It was like the day that I found myself on tour with a rock band after watching an MTV special. I can do that! (oh, blissful ignorance...) And it turned into a career.
So, I had the passion for food photography, but did I have the skills? Nope! Hello, learning curve! Nothing I did before as a touring photographer even remotely worked for it. I had to learn to see in a different way, control my environment, the light, and use a tripod. HA! A tripod? What's that? I was used to pit-work, in the dark, people moving on stage and the light coming in from different sources at the speed of... light. THAT was my Zen. That is still my Zen, if I want to be honest.
But photography.... oh, photography... if I wasn't touring, or in a recording studio with a band, then what did I do for fun? Enter my cookbook collection. Even when I was on tour, I always bought a cookbook from wherever in the world I was, often having to carry a very heavy bag full of the latest finds on a baby plane with me. But that made me happy. At night, I would read cookbooks like novels. What I didn't know at the time is that I was studying the art of food photography. I tried, and failed, and then tried some more. Got a couple of macro lenses, and nope, still not good enough. Still flat, no dimension. I styled the heck out of shoots and started to see it, developing, my new eye. It went deep, into the details, and I lost myself for hours in it. This was a few years ago, when out of the blue I had a shoot for The Food Network, and I felt not only nervous, but unprepared. And it went great. And I was all giggling and thinking... well, now what? I shot for the biggest food photography client there is, I guess that's it. I'll go back to music. And that is exactly what I did.
Until lately, when a failed venture forced me to re-evaluate life, again. Yay! Seriously, YAY!!! Every time I have time to think, figure things out, love the silence, listen to all the inspiration, I go deep. And I realized that the detail is what I love to photograph. Even when I'm shooting music, it's always the detail. What I want the viewer to look at, focus on, delight in. I love music because it allows me to showcase the moment of creation - a note played a certain way, sung a certain way, a way that is perfect and shall never return, combined with the split second action of the shutter... magic. Unique, that moment was created by the artist and by me simultaneously. Can you say communion? How do I find THAT moment in food?
And the answer came very simply - I need to remove myself and allow food to be the star. The detail is my answer, always. In life and in photography.
So I started to take photos of the ingredients, rather than the realized dish, and wow... nature... you blow me away every time.
Lately, it's been raining a lot here on the East Coast - and the light in the studio has been moody, and dark and perfect for me to focus on the part of food photography I love the most - the detail.
So, thank you Source for rainy days. Here's to realizing the best is yet to come!
Oh, and here's Thievery Corporation. Because... love.
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