How to be a NYC Food Photographer

I work as a professional food photographer in NYC. I've been a photographer for about 20+ years, worked professionally for the past 10+ years and in the past 5+ years I've just been a food photographer. When I got my first camera way back when film was still king and photography was the realm of nerdy kids who hung out in darkrooms processing prints with stinky chemicals. These days the internet has made photography very popular, which to me is weird to suddenly be the center of attention, but I'm happy to share what I've learned in the past 20 years.

I don't have a resume. And I'm sure somebody has something nice to say about me but I don't have any references either. But I’m drowning in experience. My work has taken me to roughly 1,000 restaurants and I'm really fortunate to get to work with a lot of very talented charming people.

The secret to being a professional food photographer is very simple. Practice taking lots of beautiful photographs, show them to people, repeat. Ok there’s a little more to it but that is the basic formula. The second secret is that you have to repeat many many many times. And there will come many times when you will want to give up because it is like climbing a mountain that never ends. Even in those dark moments of doubt you still have to stick to the formula.

Make Beautiful Photographs + Get them in front of People + Repeat

There’s a famous quote about needing to practice something for 10,000 hours to master it. And while I don’t take that idea literally I think there’s some truth to it. When shooting portraits of chefs working in the kitchen one of my favorite things to ask them is how many times they’ve made that dish. I once got to ask that question to Dominic Ansel who is a master pastry chef and possibly the best in the world. He didn't have an answer to how many pastries he's made in his lifetime and nobody has ever had an answer to that question. In order to be a master chef you have to make a Lot of food. And being a photographer is no different. There's no real short cuts. It's just practice and if you want to be the boss you've got to pay the cost. But being a food photographer is fun and enjoy the ride.

Paid the cost to be the Boss.

I got my first camera, a Pentax k 1000 when I was 14 years old. It’s a basic no frills 35mm film camera with fully manual functions. Nothing automatic and as bare bones of a camera as you can get without being a disposable point and shoot. It was a revelation for me that changed my life and I’ve never done anything else since. But to try to comprehend the number of photographs that I’ve shot since then is just not possible. It’s just practice. If you want to master an art form you need to put in the hours, days, weeks and years.

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