The biggest bookstore hit on both sides of the Pacific in recent memory has been a series of simply photographed cookbooks written and styled by a young workaholic Australian named Donna Hay. When coupled with another dynamic talent, photographer Petrina Tinslay, the books created a new media look that has shaken the foundations of food styling--not only in Australia, but around the world. The look is bare boned, simplified food shot in natural light and minimally propped. And it works. Together the Hay-Tinslay team has shot a continuing series of cookbooks, originally labelled under the Marie Claire magazine logo, but renamed in the United States under titles such as Entertaining, Flavors and Food Fast.

It is a look that is now set to dominate North America, what with the launch of Williams-Sonoma Taste magazine, and a rejig at Food & Wine magazine from that magazine's Australian art director.

On the other side of the Atlantic in Great Britain, Food Illustrated continues on its path of emulating Antipodean style, and the magazine's founding editor, Neale Whitaker, freely admits that he based Food Illustrated on the design of three Australian magazines: Vogue Living, Gourmet Traveller, and Vogue Entertaining. Whitaker has since relocated to Sydney, and his former magazine continues on in the UK as Waitrose Food Illustrated. Even in the book market, where U.S. publishers readily shy from expensive photographs, Australian editors tie joint ventures with overseas companies to locally produce a proliferation of one page per recipe per photo cookery books, sold simultaneously on two or more continents.

Over the past few months I have interviewed leading practitioners of this Australian style -- its photographers, its stylists, and its editors. A synthesis slowly emerges, particularly that this is first and foremost a stylist-driven trend. Certainly Hay's recipes are simple, but the fact remains that she succeeds where generations of home economists have failed. Her recipes are also stylish, not only in casual presentation--the food is literally plopped onto the plate--but she uses few (yet good quality, if not trendy) ingredients. This food is a lot less fussy, yet it's healthful (without being dietetic), clean (in all meanings of the word), and delicious. Moreover, servings are more likely to be dished into a zen-like bowl rather than onto a circular plate. It's all like the song: "any one can whistle, that's what they say, easy."

Originally, this Australian look was dominated by white on white on white. Natural bright light burned the background into fading significance; stacked plates were uniformly monochrome, and the only hint of color was a neatly folded (rarely draped) serviette or napkin. As for the food, it was appetite driven, with everything else falling-literally--out of focus. It was analogous, in spirit, to portraiture photography of the early 20th century: shot in black and white and then hand colored to highlight the key features, like striking blue eyes, rosy cheeks, and voluptuously crimson lips.

Yet surprisingly, this isn't the first time that Australian photographers have discarded their studio lights. At first, somewhere around the mid 1980s, there was a rejection of flat back lights, and a return to direct tungsten, allowing for simultaneous sunbursts and moody shadows. But soon after, Australian photographers realized that their own sun was just as effective--if not more so--and today you would be hard pressed to find dark-and-moody anything anywhere. (The downside is a generation of new photographic apprentices knowing little of indoor lighting techniques.) Tellingly, some contend that this ubiquitous use of natural light was born from the uniquely Australian practice of non-specialization. Leading fashion photographers head directly to a food shoot, and likewise, editorial photographers commonly shoot pack shots.

When the Australians first started on this path, they introduced a tilt focus that resembled little more than plates falling off the table. Later they shot with such shallow depth of focus that, say, only one pea was highlighted, while the rest of the picture went astray. It worked at the time, but that look has not proven timeless. Years of subsequent practice finally resulted in a style just now is beginning to be emulated over much of the world, with the notable exceptions of France and Italy, where dark-and-moody, heavy propping is still the mainstay. While some wags contend that Martha Stewart was the first to introduce this lighter and brighter Australian style to the world, the countering proof is that no one apparently followed her lead.

Australia's multi-culturalism is often credited with the country's renewed burst of creativity--especially in its world of cooking. Sydney, alone, boasts almost ten percent of the world's overseas Thai restaurants, and an entire continent that never experiences severe winter means long growing seasons and abundant produce. It may also be why stylists here love to mix their metaphors, so to speak. They play with their food and props, with rectangle Japanese sushi plates playing host to mini pavlovas and cheesecakes, not to mention pizza slices. Udon bowls are a favorite for not just soup, but also any sort of stir fry, or even a king prawn cocktail.

In the past, food styling was a form of taxidermy, giving life to old, stale, dying food. But Australian stylists have taught a new generation of photographers to shoot quickly, which in turn has allowed a proliferation of moonlighting chefs to enter the glamour industry. In turn, stylists, photographers and chefs feed on each other, mastering the art of casual bistro cooking to a generation never taught to cook at school. Its look proliferates not only in the country's magazines and book exports, but on the streets of Melbourne and Sydney, especially, where modernistic sleek, austere chrome-plated (or brushed steel) cafes open directly onto the street.

Surprisingly, after being a food styling pace setter for so long, the Australian look--in Australia, at least--is beginning to bore its practitioners. One editor commented to me that he sees a real excitement from food stylists when directed to prop a picture heavily, or conversely, to use authentic accoutrements. (In the past, that would have elicited a jaded sigh.)

While the saturated color look came and went without anyone really noticing, the "wallpaper" magazine style of futuristic retro food may yet be reinvented to incorporate true appetite appeal. Consequently, there is a very real risk that Australia will reject its current look in the midst of a world's slow embrace. Which may, in the end, be the best news for Australia's leading photographers and stylists who now seek work overseas. They can return home to Oz to experiment with new ideas, while heading to foreign shores to continue their established route, and simultaneously raking in the hard currency.

American-born Robert Carmack is a Sydney, Australia-based food stylist and author of Fondue and The Thai Cookbook, both released this year by Pereplus in the United States and Asia, and Lansdowne in Australia. He was keynote speaker on "Australian Style" at the recent Food-on-Film seminar in Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S.