Food Photography and Dallas

Posted December 24, 2009



It's no secret to anyone that has spent any time in Dallas that we have a LOT of restaurants. Well, we have a lot of churches, strip clubs, malls, movie theaters, and grocery stores too. But for the sake of this entry, I'll focus on the restaurants.

I love food. And the more I shoot photos of food, the more I enjoy that aspect of photography as well.


There are some funny things about shooting people. They get sick, relatives pass away, their cars break down, they forget to set their alarms... The list goes on. Things come up. People need to reschedule or cancel. But I have never had a donut call in sick.



A few years back I was supposed to be married. The engagement was called off about two weeks before the wedding date. I had been taking a break from shooting at the time and decided that creative expression would be the perfect medium to help clear my mind after that ordeal. It opened my world in ways I could never have imagined.

A good friend of mine (and business partner in a number of ventures, most recently Atomic Hedgehog) caught the photography bug around that time. He says that it was from seeing the enjoyment I was experiencing while shooting. Apparently joy is contagious. Who knew?

I was shooting people, he started shooting food. But here is where it got a little frustrating. I had been shooting off and on (between dating insecure women for the most part) for around 10 years. 4 months behind the camera and my friend was shooting better than I ever did after 5 or 6 years. So in a lot of ways, I inspired him to pick up the camera, and he inspired me to start shooting food. Incidentally he has been shooting people lately. Life is funny sometimes.



I initially picked up the camera to create art. I might have used the camera as an excuse to talk to the occasional college girl at the time as well, but that's part of the fun. And here I am enjoying photographing food. Life is good.