I absolutely love working with the Queens University of Charlotte team. They are always pushing the boundaries and coming up with fresh ways to make their magazine and marketing products shine through their photography and graphics. Laura, their super talented marketing and magazine designer, reached out with a very cool idea she had for a multi-page editorial story. It would be featured in Queens Magazine and would cover five alumni who have succeeded as entrepreneurs in the food and beverage industry. Laura came to me with some inspiration for the food photography style she was after, and then we brainstormed together to come up with the ingredients. Every food photography shoot I’ve ever been on has had a designated food stylist. But when I looked at the simplicity of the ingredients, I was confident that her and I could work as a team to do it on our own. We spent a few days gathering supplies and got together a few days before the shoot to see what props we had or would need. I decided to do a rehearsal layout of all 6 spreads, minus the messy food, and take pictures on my phone to reference on the production day. This helped significantly. It allowed us to know exactly what we needed and could do without so we could avoid any guess work on the actual shoot day, and the mock photos gave Laura an idea of how much space she’d have for copy.

The actual shoot day was long and messy, but the images came out beautifully, and Laura and her team were so thrilled with the way it turned out in print.