Penny De Los Santos
I've aded Penny De Los Santos to my list of great photographers. It's odd because I hadn't heard about her before this week. Penny is a "food" photographer working for Saveur Magazine, but she is so much more. CreativeLive said it this way:
"When you think about food photography, it's not just about what's on the plate. It's about everything around it. The details, the scenes, the people, the culture, the history, the geography, and especially the moments. Food connects all of us. Food photography is the crossroad, where culture, food, and people come together." When you talk about Penny you couldn't be more accurate.
In day one of her 3 day workshop at CreativeLive.com Penny covered her background, her philosophy and artistic vision and a critque of submitted images. I thought the critique was very informative. They discussed what worked from a technical, compositional and usability point of view.
In day two and three, Penny will make food, food scenes and food culture images for us live on camera. This should be a very informative couple of days.
It HAS been a wonderful,
Day 2 was another great day
Day 2 was another great day from CreativeLive. Penny shot 5 different scenes, showing the set-up food prep, food styling, food editing and the final "hero" shot. It was very interesting to watch her work, hear what she is thinking as the shoot progresses and then see the final image.
I was amazed at the level of attention given to the food styling, the process was iterative, with each change bringing the scene closer to Penny's concept. I'm not sure I would have the patience to do that level of food primping, a good deal of the credit for the final image has to go to the food stylist. This style of shooting is definitely a team effort requiring a great deal of collaboration between the members of Penny's production team.
Day 3 promises to be a great day with the focus moving to food culture and food portraits. This is more inline with my area of interest.