The Lovin' Oven: Behind The Scenes of Cupoladua Oven: May 2008

parmesan pink peppercorn cupola clouds

A couple weeks ago, I went down to Washington D.C. to visit my friend Serena on business- she is one of the most talented and passionate photographers I know, and she had agreed to take some photos of our products to be used on our website and marketing pieces.

This weekend made me realize two things 1) Food photography requires a great deal of patience and attention to detail 2) My friendships run deep and I have a wonderful, supportive and talented group of friends.

Serena, along with my other friend Shannon and I all lived in New York together for three years and I can honestly say that my experience as their roommates was a great one- you know you have a good thing going when your roommates surprise you with frozen yogurt after work or you spend countless hours watching the Food Network or HGTV with them.

Serena has been building her portfolio for several years now and has extensive experience photographing everything from landscapes to people and has worked in black & white and color. Having traveled internationally over the past couple years, she has taken some stunning photographs in countries such as Morocco, Lebanon and France. Our apartment in New York showcased some of the best photos she had taken in the city and I think they could have easily made their way into one of the galleries in Chelsea.

Although she hadn’t done a lot of food photography, Serena previously worked in production on the set of some commercial shoots for food and beverages, so she had the chance to see the kinds of lighting/ set-up/ styling techniques that were used.

For a day, we converted the apartment she shares with one of her good friends (who we also went to college with and who is also incredibly kind) into a studio. It was interesting to see my friend, the photographer in action again and this time I got to play the role of food stylist, prop manager and production assistant. Serena knew when additional lighting was needed, when certain shadows needed to be blocked and when to switch out the lenses on her sophisticated SLR digital camera.

I’ve always heard that working with friends may not be such a good idea, but I think this is a generalization. The photos from the shoot are exactly what my mom and I had in mind. And with Serena giving creative input on the fly, we took some additional shots that were very artistic and further enriched our collection of photos. The image above is from our photo shoot, as well as the images below, but feel free to check out our updated website, www.amandarico.com for more photos. To see Serena’s other work, log on to her website at www.serenakefayeh.com.