Maybe it is the economy, but I’ve been picking up more cocktail shooting assignments lately so I’ve been spending quite a bit of time studying cocktail photos. The photo to the right is a Mint Julep that I shot last year for Portland Monthly.

Today, I happened upon this great interview (on The Pegu Blog) with photographer Sara Remington discussing her approach to shooting Artisanal Cocktails. For even more great stuff from Sara, see her fantastic blog.

I mentioned in the last post that I’ve been working on a shoot for Pat Tanumihardja new cookbook, The Asian Grandmother’s Cookbook. This has been an amazing book to shoot… and thankfully, I had Pat in my studio for a week to help me nail the details. I learned a ton in the process about Asian food and have added quiet a few new recipes to my regular stand-bys!

Pat has just posted her take on the shoot in case you are curious, or to get an early jump on some of the great recipes.
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If you haven’t seen Paul Lowe’s blog, Sweet Paul, you should definitely go check it out. I’ve been drooling over his photos for the past month now, waiting on pins and needles for each new post. However, Sabra, over at Cookbook Catchall, was lucky enough to sit in with Paul for day and kind enough to share some of what she learned. Check it out!

Remember the Food Photography & Styling Conference that I attended last summer? There is another one in the works for 2009!

Phase One’s latest newsletter included a PDF Food Portfolio featuring a ton of high style, in studio work, as well as some behind the scenes on crafting a Food Portfolio.

The Food Network Challenge is on Superstar Food Stylists. The last showing is on June 25th.

Tastespotting may be gone, but Liqurious may quench your thirst with a few beverage images.

Shinebox Print makes great little bound booklets that make for interesting small portfolios. You can even make each page easily removable for cool business cards. I did a print run of 10, and am in love with the print quality.

And, speaking of printing, I recently made a new promotional piece on Blurb… just a small 10 recipe cookbook. It’s a great form factor for promotional use and with each softcover only costing about $13, it’s easy to keep 5 or 10 on hand. I’m also going to be trying out Asuka Book which is a service for professional photographers.

If you’ve ever done any research into food photography and styling, then you know how few and far between the guides are. There are a couple of books that focus on lighting and some of the basics of photography when it comes to food… almost a laughable number given the overall quantities of books on general photography and photography software. For food styling, there has been even less. However, I just received my copy of Food Styling for Photographers by Linda Bellingham and Jean Ann Bybee and I’m thrilled to see this kind of information more readily available to photographers and people considering food styling.

Food Styling for Photographers does a great job of giving photographers an idea of what they may be getting themselves into if they do decide to pick up styling. Starting from the shopping trip, to prepping the table setting, to preparing some of the harder to style foods, the book is comprehensive and easy to understand. There is a fantastic section on stylists tools, including brand name suggestions on everything from griddles (Presto Tilt & Drain) to paper towels (Bounty). The vegetable chapter has a neat trick for how to fold a corn husk, and the chapter on desserts (which yes, contains the expected fake ice cream for hot lights) has a great suggestion for using toothpicks to get neat stacks of freshly baked cookies. There are also some tricks that made me giggle… like using cardboard between layers of a cake to help it keep its height, or using Soil Moist granules to make a drink that looks like a frozen margarita.

For food bloggers interested in learning more on styling, be aware that this book is aimed at people who will not be eating any of the food being prepared. There are still good tips, even a few that say “follow the recipe” to make the food look beautiful (I had to laugh at the food styling for biscuits paragraph that simply says pop them open from the can and bake them!). The most useful chapters if you want to eat the food afterwards are likely the on making a salad and on garnishing, like how to perk up the green tops on strawberries and tomatoes. That said, the authors’ number one rule is never to eat the food from the set. But, even if you don’t use any of the styling tips, there are great shots of the lighting and setup of most of the images in the book, along with photographers notes which are incredibly useful.

Technorati Tags: food styling, food photography

Well, since I seem to be so behind these days getting blog posts up (not to mention commenting on all of the absolutely incredible egg photos that came in this month), I thought I’d just pop in to give some link love to Kathy Casey’s blog. Kathy Casey is a Northwest chef who has more than a few cookbooks under her belt. Her latest, Sips & Apps, is currently being shot right here in Seattle. Kathy has given a little peak(and hopefully more to come) at the shoot.

This had me rolling on the floor laughing. First, I have to say… Wow… the new design of Dairy Today magazine rivals that of Donna Hay, which is simply dumbfoundingly-wonderful of its own right. Even better, there is video of the “model” cow’s photoshoot in the post by Pentagram, the design firm.

I am so tempted to subscribe…

(Image from Pentagram)

[via How About Orange]

While you are out there browsing, check out this podcast from Tips from the Top Floor in which Chef Mark of the Culinary Network talks a little about how he photographs his own food.

Just a quick post to share some news and events that I’ve stumbled upon in the past week or so:

Photoshop World, April 2-4 in Orlando, has several talks of interest to budding food photographers, including a live Still Life shoot with Jim DiVitale, Joe Glyda’s talk on the best lighting techniques for food shoots, Joe McNally giving some insights into shooting for major magazines. For more information, see the Photoshop World website.

Lighting and Food Photography by Matt Armendariz on the Aperture Forums with plenty of Matt’s gorgeous photos as examples, plus some how-to diagrams.

Shooting in a vegetable patch for Martha.

Barilla is sponsoring an “Italian Table” photo contest as part of their recent release of a downloadable celebrity cookbook. Submit your best photo of your table all decked out for a pasta feast, and you could win a goodie basket of Barilla products and be entered into a drawing for $500 gift certificate to Williams-Sonoma.