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.
