studio
What a cool project with Knorr! Although I didn’t get to meet Ludacris, my photo of the lemon pepper chicken cutlet is Very close to him! It’s a win! I couldn’t of done it without my amazing crew.
Taka Kuniyuki food stylist
Penelope Boukles prop stylist
Regina Tamburro Assist
Susan Shaughnessy Producer
Space28 Studio
Carolyn Somlo Rep
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!
Excited to start the new year with big news! I’m now represented by Carolyn Somlo Talent! Looking forward to growing my client reach, projects, and traveling all over! Work is now live at her site http://www.somlotalent.com/ Along with other amazing photographers and directors. Reach out to us for your next project!
B.T.S. with Felicia and Carolyn on set!
This was a really fun shoot in Los Angeles at the end of the summer. I got to work with the best, Chuck Studios from Amsterdam and my favorite Table Top Director Olaf van Gerwen. Food really does get famous here. It was a real treat to be with a fun, creative team. Olaf was capturing the beautiful video work with food stylist Joseph Celis. After the scenes were wrapped I came onto set to work with the stylist, and models to capture various stills of the Beyond Meat Product and the recipe that went with it. It was great to capture the natural moments and real expressions of the talent. Of course we highlighted the food and showed how appetizing it was! It was a really great product to work with. The Beyond Team was there for the shoot and loved everything we were able to capture for them. It was a busy 2 days at the various spots on location. We captured a back to school scene, friends at their apartment, and a outdoor BBQ scene. It really takes a village to get these projects off the ground. I’m so glad I was able to be apart of it! You can see the work out now.
Go buy Beyond Meat, it is soo good!!
This concept has been on my mind forever! A kitchen staple that is so versatile it was the perfect vessel to capture food. I came up with common uses we use aluminum foil that leave residues, grease, colors, and burn marks. In a normal situation we would crumple this up and throw it away. I wanted to capture the beauty in essentially this piece of food trash before it made it’s way to the can. A fun part of this project was how easy it was to manipulate the foil and it hold it’s shape created. There had to be a feeling of movement as if it was actually dancing in mid air. The lighting and rigging on set was really important to me for this project to get the idea across. I used muted backgrounds and surfaces so the colors of the food really stood out.
What else do you use foil for??
I love what I do because you never know where your next food project may take you! The Violife brand 100% Vegan is a fun, tasty, and fresh product hitting the shelves in the USA! I’ve been working with the T&C team creating colorful social assets featuring their products used in recipes. Each month we have been shooting different recipes that may correlate with an upcoming FOOD holiday or special event. The recipes are tested and concepts are sketched out for each recipe. Lisa Russell helps with styling, art direction and sourcing props for each setup. Each recipe gets a hero still image and a supporting stop motion. So fun to watch these shots come to life. Make sure to follow along @violifeus
This personal series I conceptualized and shot captures the real food and real orders of everyday customers that shop at Wawa. I wanted the food to feel heroic so I incorporated bright colors that play off the brand as well as strong lighting to cast shadows and highlights giving the food dimension, and shooting at a lower angle to make the food feel big. This was so fun to go through each order and compliment the drink choice with food. Being from the Philadelphia area I know what Wawa is all about! Hope you enjoy these fun photos.
What a fun coffee project. The team at Weber Shandwick, and Nepresso came up with really creative concepts to showcase Hispanic Heritage Month. They chose beautiful Nepresso coffee recipes and were paired with custom illustrations that were added to the coasters we photographed. The props were minimal and really allowed the Nepresso drinks, glassware, and illustrated coasters shine through. These images were shared on Nepresso’s Instagram account during the months of September and October. Each image had a story to tell and was beautifully featured. Really proud of this work my team and I were able to create!
Drink Stylist: Takako Kuniyuki https://tkuniyuki.com/
Prop Stylist: Maya Rossi http://www.mayarossi.com/
Studio: Space28 https://www.space28.com/
Excited to share for the month of July I’m the featured photographer on Digital Transitions blog! You can read the full Q&A and see some of my recent work HERE
“This month, we couldn’t be more excited to feature the incredible work of our client, commercial food and beverage photographer Felicia Perretti. She is located in New York City with a specialty in advertising, packaging, editorial, and video for food and beverage clients across the country. Felicia’s extensive passion for the food and beverage industry remains a constant in her daily life and has guided her professional career.”
Back in the studio with our favorite client Gorton’s Seafood! Hook Line and Savor family of fish is doing so well they have extended it and we were shooting their newest flavor; Everything! Just like the bagel, that was so tasty! It had a great crust and Helen the food stylist came up with perfect herbs and flavor Q’s that went along well. In addition to shooting that we got to shoot a new packaging shot for their Pub Style Cod. This was beautiful with the rustic wood surface and earthenware plate. The cod was paired with steak fries and a crisp golden beer. That was new for me incorporating a beer into a packaging shot, such a perfect idea! It came together really well. The lighting was a broad and soft approach as if there was window light being used. Beautiful shot to end the day with. Great working with the team!
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.
What a great time shooting with the In The Raw team! This concept was so fun incorporating identical cakes made slightly different using In The Raw products. Also we had the opportunity to work with talent posing as bakers. BLOC NYC was a great agency to work with and several models to choose from. There was great energy and discussions on set making the shoot a hit! In the end we walked away with a great variety in poses and expressions. Bringing ideas like this to life reminds me why I love what I do. Can’t wait to see this out in the wild.
Beautiful design is the first thought that comes to mind looking at the new line of Ketel One Vodka Botanicals coming out. The illustrations of floral and fruit bordering the bottle remind me of Marie Antoniette and her beautiful, lavish parties. It was so fun to work with the Ketel One team and agency to create outdoor scenes with a freshly made cocktail. Sourcing mint, fresh fruit, and flowers in January seemed like a difficult feat but I was confident with my team we would get it all and the best quality. In addition to the environmental shots we did some simple on white product shots for them to be able to use on different platforms. Can’t wait to see these in stores! https://www.ketelone.com/vodkas/peach-orange-blossom-botanical/
This was such a fun day and everything went smoothly. I can’t stress enough how important pre production to a photo shoot really is. The more planning, communicating with agency, client, and team the better the day will go. We finished our shoot on time if not a little early! Also it’s really nice when you have two amazing assistants on hand. This shoot for Stevia In The Raw was highlighting their newly designed packaging for print ads across many popular food magazines in addition some very tasty recipes using the product. The hero shot was really cool because we worked with Hinge; a 2D/3D animation studio in Portland that created a really cute gingerbread man character that they placed in my photograph for the final!
For the recipes they were all amazing, but I think my personal favorite was the chocolate espresso pizzelles. The expresso buttercream sandwiched between the two pizzelles was so good! Luckily Lisa my stylist made extras, haha! Lisa did a fantastic job creating the other recipes as well. She made the gingerbread butterscotch trifle cups that created these beautiful layers. The grand finale recipe was the chocolate peppermint truffle tart. She had sourced spearmint leaves fresh from a garden that topped the tart so perfectly. It made it picture perfect! Make sure to keep an eye out for my Stevia In The Raw shots and take a minute to see our B.T.S. video.
What a great event and turnout for this past weekend's food photography workshop. It was great to share my experiences and tips I've learned over the years to help the students improve on their own photography. We had a packed afternoon of talking lighting setups, camera programs, and the importance of styling. I did a live demonstration on set shooting and building a sandwich. I also discussed the importance of hiring and working with a food stylist as well as a prop stylist.
Everyone broke out to separate tables building their own sets with props supplied and also making their own sandwich to photograph! You can see a time lapse below of the days events.
I would love to continue this workshop at other locations in New York City as well as New Jersey, and Philadelphia. If you are a food or prop stylist and want to collaborate on this please reach out! Also any studio spaces that would like to host us.
Finally the week is coming up! I'm soo pumped to be meeting with Art Directors and Photo Editors from top agencies at NYC Fotoworks. I've been busy shooting and building new work for my book. ALSO will be premiering my new logo designed by the uber talented Nick Prestillo from AIGA. Book edit was done by my friend and photo consultant Neil Binkley
It was great to get a call from Jim at Eating Well with a fun little project photographing parsley and ice cubes. They had a general idea what direction they wanted the photos to look but the rest was up to my creative direction and super talented food stylist Lisa Russell!
We started the day with the parsley creating a poetic, flowing photo of the flat leaves moving across the plexi. This image was running 3/4 of the page and to be photographed overhead lit from underneath. I really enjoyed this because the light really made the leaves glow green and with some of the leaves overlapping made for a neat contrast. We did a few setups of that shot but could easily be altered later by adding or removing leaves for the final shot.
For the ice cubes I knew this was going to be more challenging because they melt! :) We had plenty of options and recipes to go off of provided by the recipe developer at the magazine. The clear ones with green leaves and herbs I thought came out the prettiest. The ice cubes made with the colored liquids were also pretty but not as transparent when lit from underneath. We tried a few setups like that and also let some purposely melt to create a pastel liquid forming around cubes. The challenge with this was making it look pretty not so messy with a big melting mess. After trying some with that setup we switched gears to shooting them straight on and stacking them! I was surprised they held up as well as they did and not slide off one another. In the end I thought these were the best executed and what the creatives most closely wanted for the magazine.
Maglio Fresh Foods; a Philadelphia based company in south philadelphia that makes their own sausage and meatballs. Really a quality product! I actually met the Maglio brothers when I was in high school. It was at one of my first part time jobs working for a local marketing firm trying to figure out what type of photography I want to pursue... It was a small project for the firm but a huge opportunity for me to show them what I could do. Long story short it went great, and they used the photos.
Today as a food photographer I will never forget my first introduction to food photography and how that one instance really shaped my life and the idea of being a commercial food photographer. Everything comes around and I just happen to be thinking of those guys and thought I should reach out! They were actually getting ready to re-brand themselves with some new products and needed new photography. It was perfect timing, and once again they loved the photos!
Food styling by Adam Fergurson
