In an earlier life I was a school teacher. My love of teaching was ultimately trumped by my yearn to be a free-spirited self-employed artist…which of course pays better. Classroom or not teaching always seems to find me…personal trainer…baseball coach…and now internet food photography guru.
Recently, I have been hearing from many of the readers of my Diner’s Journal posts offering tips on improving your food photography. Some of you have even provided examples of the way your photography has been improving since you have been following the posts. The results have been impressive.
As a teacher of young people you can only hope that you will be around long enough for your students to come back to tell you how much they appreciated your guidance and that even though you put them in detention for chewing gum, they still liked you. As a teacher of fully formed adults you actually get almost immediate gratification. Today, I received an email from Amy, who has been following the posts on the New York Times website. She thanked me for my advice, credited me with truly helping her rescue her photo shoot and actually wrote an article about it and dedicated it to me. Now that is exceedingly cool.
There was also “Pazzaglia” hailing from Rome, Italy who posted the following comment on my last DJ post about shooting ugly food:
Here are a few of my before and afters. Before Andrew on the left, after Andrew’s advice and reading some articles on Food Bloggers Unite:
Peperonata:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com…
Risotto:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com…
Soup:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com…
Same camera, same photographer, better advice! I’m not there yet, but I am learning and absorbing all of your information! A gigantic THANKS!
There have also been so many wonderful comments on both mSS… and on DJ thanking me and complimenting me for the posts and on my photography. I deeply appreciate all the love that has been coming my way. Teachers teach…no matter what venue we end up in…but ultimately without interested, grateful students who learn and work hard to employ what you are trying to teach them…the energy is wasted. My efforts have been so worth it and you all have made this old teacher very happy that the knowledge I’m dropping is not falling on deaf ears. So, to all of you…A Big Thank You.
PHOTO CREDIT: Fractured Amy
Over the past year in addition to my other assignments, I shot a cookbook for the ABC TV show The Chew. Some of the other things I have been doing outside of my studio, as many of you know, is teaching food photography workshops and speaking at blogger conferences about food photography. On top of that the Outtakes column on The New York Times Diner’s Journal has given me the opportunity to share what I know with a broader audience still. Well, I am getting yet another wonderful opportunity to do more of the same.
