It's About More Than The Plate

Granada, Nicaragua

Talk about inspiration. Talk about AHA moments. In day one of her food & culture photography workshop at creativeLIVE, Penny De Los Santos described her realization that she had been shooting food already for 10 years before actually calling herself a food photographer. AHA! Cultural travel photography IS food photography. When you are a photojournalist and story teller interacting with people around the globe, food & drink is almost always included in the first meeting. Come in for a cup of tea. Let's meet over coffee. Whether that is on the steps of the Ganges river in Varanasi, in a hut in the mountains of Nepal, or at your local coffee shop in Seattle - people meet and share life around food.  Plain and simple - Penny uses food photography as a vehicle to express the human condition.

Culture HAPPENS in the markets worldwide, you just don't see it as much here in the US. I'd argue that the closest we get is Farmer's Markets, which we are lucky to have in many Seattle neighborhoods. Food is all around us. We need it to survive. What I realize from Penny yesterday is that it's photographing what goes on around the food is what we need for our souls to survive. As humans we are connected to every other living being on this planet. As Penny said, food photography is about more than the plate.

While the focus of my business today is portrait photography - bellies, babies & beyond, my personal work is cultural photography. Co-creatliveLIVE-host Susan Roderick and I traveled around the world for a year together, experiencing and photographing cultures (and markets) in over 20 countries along the way. Peruse my images & stories on the blog at your leisure! Penny - I'll be your assistant anytime!

Old Delhi, India

Want to see a SNEAK PEEK of today's FREE: Food Photography with Penny De Los Santos? Check out this video from creativeLIVE. Today will be HANDS ON shooting, seeing Penny and the in-person students in action - there will even be bacon! Tune in - it's Free Live education for the world to see. Talk about inspiration.