decade ago when she scouted Joseph's home for publication at her former magazine Atlanta Homes & Lifestyles. The two eventually began working together on projects such as home styling, lifestyle and production stories, she said.
“She’s one of those rare creative people who are multi-faceted. That makes her very marketable in that lifestyle guru vein," Ford said. "Some people are more specialized, but she’s able to span a lot of areas of home and general lifestyle."
Now Joseph's set her sights on a new venture: a cookbook.
She's hesitant to divulge the mission of the culinary collection as it is shopped to publishers, but one might characterize it simply as a guide to women (and men) who want to learn the art of fresh, tasty and attractive cooking. Much of Joseph's inspiration comes from the months she spends every year at her family's villa in Italy, as well as childhood memories of summers spent with her Hungarian grandmother.
"The way I cook is the way I decorate. It’s simple with good ingredients," she said. "I find things with clean simple lines and I add really interesting flavors or collections. I just spice it.”
Joseph's rules for life:
1. Make your home a sanctuary.
2. Use your kitchen and entertain friends and family in it regularly.
3. Never eat breakfast, lunch or dinner in your car. Food was meant to be savored.
4. Decorate your bedroom like a fine hotel and use it that way.
5. Drink great wine, eat great food and don't settle for less.
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