A few weeks ago, I got a lovely piece of mail from a food stylist that I hadn’t known before. Actually, I had known him from his amazingly beautiful stylings in magazines like Sunset among countless others. In fact, you have most likely seen Randy Mon’s work before too without knowing it. Such seems to be the life of food stylists, staying hidden behind the scenes. After my jaw nearly dropped to the floor after seeing even the first shot on his portfolio of the most luscious looking radishes and herbs I’ve ever seen in my life, I quickly popped off a response to him to see if I could coax him to take a few (or more) minutes to share a little about himself with me and you guys. Amazingly, he generously obliged and not only sent me along a fantastic interview with wonderful insights into how he works… but also a lovely handful of photos showing his excellent work.

So, with that, here’s my virtual interview with Randy for you all to enjoy!

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How many people do you know that drive around LA with dead scorpions and a buckets of paella in their cars? If you know a professional food stylist, chances are, you just might know at least one. Last weekend, I got to sit in on Food Fanatics‘ Master Food Styling class, a great hands-on class by two professional food stylists, Denise Vivaldo and Cindie Flannagan, who have been in the business for years and years. The class was a virtual dumptruck of food styling info, from common styling techniques (which we got lots of time to practice ourselves) to thoughts on the food styling business and digital photography, to story after story of food styling challenges, mishaps and other, sometimes bawdy, adventures. I can’t remember the last time I was in a class for two full days that never bored me, but this was one of them. From the 9am start to Q&A over wine at 3 in the afternoon, the class is a non-stop riot of laughing and dirty hands. If you get a chance to spend sometime with Denise and Cindie, don’t miss it.
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Dessert Parfait
Photo © Mike Jensen
Taste of the NFL cookbook, a fundraiser for hunger relief
Styling by Lisa Golden Schroeder

For quite some time now, Lisa Golden Schroeder, one of the food styling industry masters, and I have been trading phone calls and voice mails, trying to find some time in both of our busy schedules to chat about the business. The thing that separates Lisa from other stylists, a part from her obvious talents, is her commitment to the styling community and a strong belief that helping others in the field is good for everyone. In addition to talks and classes on food styling, Lisa runs Foodesigns.com, a website dedicated to issues and resources for food stylists and photographers as well as periodically publishing The Tweezer Timesâ„¢ with some of the most helpful styling tips you’ll find.
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If there was one thing (and there were many!) I learned from my experience meeting with MatthewA, it’s that I am not a particularly good interviewer. Particularly when I’m surrounded by food and cameras and dishes and linens and people making gorgeous images, I tend to just get lost in the moment and forget the fact that I’m supposed to be asking questions. So, when I scheduled a chat over coffee with Kelly Cline, one of Seattle’s up and coming food photographers, I knew I’d need to do a bit of advanced preparation in order to avoid just oooing and ahhing over her natural talent. Kelly and I had already shared several conversations over email, and her fun and energetic personality meant that I was going to have to work hard to keep our interview from turning into two hours of foodie girl talk. Especially since the LightSource interview that was recently podcast gave me so much insight into her work already. So, I planned out my questions, printed them out and even remembered to bring them with me! Of course, that didn’t stop us from sounding like teenage girls at the mere mention of truffle oil or one of our favorite food photographers. I still tended to get swept away in the conversation, so our time felt more like sitting down with a new friend than an interview. But, somehow through that, I did manage got get through all of my questions, and learned a ton about Kelly in the process.

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Tucked into a little neighborhood along the western edge of Route 66 is a place… a magical place. A place where memories of meals and moments are captured. It’s full of the nicest people you could meet, all working tirelessly to make picture perfect dishes. And I got to join it for a couple of days. As you can imagine, I was pretty much in heaven. Continue reading →