September Highlights

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Hi there,

I hope you’re hanging in there with the increasingly wild ride that is 2020. This newsletter is all about the beverages so if you need a drink I formally give you the thumbs up!

Before we get to new work, my big news for the month is beyond finding me on Wonderful Machine you can now find me on Production Paradise as well. They specialize in targeted digital publications to show off their photographer’s work so keep an eye out for me in the upcoming Showcase Magazine Los Angeles!

I also got some great news from the folks over at the Food Photo Affair- I’m an exhibition finalist for this absurd over pour image I created! Cross your fingers!

Finally some extra wonderful news!

The modified safe studio beverage shots I have been working on for the last few months with the Makers and Allies team are starting to be spotted in the wild so I can finally show you some of these no longer top secret shots. I don’t want to bombard you with a zillion images so this is just a taste of the good stuff! Many more shots and brands will be featured on the site in the next few weeks! Enjoy!

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New Photos

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As always, if I can help with any of your food + beverage photography needs just shoot me a message to schedule a quick meeting to get us started!

Stay safe friends.

xoxo,

August Highlights

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Hi everyone,

My big news for the month is you can catch me now on Wonderful Machine! I’m working hard on ways to show everyone what I can do over here from my home studio and their Creative in Place page is a really inspiring glimpse into what photographers are creating outside of the traditional studio space, a page I am proud to be a part of. I’ve also launched a new prop section to this site to make it easier to work with new clients remotely. You can see my surfaces, most of my vintage glassware and flatware collection and more plates then you ever wanted to see in your life! I’m planning on adding to that as I collect new finds so check back but this should help us continue to work while prop sourcing and mail estimates can be tricky.

Along with my new listing on Wonderful Machine, they are encouraging their photographers to stay creative with prompts. If you get their emails maybe you will recognize the bottom few photos on this post from their “Back to School” newsletter!

Also included are some new shots from a shoot with The Ox La cafe over in Koreatown which serves just about the best Japanese flash brew you can find! Check them out the work below!

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New Photos

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Hope wherever this finds you, it’s air conditioned!

Stay safe friends.

xoxo,

5 Things I learned about Splash Photography

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If you have been following my antics lately you will know I have been adding to my food photography portfolio like a madwoman. Last week one of my bucket list beverage photos landed in my lap in the form of a test shoot with food stylist Dana Kapustin. We tackled the splash! While it wasn’t all smooth sailing here is what I learned from our adventures in splash photography!

5 Things I learned about Splash Photography

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1. Get some cool cups

OK yeah maybe that’s obvious but there is a fine line between a cool cup, and a TOO cool cup for a splash photo. Remember we are going to have so much going on we want something that supports the cool shapes our splash photo makes but doesn’t end up competing.

These bad bois came from Ikea (aka my happy place) and were stylish and affordable. Remember sometimes we need backups in food photography and props can add up real fast!

2. Get some different colored liquid for options

This also might fall into the category of OBVS but hey let’s be real, options are great. As you can see we shot one setup with a “milk” color and one with a “coffee”. Having both options let us get the most bang for our splashy buck.

3. “Milk” isn’t always Milk- Food Styling Tricks

Everyone has seen those videos on Facebook about the gross shit people use to make food last forever under hot lights or the endless prodding we sometimes have to do in food photography. Also if you have read my bio (it’s RIVETING!) you know I am not a big fan of this stuff. I take food waste really seriously so I try to make those tricks my last resort, but on this occasion the food stylist felt our real milk was just not milky enough. Even using whole milk she felt it should be more opaque. So we added some heavy cream which almost did the trick, but then there were concerns about the thickness forming nice shapes, so into the mixture went GLUE! Yep, super not drinkable, GLUE! I won’t give away all her tricks but I’d venture to guess this is what helped us get so many interesting splatters. Fortunately for our cow pals only about a glass or two got glued but we made sure to immortalize their work in these cool shots and no doubt the rest went into non-gluey breakfast!

4. Achieving your splash takes practice (and good aim!)

Perspective is a tricky thing. From both of our angles (her above, me at camera) we saw different things when aiming into our glasses. One of us would feel sure they were aimed correctly, the other confident they were totally going to miss. Sometimes we were both wrong and our splash maker (my fav tiny fake icecubes) missed the glass completely. We got a lot of cool splashes out of our day but there were definitely some hilarious fails!

5. Splash Photography is really messy but really fun

I know I know, Captain Obvious is still continuing to sail the seas of DUH but you will not believe how far some of this stuff splashed. There were splashes on our backdrop, splashes on my reflector, splashes all over my studio and obviously splashes on me! In between shots there was a rush to try and catch all the liquid from gliding off the surface onto the floor and because of the aforementioned GLUE this made it a race against time (and even stickier cleanup). For our purposes I didn’t think we needed to reset every shot so we typically did a splash and then another (2) splashes before we cleaned everything up and started from scratch. But hey, there’s no sense in crying over spilled milk!

Well I hope you enjoyed my messy learning experience as I work to bring some more cool food photography to Los Angeles!

Until next time,

Happy Snacking,

xoxo

-RP

Tennessee Loveless and I Explore Coffee

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Tennessee Loveless is a super rad dude. I could stop there but brevity has never been my strong suit.

We met waiting tables at a diner in Echo Park at least a couple of our nine lives ago and bonded over tattoos, BMEzine, terrible tippers, coffee and life as general artist types.  Since then he has been bouncing all over the world painting his Mickey Mouse paintings which are an incredible marriage of text, color and line and interviewing drag queens for his project "Drag Landscapes" which is a brilliant glimpse into queer identity and a rarely authentically documented subculture.

Mr. Loveless is a busy guy so I was thrilled we had a second to catch up and check out a new-to-me coffee shop in Echo Park. We met at Eightfold Coffee, grabbed a tasty beverage and got to chatting.

Tennessee was in town to do a book signing at the Grove for his Disney project and brought along a copy to show me some of the details.  He works his environment, friends and life into the pieces so it was pretty rad so see my name snuck onto a painting!

Look mom I'm famous! (Jk she doesn't read my blog....sigh...why, mom, why?)

One of the biggest things I have been wrestling with lately is finding a happy balance between artistic fulfillment and commercial success.  Living in a giant city can be emotionally and artistically draining on it's own but adding in the competitive nature of a field like photography or fine art, dwindling rates and increasing expenses can really leave a person in a depleted daze.  So it was a special kind of coincidence that we landed on a page with my favorite Mickey painting that had a significant story.

Most of the paintings Tennessee had done when he started the Disney project were fairly graphic and commercial as a way to manage the fact he is a colorblind artist working from in many ways, a conceptual idea of color theory.  These pieces were wonderful, the prominant Mickey head on a detailed, very colorful, geometric background but not all together that revealing of him as an artist or the vibrant individual he is.  This piece changed everything, the direction of the project and arguably the direction of his life.

This painting was different.  It was rough, lived in and real.  It had paint smudges and a stream of consciousness diary of his experience pairing the piece. He expected it to be rejected from the project but they loved it.  Not only did they recognize his talent and personality, but they encouraged it and this set the blueprint for the rest of his 10x10x10 Mickey Project.  

I think that can serve as an excellent reminder, one I need plenty often- be yourself, take risks and be real- people will respond!  

You can check out the rest of his project and grab a copy here: Mickey Mouse Book or see more of his projects including the Drag Landscape paintings at: tennesseeloveless.com 

Hopefully this will give you a little creative push to test the boundaries in your own projects as we move into a new year.  Thanks for hanging out 10SC, hopefully not so long until the next time!

Happy snacking and happy art making!

xoxo

RP