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Bridging Tech and Creative Photography
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Photography Culture

Nikki Gardner on Lifestyle Food Photography

Chris Gampat
No Comments
08/23/2015
4 Mins read

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All images by Nikki Gardner. Used with permission.

“Food factors into all of our lives,” said photographer Nikki Gardner about how she got into food photography. Based in Western Massachusetts, she is a fine art and lifestyle photographer and the creator of Develop Your Photo Habit & Style, an e-course for photo lovers. Nikki is a lover of film and digital–and uses Nikon and Hasselblad cameras to get her jobs done.

When pitching her work to us, she went on about her love and passion for food photography while we fell in love with lots of her simple concepts and designs.

Our interview with Nikki is after the jump. But also be sure to follow her on Facebook and Twitter.

Phoblographer: Talk to us about how you got into photography.

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Nikki: My step grandfather collected vintage cameras and had a darkroom in the basement bathroom. I was always intrigued with photography and couldn’t wait to work under the red safelight and get my hands on film and chemistry. My father bought me a Kodak 110 camera for my 10th birthday and I immediately fell in love with the act of documenting life.

Phoblographer: What made you fall in love with food photography?

Nikki: We all eat. We gather together to share food and stories. Pieces of our day. Markets. Tables. Preparations. Stoves. Celebrations. Losses. Food factors into all of our lives. Whether we have too much or barely enough, food is something that can connect us no matter where we are in the world. When I was in school studying photography, I discovered Edward Weston’s black and white food photography and fell madly in love with beauty in the ordinary. Fascinated by his use of formal devices like light, shadow, form, shape, and tone, I felt like his food photographs, particularly his pepper and cabbage ones were imbued with life as if each one was a dancer in repose. As Weston put it, “I want to make the commonplace unusual.”

Phoblographer: Lots of your photography emphasizes a neutral background and looks like there is natural lighting involved. How do you create your images?

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Nikki: I work mostly with neutral backgrounds and natural light whenever possible. Both allow me to draw attention to the formal qualities of the food itself: the color, mood, atmosphere, texture, patterns, shape, form, and light. Again, I’m concerned with all the foundational elements that go into making strong compositions.

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Phoblographer: What inspires your specific creative visions for your scenes?

Nikki: There is a natural gestalt that I rely on when it comes to food photography meaning I try to find the story in a moment. I often think about the subject and context of the scene, choose a background and dish or spoon and then I respond and play with the food and scene until it feels authentic, that it’s happening in real-time. I’m constantly studying light in my kitchen studio and how it falls throughout the day. I notice when it soft and hard and think about what types of stories could benefit from either scenario. I look at other photographer’s work and note what I’m drawn to and how I can use that quality in my own images. I look at art, paintings, and movies as well for inspiration.

Phoblographer: Your food photography is significantly different from your restaurant work. How are you thinking differently when shooting one vs the other?

Nikki: With my restaurant work, I’m responding to the scene in real-time instead of creating it piece by piece. It’s all action. I don’t have the same level of control as I do with my still life work. It’s purely documentary, often under mixed and often unflattering lighting conditions. It forces me to move and think quickly and to find a way to tell the story of a pizza being made before it’s boxed and delivered. I always start with a shot list with at least ten images, including an establishing shot, portrait, detail, although I always leave with hundreds of images. I mentally cross each one off as I go.

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Phoblographer: What’s the biggest tip about food photography that you wish you knew when starting out?

Nikki: Shoot as much as you can in a variety of settings. Allow yourself the time and space necessary to grow as a photographer, which means you’re going to make some crappy work for a while until you get better. Study both the art and craft of photography. If possible, assist a working photographer and soak up as much as you can. Be curious and ask questions. Find what moves you and photograph that, your voice will be a natural progression of all the above.

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Chris Gampat

Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He provides oversight to all of the daily tasks, including editorial, administrative, and advertising work. Chris's editorial work includes not only editing and scheduling articles but also writing them himself. He's the author of various product guides, educational pieces, product reviews, and interviews with photographers. He's fascinated by how photographers create, considering the fact that he's legally blind./ HIGHLIGHTS: Chris used to work in Men's lifestyle and tech. He's a veteran technology writer, editor, and reviewer with more than 15 years experience. He's also a Photographer that has had his share of bylines and viral projects like "Secret Order of the Slice." PAST BYLINES: Gear Patrol, PC Mag, Geek.com, Digital Photo Pro, Resource Magazine, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, IGN, PDN, and others. EXPERIENCE: Chris Gampat began working in tech and art journalism both in 2008. He started at PCMag, Magnum Photos, and Geek.com. He founded the Phoblographer in 2009 after working at places like PDN and Photography Bay. He left his day job as the Social Media Content Developer at B&H Photo in the early 2010s. Since then, he's evolved as a publisher using AI ethically, coming up with ethical ways to bring in affiliate income, and preaching the word of diversity in the photo industry. His background and work has spread to non-profits like American Photographic Arts where he's done work to get photographers various benefits. His skills are in SEO, app development, content planning, ethics management, photography, Wordpress, and other things. EDUCATION: Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude from Adelphi University with a degree in Communications in Journalism in 2009. Since then, he's learned and adapted to various things in the fields of social media, SEO, app development, e-commerce development, HTML, etc. FAVORITE SUBJECT TO PHOTOGRAPH: Chris enjoys creating conceptual work that makes people stare at his photos. But he doesn't get to do much of this because of the high demand of photography content. / BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Don't do it in post-production when you can do it in-camera.
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