International Photography Awards Contest Honorable Mention

This was such an honor to be an official selection, then continuing in the judging process to have my images selected as Honorable Mention! So much talent in these categories. Another reason entering my work into contests is so important. The judges did not have an easy task.

My Twizzlers series received Honorable Mention in the Professional Advertising Food and Beverage Category and my Leftover series received Official Selection in the Professional Fine Art Still Life Category. It’s so nice to be recognized for all the hard work put in over the years. Thank You IPA!

AI-AP American Photography 39 Winner

Wow! This must be the year of contests. So excited to be included in AI-AP 39!! https://www.ai-ap.com/

“This year’s distinguished jury included: Maïa Booker, The Wall Street Journal; David Cooper, Freelance Photo Editor; Maura Friedman, National Geographic; Lauryn Hill, WIRED; Amy Kellner, The New York Times Magazine; Robert Miller, The Washington Post; Laura Oliverio, CNN; Amy Silverman, Airbnb; Allyson Torrisi, People; Karen Williams, Freelance Photo Director and Producer; Andrea Wise, ProPublica; and Cengiz Yar, Rest of World.”

Conceptual Series: Pop Art!

This was a fun series to shoot because popcorn, as simple of a product it is every piece popped has unique traits you cannot repeat twice. I’m a fan of popcorn and being in the food business, why not?! I wanted to challenge my technical capabilities in this series with use of macro photography, lighting, and focus stacking; things I would apply to my other commercial work.

The results were so fascinating and fun to see unfold in the stacking process. You might sort through bags of popcorn and hold a piece that looks interesting but once it’s in the light it’s not, and vice versus. Focus stacking allowed me to showcase the depth in the miniature scale of the food and make it feel much bigger when fully in focus. Also allowing the popcorn to be shot on black by itself removes the illusion of the scale of real popcorn and lets your imagination take over.

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Felicia Perretti is a commercial food and beverage photographer and director based in New York City. She works nationally with food and beverage clients in advertising, packaging, editorial, and video. She has worked with food and drink in all shapes and knows how to craft the right team to get the job done! Her passion for food and beverage shine through on set as well as outside of work in her everyday life. Whether it’s trying new restaurants, traveling, or cooking with her husband Joe. Send her an email or give a call to discuss your next project, she would be more than happy to chat!

Personal Series: Dollar Store Dining Stop Motion

This is new, this is fun, this is my latest personal project! I wanted to really have fun with this project and challenge myself by going with my gut instinct. In the process of adding motion work into my portfolio I always found the stop motion pieces interesting. Taking a series of still images and sandwiching them together to make a 15-30 second piece was bringing the stills to life!
    Going to the dollar store as a kid there are always the memories of the novelty toy section; you know the really quirky toys you could pull pranks on your friends or siblings with. Maybe these would be stocking stuffers. One really fond memory I have is getting silly putty and squishing it on top of newspaper comics and seeing the print go onto the putty. That was magic to me as a kid. How was I going to bring this back to food but still have fun with it?
    If you have ever gone into the dollar store you should also be aware of the off the wall food brands and item combinations you have come across. For example: Larry The Cable Guy; he has his own food line, some of which is frozen biscuits and gravy. You may have seen Twinkies flavored ice cream. Another one is those widely toxic colored drinks that come in the gallons. There are some weird brands of food out there and you could probably find them at the dollar store.
    The combination of novelty toys and weird branded and flavored foods brought me to my latest project on Dollar Store Dining. The stop motion piece of these really helps capture the life in the novelty toys but gives me the opportunity to take the setup farther and show more humor and relation between the toys and the food. I hope you enjoy; this is about having fun with food!

Personal Series From The Farm: Chicken Processing

    One thing that photographers can relate to is having access to situations and events in everyday life that not everyone sees. We have an opportunity to tell stories from our perspective and share with an audience. This happened to me the other day; being able to document a chicken slaughtering. I found out about this through one of the farms I’ve been working with for over a year. This only happens a certain time of year when their free-range chickens have grown large enough to be sold and used at their facilities. **Photo gallery has some graphic content**

 When I arrived at the farm the sun was just rising and the foggy clouds were clearing; it was going to be a gorgeous day for photography. The outdoor mobile trailer was just pulling up to the gravel lot where the farmer’s towering crates of live chickens were waiting. Out of the mobile trailer comes the owner and operator of his chicken and turkey processing company. He has been doing this for over 5 years. There was certainly a process and systematic setup before diving into the chicken cages. Everything must be sterilized.
    First he organized the inside of the trailer with buckets being pulled out under the drains, then getting the water running in his sinks to a boiling temperature, and using lots of soap to make sure everything was clean. Then he puts on his rubber apron along with rubber gloves. His knifes and sharpening tools were laid out on the metal counter that he used to break down the chickens after their bath and plucking.
    Their was a row of upside down cones where the chickens went in head first. He would pull the chicken from the crate one at a time and put them in there. He would then pull the head through the bottom of the cone and cut off the chicken’s head. The chicken still moved after removing the head. The heart would still be pumping which allowed the chicken to bleed out more efficiently. The blood would drain into a large metal bay which was under the row of cones.
    Once the chicken had been drained enough he would then put them into a rotating hot water and soap bath to help with cleaning and loosening the feathers from the skin. After that process the chickens would go into a rotating tub that had rubber prongs throughout. When that was turned on it would spin the chickens quickly and remove all the feathers completely from the body. When he pulled the chickens from that they would be clean and ready for breakdown.
    Important parts of the chicken that need to be removed at this point is the oil gland. If this is not removed it can spoil the meat. Other parts of the chicken being removed are the feet, and esophagus. You cut open the chicken’s body just to open it and not hit the intestines. Then carefully remove the insides including gizzard, and lungs. After this process is done the chickens get cooled in cold water and placed into refrigeration.

APA Proof Sheet Featured Photographer Spring Issue

Working as a commercial photographer in such a competitive world today setting yourself apart can be a challenge. When talking with other photographers and always being asked what do you do to separate yourself from the noise, I feel it’s your personal work that can really make a difference. Myself like many other photographers always have a running list of personal projects they are working on or would like to start. These are the sole vision of yourself that no one else can replicate! For me I love finding the humor in food and practicing lighting setups that I normally don’t work within to add a challenge and to see something different. With this personal project Transformation it was just that. I shot this idea a few years back and it still continues to draw new viewers in and enjoy looking at the series. It’s really exciting to see a project like this gain so much traction since shooting it and continuing to get myself and my work noticed.

APA is a great photo organization I belong to and they really showed an interest in my personal project, so much that they wanted to feature it! I was so excited to hear this I wasted no time coordinating for an interview and getting the photos to their designer. These moments really make what I do enjoyable and couldn’t see myself doing anything else.

If your just getting into the business I have to say stay hungry and shoot often!

Link to the online publication Spring Issue of APA Proof Sheet: https://issuu.com/apany/docs/proof-sheet_spring2016_single

Photo Organization APA: http://www.apany.com/

Friday Farm Follow Up

This mild winter has been great so far. I’ve been continuing my personal project photographing at the farms with weather I’m able to stand in for a few hours! However I would like it to snow at least once so I can get shots of the farms in a wintery setting.

Baby calf being fed milk and nutrients by Andrew the farmer at the dairy farm

Cow Parade

As I mentioned in my last blog post I have been able to expand my personal project to two really amazing farms in the New Jersey and surrounding area. This will be an on going personal project capturing the farm and farmers through the seasons hopefully leading up to a year of work.

Being curious is a big part of creating this new imagery. While at the Cherry Grove Farm one of the workers was talking to me about their upcoming cow parade! “A cow parade?!, what is this?”, I asked with excitement. Well I had to go to see for myself. Below is just a small piece of the day to incorporate into my farming project.

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The Agriculture of Farming

My personal project I started about a month ago photographing a gorgeous apple orchard among other things has quickly taken me to larger and more complex ideas of the art of farming. My curious struck me while shooting at the orchard and really how far could I take this project. The orchard has several opportunities for photography and creating my unique vision of my experiences but I felt I wanted more. Beyond the apples, the small grouping of their livestock got me wondering about how I could incorporate these things. I started researching farms that specialize in crops, dairy, and meat.

After doing this my wheels got turning and I’m looking forward to expanding this project to a couple farms that have agreed to let me document their life on the farm and how they really are the backbone to our human existence.

Agriculture can be a very broad term but for our purposes of farming it can be defined as the art and science of growing plants and raising animals for food or economic gain.

Personal Project: The Orchard

Personal projects are always something I enjoy working on. It requires a vision and time! Some photographers have personal projects that span a year, while others maybe over the course of a week. I can’t say there’s a right or wrong answer here. It has to be what your feeling and how satisfied you are with the images. When I go into personal projects they may last 3-6 months depending on how many final shots I’m looking to create, the time it takes to make them, and the budget I have allotted for travel, food, props, etc.

My last project I worked on was cartoon food which I really had a great time shooting. Some of my other past personal projects and my professional work have left me in the studio. I was looking for another challenge, and all I could think of was doing something outside in the elements. Working on location is something I haven’t done in a very long time; probably since college. I found this really great orchard right outside the city that seems to have a lot of potential for photos. I’ve only been there once and I had this rush of excitement being there shooting something new and different for myself! I’m excited to see where this takes me. Here’s just a couple shots from that day.

PDN Feature- Photo Of The Day

Like any professional photographer you should never stop creating and making work your passionate about. I always have a list of personal projects and ideas I want to create. Some work out and others may not, that’s why you constantly are practicing. My personal project Transformation that I created earlier this year was definitely one of the more unique projects I did. I’ve seen frozen food photographed before but I wanted to take it to a different level and incorporating my opinion of the frozen food culture we live in. I’m certainly a fresh food eater but sure there are times I just don’t have the time and can depend on some frozen spinach but I feel it shouldn’t be the norm. Amy Wolff, photo editor of PDN saw my project and thought it was really fun and worth sharing on their blog; Photo Of The Day. They have a great article to pair it with that really spoke on the same level.

Hope you had the chance to check it out! You can see more of the project at my Transformation link on my website and archived on PDN Photo of The Day: http://potd.pdnonline.com/2014/06/27425

Personal Project: Transformation

It's been a few busy months shooting/editing...
Catching up on some much needed blogging! Here's my latest project I've been working on titled Transformation.

Brief Overview: A personal project showcasing the transformation of frozen food to the fresh state it takes once defrosted. It shows the contrast of reality and perception in today’s food culture.