For my business class, my professor had us conduct interviews with photographers that we found inspiring, and on the list of my top three was photographer Matt Armendariz. He's a photographer that lives and shoots in Long Beach, California, and his true passion is food. He's primarily a food photographer, though both his website and his food blog have featured bits on both people and travel, so he really covers pretty much all the things I love! His blog is the number 7 food blog in the world, according to the Times Online, and he has been featured on Martha Stewart as well as in many magazines. I was so happy that he answered some of my questions about business and random studio questions, though I was really most pleased about him sharing his passion with me about food and photography. I have some of his answers below!
Are you a Californian (I am :) ) or have you lived elsewhere and has that influenced the way you work and conduct business?
I am originally from Austin, Texas but have lived in Chicago and San Francisco before settling in Los Angeles. I think this has influenced how I run a business, most definitely. Having worked with different designers and photographers in those cities has shown me the things I love about running a business, the types of services I value as well as the things I did not want to do. I'm not sure it's affected me creatively as much as it has in running a business.
What inspired you to become a photographer? Did you attend school for photography or are you self taught?
I'm self taught everything. I started as a graphic designer and art director. I was hiring all sorts of photographers for projects as well as the stylists, booking the location, creating the story, etc. I started having moments towards the end of my art direction career that became exceedingly frustrating: what i was getting back from the photographer wasn't what I was seeing in my mind. So I'd work with another photographer. And the same thing would happen. Mind you, the photos were perfect -- beautiful, correctly exposed, nothing wrong technically. But this issue kept nagging me until I realized that the problem wasn't with the photographer but with me. What I was seeing in my mind wasn't the same as what I was getting by putting together 4 people or how ever many to make an image. So I realized the only way to remedy this was to learn how to shoot myself. If I couldn't learn and figure it out then I'd have to learn to communicate better with the photographer or find someone that shot the exact way I wanted. Granted, that's a bit of a problem...one should hire a photographer based on what they can bring to the project. So becoming a photographer was the only logical choice I could have made.
For 3 years I never put down a camera. Not once. It went everywhere with me and I mean that literally. I had to learn to become comfortable with it in my hand, how to make it become an extension of my mind. I already had the creative part down -- I spoke the language of color, proportion and perspective fluently from all those years in design. What I needed to learn were the technical aspects, specifically f stop and aperture. Once those all started working together I began to make the images that I had in my head, it was a huge moment of self revelation. I haven't stopped since.
You said you like to shoot travel and people as well, have you ever considered shooting those as your primary focus? What is the allure to the food photography industry for you? You've said that all cuisine has beauty, but is that why you started/continue to shoot it?
I probably won't ever stop shooting food. It's the thing I love most. There are times when proportionately it's less but it won't ever be out of my system I'm sure. Also, with my background in food I feel as if it gives me an advantage on set. I can't tell you how many times I've let my big giant multimillion dollar clients know that something won't work on set or that this food subject isn't in season right now or culturally this group may like this photo but this other group would see it differently. And this is all just about food! I think the allure is that I know it, I breathe it, it's what I do even when I'm not shooting food. And we will always be taking pictures of food, always.
But back to my answer up above, that really explains why I started shooting food. By default I was in the food business and I was able to use my own images in my work once I felt like I was good enough.
No comments:
Post a Comment