Great Food Photos: Kimberley Hasselbrink

May I get the first image as a GIANT POSTER? It's just so gorgeous! Going through Kimberley Hasselbrink's blog gives me a sense of warmth especially right now when NYC is constantly being bombarded with snow storm after snow storm. The splashes of colors, the vibrantness of her images, the light, and the shadow are so well done. Oh...I can't wait till her book, Vibrant Food: Celebrating the Ingredients, Recipes, and Colors of Each Season, comes out in June. Be sure to check more of her photos on Instagram.

Q. Can you tell me what you’re trying to capture when you take your food photos? A. I pay a lot of attention to colors and textures - they bring images of food to life. I'm obsessed with light. I think about the structure of the ingredients too - kind of like sculpture. I'd love to inspire some kind of hunger or appetite or enthusiasm for the food that I'm shooting. Lately I've been enjoying just being present and capturing a moment, or a narrative, which is harder to translate into a tabletop scene. I'm interested in seeing how I can bring that back to the structure and control of the studio work that I do.

Q. Congrats on your first book. How was the experience of putting a book together? A. Thanks! Making a book was crazy. It was like project-managing all these disparate projects: the recipe development, the writing, the recipe testers, and the photography. Photography was my happy place in all of that - the part of the whole where I found the most fluidity, the most ease. Overall it was kind of like boot camp: a good amount of the experience wasn't fun during the process, but it feels great to be on the other side and to have learned so much. I bonded with my assistant, Stacy, who became a friend and trusted voice and confidante during the process - that reinforced the value of collaboration and peers around creative work.

Q. What is photography to you? A. Magic! I love how photography captures the transient and the ephemeral. How it tells a story. How it records light. How it connects people.

Q. How did you get started in photography and how has your relationship with photography evolved from then to now? A. When I was a teenager, I was kind of bohemian - very preoccupied with painting and drawing and writing. I picked up a camera and began taking these Victorian-inspired black and white images, sort of copying the work of Julia Margaret Cameron. I went to art school and wound up in a furniture design program, which I loved, because it was driven by craft, very conceptual, and really loose. There I began to learn about product photography because we had to document all of the work that we made and we had access to a lot of amazing equipment. When I wasn't in school I invested most of my creative energy in photography and finally began to connect the dots: it was the thing that I chose to do, and that I always returned to, when I wasn't obligated to make or do anything else. It took even longer to begin to apply that to food; up 'til then I mostly was enamored with the landscape of the American West, and documenting what I saw on my travels.

Q. Any food photography heroes? If not any photography heroes? A. So many! I love the work of Michael Graydon, Jonathan Lovekin, Eric Wolfinger, Gentl and Hyers (Check out Andrea Gentl's interview here), Peden + Munk, Ditte Isager. Outside of food I'm inspired by Richard Misrach, Todd Hido, Vivian Maier.

Q. Best meal you had in 2013? A. Ohhh, tough question! Don't they say that the last meal you had is always the best? I had a really beautiful dinner party for my birthday last December. I made a seafood feast for my friends: oysters, a crab and shellfish stew, hearty sides, lots of champagne. It was a beautiful day.

I went on a few backpacking trips last year, and after walking for miles with a heavy pack and pushing my body so hard, pretty much anything you eat tastes like the best meal ever. There was a gluten-free pesto pasta dinner that we had on a trip in Joshua Tree that was revelatory. We sat on tall rocks at sunset, feeling tired and happy and deeply enjoying a hot meal. Those are some standouts from last year.

All photos courtesy of Kimberley Hasselbrink from The Year In Food.

Great Food Photos: Tara Sgroi

I became familiar with Tara Sgroi's work after meeting Camille Becerra at Taste Talks last summer. Honestly I haven't been feeling too creative lately and haven't been photographing as much as I want or updating this blog as much as I wanted. But seeing Tara's beautiful photos and her incredibly awesome 15sec videos on her Instagram feed are really kicking me in the ass to be creative again.

Q. Can you tell me what you’re trying to capture when you take your food photos? A. I tell stories with my images and videos. My stories are related to food, people, animals, kids and my absolute favorite is when everything mingles together in a mess of a gathering where I can be invisible and capture every aspect of the moment.

Q. Do you see the world, your subject differently when you shoot video instead of photos? A. I've been shooting video for a very long time, but regardless of it was still or motion I've always set my shots up the same way, like a movie. With food photography in general, the challenge is to make something look appetizing without tasting it, smelling it or even hearing it. Motion is incredibly seductive, you can see how something pours or bubbles and even though you're not able to smell it, that movement in the cooking process is something everyone can relate to, they've seen it a million times but maybe they haven't seen it this close or at this angle. Video has a long way to go, people don't have that much patience for it, there's little or no budget for video yet and there's a sophistication in the way people perceive good photography that doesn't exist yet with video.

Q. What is photography to you? A. I love photography/video more than anything. My camera has taken me places I may not have gone to, it's gotten me up early to photograph first light when I would have rather stay in bed, its made me pretend to have a point of view when I didn't know what the hell I was doing and mostly its forced me to tell a story even if there wasn't one. But more than that, photography makes me look, it makes me take a deep breath and watch. Photography challenges me to look at something at a different perspective, in a different light, how the shadows change throughout the day or how something grows or decays.

Q. How did you get started in photography and how has your relationship with photography evolved from then to now? A. Ha, it's funny to think of a time when I didn't photograph. I went to school at the Nova Scotia College of Design and Art in Halifax, Canada and the first year we studied everything: painting, drawing, graphic design and photography. I wasn't a very patient art student, I was easily frustrated that I couldn't capture what was in my head on paper and I hated participating in critiques, they always ended up in group therapy­ like discussions. But photography was different, it had a magic to it, it was instant and gratifying. And because I liked photography I started to look at light and composition and how best to capture a moment.

When I moved to NYC at 21, I went to school at Cooper Union and had the best teachers I've ever had. They challenged my photography, compliments weren't easy to come by and they made me think about how to talk about images, forcing me look at what was in front of me. We were forbidden to shoot parades, animals, kids or old people. They were all exploitive genres, instead we were taught to look at our everyday lives, to find beauty in the mundane, that was the most valuable lesson I have ever learned.

The biggest change I think for my career came when things went digital. I have always been pretty prolific when I shot but not having a dollar sign attached to a image has allowed my clients to see how my perspective changes during the shoot. And knowing that the hero image has been achieved has allowed me to go further and experiment with light or the absence of light, many times the client sees their product in a way they never anticipated. That could have never happened with film, there was always the stress of not knowing if we "had" the shot, but you were only allotted a certain number of film rolls to get that hero shot. It sounds bizarre now. So with digital I've been able to play and grow, which wasn't possible then.

The most interesting change for me throughout my time as a photographer, has been Instagram. Being a photographer used to be so private and I never met anyone else who was a photographer. Instagram has become a way of sharing with other photographers and while it's even more competitive than it was, I think it's lit a fire and made photographers hungry for good photography. Competition is good, especially when everyone has a camera, but what Instagram has also reminded me is that a good photograph has nothing to do with what camera or lens you shoot with, a good photograph has always been about capturing a moment, great composition or a different perspective. Often, people who know nothing about photography take the best photographs because they're reacting to what's in front of them rather then worrying about the technical mumble jumble they just shoot. Instagram reminds me of Polaroid to some degree.

Q. Any food photography heroes? If not any photography heroes? A. This is tough........ there are so many good food photographers out there and I like each one for a different reason. I'm inspired by Nicole Franzen because she just so clearly loves photography and has the balls to constantly be looking and evolving. I love Andrea Gentl because every one of her images are like a window into her soul. I get excited by Sang An because he's always playing with light and trying new perspectives. Anita Calero's photography has the most wonderful just happened upon quality (even though I know it comes from a very knowledgeable creative sophisticated eye) I love how genuinely grateful her perspective is, like she's thanking every beautiful thing in the world with a click of her shutter. I want to live in everything that Roland Bello has ever photographed. It has to be more than food photography for me though, it gets kind of boring if it's just plate after plate... that's why I guess I chose the photographers, you start to feel as though you know the photographer when they're so prolific and you start to like them too.

Q. Best meal you had in 2013? A. I can't say because my meals are so intertwined with experience so here are three best meal experiences in 2013: In Tulum at Posada Margarita just off the beach with stars in the sky, candles flickering in the sea air and they make pasta to order. The second, Bowery Banquet dinners cooked by Camille Becerra were ridiculously good and it's just such an amazing collective of people and music. And lastly picking basil with my mom in Mexico and making the most incredible pesto for Christmas eve dinner.

All photos courtesy of Tara Sgroi.

Great Food Photos: Khue Ly

Tumblr continues to amaze me with the number of great looking food blogs and it's super nice to have a dedicated section for food blogs. I've been following Khue Ly's blog for a while now. It's really not that hard to get lost in her blog. It's like an endless waterfall of deliciousness floating (or scrolling) in front of your eyes.

Q. Can you tell me what you’re trying to capture when you take your food photos? When I'm taking picture of food, I want to re-create the vibe of the scenario around me, and also how appealing and attractive the dish is. Not every food is presented well, but I believe each has their own unique charm that makes people just want snatch and eat it right away. I want to bring that out by my photos.

Q. What is it about food that makes you want to photograph it? Food photography is not the same as portrait which you can capture the emotions/actions of people and able to make other to feel sympathize. Yet, at least, those photos help to bring back my little moments. It can be a story of an ordinary dinner back home embraced by family's love or is able to remind me of an old café that I always visited whenever I was a teenager.

Q. What is photography to you? It is a rough sketch of my life and also an outlet for my emotions. I unexpectedly came to photography when I was 15 years old, not having any specific hobbies but eating street food. While browsing randomly I stumbled to a great food photographer's page on Flickr that really captivated my attention. His photos are so vividly beautiful that make me also want to take such photos myself. And the more photos that I took, the greater my love for photography, especially food. Nowadays, whenever I struggle or have an uneasy mood, searching up for a new food spot, taking the food photos, and even processing them afterwards made me completely forget about that downturn. Last but not least, as I am living away from my family, every photo recalls me of my family, friends, people that I have met during my life, or a special event. It heals my homesickness, I'd like to call it a ticket to the past" as inspired from my favourite book.

Q. What inspires you? The story behind the dish, a secretive traditional recipe passed through generations or the chef's attempt to create a new taste blending dimensions of two different cultures. As a lover of travelling, whenever I go to a place, I want to try out their local food, which I believe could tell me not only the cuisine but also the people and other characteristics of the place I am going to. For example, before moving to Toronto to study, I never believed that Canadians have any special culinary culture at all, as compared to Vietnam, my home country. But somehow as I live here longer, my perception was changed, Toronto and the variety of special fusion dishes surely exhibits its unique multi-cultural side.

Q. Any food photography heroes? If not any photography heroes? First, Rick Poon - my most influential photographer that brings me to this field. His photos are amazing. I also visit Kate Quinn Davies, Bonnie Tsang, Hugh Forte and his wife's cook blog to satisfy my food-photo's obsession.

Q. Best meal so far in 2013? A small birthday dinner with my close friends, a cozy meal is all I want for this long winter.

All photos courtesy of Khue Ly.

Great Food Photos: Kelly Brisson

I stumbled onto Kelly Brisson's work from my friend Molly Yeh couple weeks ago and instantly fell in love with her images. I love the way she captures details like the steam coming from the clams while being cooked on a pan. Also instant bonus plus points for making anchovy butter. Not a lot of people like anchovies but if you do, I can see us being friends right away.

Q. Can you tell me what you’re trying to capture when you take your food photos? A. I like to create a moment in time with my photos. One that might take you back to sharing a meal with friends/family, or one that might stir a nostalgia in your tummy to experience that moment. I like them to be imperfect and cozy, natural and dark.

Q. What inspires you? A. I love the natural shapes of food. The dimpled curves of an orange, the way a perfectly-round, salt-flecked egg yolk gives way when you poke it, the way light tangles in the crinkled leaves of curly kale. Even if I’m not cooking something spectacular, I’m always moved and inspired to take a few photos in the company of good ingredients.

Q. What is photography to you and how has it evolved from 2009 (when you first started your Tumblr) till now? A. I wasn’t at all interested in photography at all until I became involved with food. I started shooting with an old point and shoot camera and had no experience with it at all. From then to now, I’ve discovered a passion for it that I never knew existed. Despite my lack of camera and photography knowledge, I’ve managed to learn how to shoot and produce photos that speak to me, if no one else, and with these photos, I feel like I get to show people what food looks like through my eyes, how I see meals and ingredients. That’s extremely important to me and I wouldn’t be able to share that without photography. Q. Any food photography heroes? If not any photography heroes? A. Right now, I’m really smitten with Naomi Robinson, Chantelle Grady, Beth Kirby, Keiko Oikawa and Clare Barboza. All have a unique style and provide endless inspiration when I’m feeling a bit lost in my head.

All photos courtesy of Kelly Brisson of The Gouda Life