On Shooting Raw
Besides a couple shots of delicious meals and desserts consumed and neatly arranged market produce encountered during my travels, I rarely take many food photographs, but the next few weeks will find me photographing a variety of raw meats, poultry, and seafood for a new non-travel related client based in Nigeria so I’m pretty excited about this venture.
On Last Minute Assignments
Got a two-liner email last week directly from the executive editor of an in-flight magazine (hint below) I’d once written for. Could I whip up a dispatch complete with quotes from key stakeholders within 3 days?
Absolutely!…And within 3 days, the article was signed, sealed, and delivered on time.
Last year, I’d also received a one-liner from the same editor asking if I could review a tour for him. Since I wasn’t on location at the time, I recommended another writer who happened to be on location. The fellow writer took the tour and wrote up the much needed dispatch. For those who think travel writing needs to be a fiercely competitive cutthroat world of hoarding contacts, kindly read Julie’s fantastic post on Writers’ Karma.
Time permitting and within reason of course, taking on last minute assignments is a great way of building continued trust and reliability between you and your editor.
Meeting deadlines is extremely important as well. Always go with your intuition and negotiate an extra day or two upfront before you start writing, instead of later.
In The Works
In addition to the MatadorU Photography curriculum, been working on a few articles for NGT (both print & online), Fodors.com (couple pieces), and United, and will be posting links once they’re available.
The Notables page has been updated with a honorable mention from Explorers’ Corner, and photography contribution to Knowledge for Health (K4Health).
Taking photographs of various food dishes is not as easy a task as it appears in the books of cooking and food advertisements.
Visit us at Photography Adelaide and find lots of great tips and advices about this great hobby. Visit us now!
Looking forward to the Matador Photo course – I am going to need to get in on that 🙂
Congrats on all the writing and photography assignments Lola! And great advice about last-minute pieces and writers’ karma.
@Nancy – Thanks!
Tartaar looks good
What is that? Raw meat is not a fave but this looks interesting. Last minute assignments are always great opportunities to show your time management skills but they always give me a headache. Congrats on completing these and all you new ventures.
Fly Girl – Thanks so much! It’s actually minced meat.The client owns large organic farms and sells frozen meats and stuff so the photography would be for packaging.
I usually like your photos, but this raw food dish doesn’t look especially appetizing though. I bet a diet of only veggie raw food is very healthy though.
Congrats to your many assignments!
Erica – Haha. Sorry about that 🙂 I should have added a disclaimer for vegans and vegetarians. I will be photographing some other weirder pieces of meat and I promise not to post them up here.
Lola-
Congratulations on all the assignments! I’m always excited to hear about your projects and see the finished pieces.
Thanks not only for mentioning “Writers’ karma,” but also for talking a bit about developing relationships with editors. This is a topic that I’d like to write a continuing ed course about for the U, so I may pick your brain about it soon!
@Julie – Thanks! Anytime. Would be happy to contribute to that piece on developing editor relationships. Was also thinking an etiquette piece on sharing contacts. There are some common sense courtesy tips that a lot of people just bypass.