Mimico - My Hood

Time for me to start posting my day to day creative work. It’s a total mixed bag but I figured i’d share the things I play with in studio and the things that catch my eye as I wander around through this life.

First up, some imagery from my neighbourhood Mimico in Toronto. Pure randomness but that’s the way I like it. No real reason to these images besides being things that I’ve come across and find visually interesting. I like pairing up images - so that’s the way i’ve presented them here.

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Red Couch & Tail Light

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Salt Splatter & Ethernet Cable

5 Simple Ways To Improve Your Food Photography

I often get messages from people asking for advice or help with their food photography and I’m always happy to help whenever I can. Having students in the studio doing their internships and work-placements has been one of the most enjoyable aspects of my career throughout the years, and I enjoy sharing my thoughts on the many ways to approach photography.

So in the spirit of giving back, I’ve decided to write a few articles that I think are most helpful to aspiring photographers. I’m going to try to address the most common questions I receive along with a few other things I feel are essential for anyone looking to take a serious attempt at food photography.

This is the first article in the series - 5 Simple Ways to Improve Your Food Photography. So here we go.

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5 Simple Ways to Improve Your Food Photography

1. Get Closer

The late Hungarian photojournalist, Robert Capa said “If your pictures aren't good enough, you're not close enough.” His incredible work captured scenes of adventure and combat - but I think his wisdom applies to food photography too. Food photography is all about conveying a sense of texture and depth that lies within the food. It’s this texture that delivers the appetite appeal and in order for it to translate on camera you need to be close enough so that the food ‘pops’. What does ‘pop’ mean? Well, it’s a hard thing to convey in words, but when you’re looking through the lens, you know when the food is popping and when it’s not. Think of it as the difference between an image feeling 2D or 3D. So try to remind yourself to keep creeping into the shot while looking through the viewfinder, and try to notice when the food starts to pop. One other point here, it’s a feel thing, not a ‘think thing’ so try to think less and feel more while shooting. You’ll like the difference.

2. Don’t over-light your shots

When reviewing student portfolios, I would say this is the most common issue I see with young photographers. They are always trying to fill in the shadows as much as possible. As a result the images feel flat, clinical and lifeless. The truth is, it’s the shadows that give life and depth to most shots, especially in the world of food photography. I very rarely use any fill lighting because I understand how crucial shadows are in drawing out shapes, textures and tones - it’s these 3 elements that combine together to create appetite appeal within a photograph. So don't try to eliminate shadows, embrace them and see how they can take your food photography to the next level.

3. Keep it loose

The best food shots take on a life of their own, so you need to be in tune with what the food wants to do. Have a vision for your shot, but let the food do what it wants to do, let the drink sweat, the ice cream melt, and let the cheese ooze over the burger and onto the plate - embrace the happy accidents. Food is perfectly imperfect, your shots will be much more appealing and appetizing if you allow this to come through.

Keeping it loose also applies to the way you position your camera. So don’t feel like your camera has to be locked off all the time. My preference is shoot handheld versus locking the camera off on a studio stand or a tripod. This allows me to shoot in a more intuitive way, which helps me to be more fluid in my approach to the food i’m shooting. Food and drinks are constantly changing from the moment they are put on set, so to me it just makes sense to keep your camera as loose as possible. All of the images on this post were shot handheld.

4. Keep Shooting

When you’re working with a client, keep shooting once you’ve got the approved shot. I can’t tell you how many times i’ve been able to create a much stronger shot after the shot has been approved. That moment, after you’ve got approval, is the time to start pushing things and see where you can take it. Take advantage of the fact that there is no longer any pressure and just play for a couple minutes. When you start playing, that’s where a lot of the magic happens in food photography. Maybe your client will prefer the originally approved shot, but they usually always appreciate having another option to consider. And also, maybe that extra shot is what goes into your portfolio instead of the earlier shot. Either way, it never hurts to have more options.

5. Stop Imitating

Seriously, stop trying to make your shots look like everyone else’s. Again this is something that I see too much in food photography portfolios these days. Find a way to bring something new to what you are doing. The world is inundated with pictures of pretty food. What is your perspective or style that makes your images unique? If you’re passionate about food that’s great - but try to also bring other passions of yours into the fold as well. Be inspired by all that life has to offer - film, painting, music or even nature. This will help differentiate your style from the rest by adding more depth and nuance to your work. This is the biggest challenge for all photographers, especially those looking to specialize in food photography.

Hopefully there are a few helpful pointers in here for everyone. Feel free to reach out with any follow up questions, and I’ll do my best to answer them. The next post I’ll be writing will be about equipment as this is one of the most common questions I get. So stay tuned.

Remnants

Remnants is an exploration of the items and belongings that remain after a loved one passes away. When my father passed away unexpectedly, I took on the task of helping my mother sort through his possessions throughout the house. This was a difficult thing to do, yet I was drawn to it in my desire to feel a closeness or connection to him while in the depths of my grief. There was no set timeline for me to do this so I took my time with it and spaced it out over a few months.

My dad was a bit of a pack rat so there was a lot of stuff to go through. It was surprising to me how some items affected me more than others. There was a randomness to the things that I really connected with. These items were things like documents with his handwriting, a camera of his, and a bunch of unprocessed film. Some of these things evoked a sense of mystery, some filled in gaps, while others just remind me of what he was all about.

So as a part of my grieving process I decided to photograph the items that resonated with me the most.  When I came across these items, it felt as if I had been punched in the stomach. I suppose that’s how I knew these were the things I wanted to photograph.

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Coming across a letter he had written to the registrar general to request that the spelling of our name be changed to Shultz was a complete surprise. He never talked about it and it didn’t end up happening obviously. It’s not a big deal, but while grieving his loss, these little discoveries were fascinating to me.

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Seeing his handwriting was something else that had a huge impact. It’s crazy how much of a connection you can have with someone’s handwriting and signature. A cheque written out to Zeller’s (for what, I have no idea) feels so important to me now that he is gone. Interestingly, I just read that the last two Zeller’s stores in Canada are closing down next month. Something so seemingly banal like this old cheque is now a sentimental keepsake of times that no longer exist in many ways.

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My father taught me how to play chess. We had many games together, especially later in his life. In fact, the last time I saw him we played chess. I keep his set at my house now. I’ll use this set to teach my two daughters how to play.

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There were so many pictures to sort through, but this one from my uncle Bill’s wedding of my sister, my dad and I jumped out at me. Staring at it, I realized he was younger in that picture than I am now (39) with my two kids (4 and 2). He always seemed so much older to me, but looking at this pic now, I see how young and vibrant he was when we were young. I keep this picture now as a reminder to myself that if I can only be half the father to my girls that he was to us, I will have done well as a dad. One of the blessings of having kids is that life comes full circle and you start to fully appreciate the sacrifice parents make for their kids. I wish my Dad was still around so that I could thank him for everything he did for us.

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It’s been two years since he passed away. I found this undeveloped film shortly after he died. My plan has always been to develop the film but I just haven’t been able to do it yet. Maybe someday soon I’ll feel ready to do this and see those pictures. Although I must admit, there is something that i’ve enjoyed in the mystery of wondering what is on those rolls of film. I suppose it’s possible that I will never get the film processed and just leave them like they are with the many hidden pictures in there.

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My father loved photography. He introduced me to it and encouraged me to pursue it. He helped me put together my portfolio when I applied to study photography at Humber College. I owe so very much to his nurturing my creative endeavours. I would have never become a photographer if it wasn’t for him, plain and simple.

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He wore these boots right up to the end. We went on many good walks together and this was always when we had our greatest conversations. The funny thing is that on our last walk together, we ended up talking about his life early on, and it dawned on me that I really didn’t know that much about his life before I was born. I was fascinated to hear about his university days and his years after graduating. I guess I should have always in interested in that stuff, but I never thought to ask. I suppose there was something about me having kids of my own that made me more interested in his early life story. I’m glad we got to have that conversation though I wish we had more time to explore it together.

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My father wasn’t one to chat on the phone much. However, we did have many chats via text. After he died, and enough time had passed, I went through our old conversations on my phone. That was a nice experience, but I found that a lot of them were missing. I don’t know if it’s because I had updated my phone several times over the years, but I couldn’t track down most of our conversations. I tried logging into his phone but nobody in my family knew the password. Unfortunately I wasn’t careful in my attempts to do this and ended up disabling the phone without any way to access what’s inside. Initially this was very upsetting, but now that enough time has passed, I wonder if it’s best to leave some things alone. Perhaps there is stuff on that phone that I have no business seeing. It feels like an invasion of his privacy.

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I found this old hat of his flattened in a box in the basement. It seemed so sad and to perfectly capture how everything falls away eventually.

PC Black Label

President’s Choice Black Label has easily been one of my favourite projects to work on in recent years. The thing that makes shooting this project unique is that it’s all about lighting. It’s a special kind of lighting I don’t typically get to do on most other food photography projects. With Black Label we are tasked with creating a beautiful dark world full of subtle textures and shapes. What I like about this approach is that it creates a soft, shadowy canvas for the food to come to life and own the space within the frame.

I’ve been fortunate to work wth the incredibly talented prop stylist Laura Branson for this project and a huge shout out has to go out to her. Her layering of surfaces, textures and props are a huge part of what brings the dark, shadowy world of Black Label to life.

Here are a few shots from a recent Black Label shoot.

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Dark Chocolate Patty with Peppermint Extract

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Pumpkin Triangoli with Lemon Sage

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Chocolate Truffle Tart Pie

Kosher Style

Kosher Style - Amy Rosen’s New Cookbook

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Harissa Carrots

I recently had the pleasure of working on Amy Rosen’s new cookbook, Kosher Style. This is my third book i’ve shot with her and it’s quite different from the other books we’ve done together. Previously we teamed up to shoot Toronto Cooks and it’s sequel Toronto Eats. Both books focused on Toronto’s Restaurant scene and it’s chefs. This time around it’s all about Jewish food hence the funky title: Kosher Style.

Chocolate Babka

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Mandelbread

Our goal here was to give a modern look to traditional kosher foods. This was a really fun learning experience for me and I got to try all kinds of foods i’d heard of but hadn’t had the chance to try like Gefilte Fish, Knishes and Blintzes.

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Meatloaf with Hardboiled Eggs

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Gefilte Fish Loaf with Horseradish

I was fortunate enough to shoot this cookbook with an incredible team. Michelle Rabin handled the food styling and Madeleine Johari was the prop stylist. I couldn’t be happier with the results. The book doesn’t come out until later this fall, but i’m happy to be able to share a few of my favourite images with you.

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Roasted Sliced Brisket

Breakfast

Inspired by David Hockney’s photo collages, I wanted to take a similar approach and apply it to my world, food photography. This series was quite fun to shoot, and a bit of a challenge to pull together in the end, but I’m pleased with the results. I’ve always been attracted to photographing the most simple food. It’s just more relatable, more honest, more real. So this breakfast series is the simplest of the simple breakfasts: egg, toast, and grapefruit.

Dark Matter

Staying with a minimalist approach, the next series I created is Dark Matter. Here my intention was to use darkness as a key component in the shots.

“The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious.”

— Albert Einstein

Shadows have always been something I’ve enjoyed working with to create a sense of depth and mystery. I love how they creep into every little contour.

“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”

— Leonardo Da Vinci

Steam Bath

New Year, new resolution. Stay on top of updating my blog. I haven’t been very good at that lately. So here goes.

Most of the work I do here in my studio is food focused. I shoot mostly with commercial clients and my specialty is food photography. One of the things I try to do at least quarterly is to take some time away from the more commercially inclined work I do and carve out some time, typically a week, to shoot creatives that give me a chance to try out new techniques or creative concepts. Sometimes this work falls under the category of food photography, other times not. The main goal here is to play around, and create work that I typically don’t get to do on the jobs i’m working on.

I think it’s really important for photographers to make time to do this, especially when they are busy and running a successful studio. If you don’t, it’s easy to fall back into a certain creative complacency and your growth can become stunted.

The first series I shot is titled Steam Bath. The goal here was to create atmospheric shots while maintaining a minimalist approach. I think we achieved this quite nicely. Really the only propping elements in these shots are reflection and atmosphere.

I’ll be posting more shots from my creative week in the coming days. All of these shots were done with stylist Madeleine Johari, my wife and creative collaborator.

Road Trippin'

I love road trips.  I especially love solo road trips.  Just me and the open road.  Audiobooks, real books, music and wandering.  Quite simply, there is nothing i’d rather do.  

Road trips give me time to reflect, to roam and play.  Over the years, the adventures I've enjoyed most are the ones i’ve planned the least.  I’ve learned that it’s so important to give yourself room to listen to your intuition and change course or stay put whenever the moment strikes.

“The only real valuable thing is intuition”

— Albert Einstein

One of the reasons I’ve always loved road trips is that it gives me the opportunity to step out of my daily life.  This gives me the much needed clarity that gets lost when I’m knee deep-deep in the thick of it at the studio.  Doing this gives me the opportunity to assess how things are going in life and if I have the right priorities, values, goals, etc..

So with that being said, here's a little tribute to the open road!  

Death Valley, California

Death Valley, California

Mojave Desert, California

The Yukon, Canada

Northern British Columbia

Cape Breton, Nova Scotia

Banff, Alberta

Jasper, Alberta

Ireland

Texas

Salt Flats, Utah

Catheys Valley

Catheys Valley, California

One of my favourite landscapes I’ve shot throughout the years.  Maddy and I recently framed this one for our home.  This was actually shot on the trip where I proposed to her.  I can still feel that sun.  Golden sunsets that seem to go on forever.  I’ll always love this place and what it means for us.  California has had a rough year - let’s hope 2018 is kinder and gentler to her.

Let’s wish the same for us as well.