Close

somewhere between a handshake and two kisses

food photography

Happy 2015: Once in a Lifetime…

Well, it’s that time of year again…paigegreen2014paigegreenAOCSF082014-017-1

Meaning it’s time to dig through the memories of last year…

paigegreen2014544A6781

Pull out the highlights…

paigegreen2014000059570002

And make big plans for the coming year…

paigegreen201406042014june_44A0021

Thing is, I have been chasing big plans for the past 15 years…

paigegreen2014IMG_0095

Finding a job turned into building a career…

paigegreen201403022014_44A0019

Six years of saying, “my boyfriend Arann,” turned into five years of saying, “my husband Arann…”

paigepageKellyAaron100514-331

One great dog love was lost and another amazing dog love was found…

paigegreenAOC91414-027

Paying the rent turned into paying the mortgage…

paigegreen2014544A6641

And two people became four…

paigegreen2014IMG_0928

So now that all the important life boxes have been checked…

paigegreen2014000091270010

I have a lot of brain space that is available for rent…

paigegreen2014000083690004

But instead of searching for the next big thing…

paigegreen2014070-maine72-maine000086570004

I would rather slow life down…

Processed with VSCOcam with g3 preset

And celebrate how amazing things are right now…

paigegreen201407202014_44A0092

Because the most important lesson I learned from 2014…

paigegreen2014000059570006

Is that life does not always go as you planned…

paigegreen-maine-000086570001

And it all can change so fast without any warning…

480015_10151516369424757_1917589774_n

So in 2015, I am looking for more of this…

paigegreenLizJanell101114-0492

paigegreenAOC91414-103

paigegreen2014000005910007

paigegreen2014paigegreenEdwinTammara110714-062

paigegreen2014045-maine46-maine000086580012

paigegreen2014paigegreenHA-000013940012

paigegreen2014paigegreenRoseKahn110214-107

paigegreen201402122014-tomales23980003

paigegreen2014paigepageKellyAaron100514-495

paigegreen2014paigegreenAnna110514-050And less of this…

paigegreen2014paigegreenBigFlip-DC102114-0427

Because hopefully there will be more harvests…

paigegreen2014paigegreenDaVero92414-088More drinks…paigegreen2014Paige_Green_Peets_DUO_WIP2_v2_FINAL_Rd1(2)More cook books…breadrevolution2014

More clothes…

fibershed41914

And more weddings…paigepageDaniAdam092014-0579

 

But these two will only be like this…

boys

Once in a Lifetime.

paigegreen2014544A7025

So Happy 2015 (five days late.) Here is to a year of no big plans.

 

 

 

 

Not the week to give up sugar…

And thank goodness I never would… blackjetbakingcoNot as long as Gillian Shaw (of Black Jet Baking Company) is sharing her baking talent with the world.

paigegreenBlackJet120414-089

It was a fun day with a fun crew. Big thanks to Tessa Watson and Debbie Wilson for helping make this delicious day happen… a photo shoot with chocolate is my favorite kind of photo shoot.

paigegreenBlackJet120414-076

To purchase your own yummy Black Jet treats click here: https://www.goodeggs.com/blackjet

paigegreenBlackJet120414-003

the grass isn’t quite as green anymore…

For the last three years, or more, I have been talking about moving my photography to the “next level.”kellycollinsgeiser-1 Well, I had my first “next level” photo shoot on Monday of this week: a product shoot for a well known company.

paigegreenKellyCollinsGeiser32814-229

At first I thought it must be a mistake, maybe they had the wrong Paige Green, but the company assured me they wanted to hire me because they like how natural and realistic my work is.

kellycollinsgeiser-2

But sadly the photo shoot I did for them on Monday was as far from natural and realistic as you could possibly imagine… I had no idea how many phone calls, emails, texts, lights, photo stands, sand bags, retakes, late nights, early mornings and photoshop layers were required for commercial product photography.

paigegreenKellyCollinsGeiser32814-142

But it was a good experience and if I’m asked, I’ll definitely do it again because I like to step out of my comfort zone and learn new skills… and the money is hard to turn down. But I may never share those photos… because they aren’t my photos. They aren’t real and they aren’t natural.

kellycollinsgeiser-3

Today, however, I photographed real and natural and it only required a handful of texts, two people (Kelly and me) and a couple of hours editing to make it happen.

paigegreenKellyCollinsGeiser32814-067

The contrast between Monday’s photo shoot and Friday’s photo shoot made me realize that this level is pretty darn special and I am lucky to be right where I am.

paigegreenKellyCollinsGeiser32814-147

To learn more about Kelly, and how you can have her pretty darn special cooking in your home, visit her brand new website here: http://kellycollinsgeiser.com/

Day 23 – I did not see my family much today, but I did see this on instagram…

The first sighting of the Afro-Vegan cookbook I worked on with Bryant Terry last summer…

bryantterry

Aside from the photos I print for my own family and friends, I rarely see photographs I have taken in print form. So to see photos I took printed in an actual book that other people intend to purchase is still mind-blowing.

12314-bryant-terry-2

I am grateful to all the people who have pushed me in to this field of photography that I never imagined myself in.

12314-bryant-terry-1

While I still can’t bring myself to call myself a “food photographer,” because that title puts me with a very intimidating group of extremely talented photographers…

12314-bryant-terry-3

Seeing as this is book number 4 that contains only photos of food (that I took)… the idea is becoming a little easier to swallow.

12314-bryant-terry-4

Huge thanks to the wonderfully talented Afro-Vegan Dream Team: Bryant Terry, Amanda Yee, Toni Tajima, Melissa Moore, Karen Shinto, Dani Fisher and Morgan Bellinger. Look for this book in a bookstore near you April 8th, 2014.

Banh Mi editing…

banhmi-cookbookI just submitted the final edits for the Banh Mi Handbook, a lovely book project I photographed last September for the wonderful folks at 10 Speed Press. As Andrea Nguyen, the animated author and chef extraordinaire, said in this fun blog post about our photo shoot (which includes behind the scenes photos,) photographing a cook book is truly a collaborative effort.

These photos could not have been created without the incredibly talented people we had on our team: superb editors Betsy Stromberg and Melissa Moore; Karen Shinto, the food magician; super stylish Tessa Watson; handy Morgan Bellinger and Elysa Weitala, the creative light mover.

Look for it this spring at a bookstore near you, or buy it here.

My Best Tip-Toe Forward…

Last week I received a phone call from a well-known company asking to see my portfolio. They wanted to see still life, food and some people (because they don’t usually do much photography of people.)

While that phone call was very exciting, the problem was that no one had ever asked me to send in an actual printed portfolio before… so I didn’t have a portfolio to send.

Inspired, I started enthusiastically dragging out the hard drives and digging though the archives. Eventually I came up with a portfolio containing my most favorite 137 photos.

Luckily my talented graphic designer and trusty adviser, Tyler Young, said 137 photos might be a tad too many. So reluctantly, I whittled the portfolio down and here it is… my best (abridged) attempt to tip-toe further into the commercial world of still-life and food… with just a few people.

The Final Push…

My food photography has come a long way over the past six months.

But my Town Hall cook book days are numbered.

It is time to turn in what we have and let the editors work their magic.

Thank you Bridget, Mitch, Mary and Michael.

We make a good team.

I will miss our long days fueled by sugary espresso shots and bread.

But who knows, maybe we will get to do this together again someday.

In the second grade I learned how to spell dessert…

We were living in Korea and I was going to an American school.

I can’t remember my teacher’s name.

But I can remember the day when my teacher, whose name might have started with a G, was writing on the blackboard and explaining that a desert only has one “s.”

But a dessert has two, because you always want more dessert than desert.

She was right. I have always wanted more dessert than desert… or anything else really.

But today I learned that after spending all day photographing just five desserts, for the Town Hall cook book, eventually, even I did not want more dessert… well at least for a few hours. Knowing that I wasn’t permanently cured of my insatiable sweet tooth, I boxed up the leftovers and took them home, so I would be prepared when the cravings for more dessert returned.

Huge thanks to my very stylish and talented friend, Bridget, for making the day and process so much sweeter.

A very simple story about very good ice cream…

These two women, Anne and Kris, needed a kitchen to bake their baked goods for the Bi-Rite Market. Eventually they found a kitchen that also had a store in the front, so they needed something to sell. They couldn’t just sell their baked goods because the store front is right next to another very delicious bakery, so they had to think of something else. So they thought… Why not organic ice cream?

And here is what happened…

 

 

 

With a line continuously stretched around the block, it is obvious that their ice cream makes a lot of kids (and adults) very happy.

So now Kris and Anne want to make a cook book for their ice cream.

 

Here’s hoping that this is an ice cream story that will be continued.

 

 

I like to flip through books from back to front…

When I pick up a book or a magazine with lots of photos, I usually open it up at the end and flip the pages backwards until I end up at the beginning of the book. While not conducive for reading novels, this dyslexic behavior is a handy tool to have because that is how my blog posts may be shared from now on.

This summer, work exploded for me.

I have seen and done so many fun things, but I haven’t had time to share any of it because I can barely keep up with the editing.

I am not complaining. Instead I feel very lucky and very grateful to be so busy.

But because I am so far behind, I don’t know where to start with my blog posting…. so I will resort to my backwards book flipping habit and start at the end of the book, which means tonight’s photo shoot, and we’ll see how far I can get.

Tonight Arann and I went to San Francisco on a working date.

I have finally started photographing for the Town Hall cook book, which is actually a cook book about all three of their restaurants, and it is actually a cook book about cooking with platters, pots and pans, but they want to include some photos of the restaurants as well.

And because I had never been to the other two restaurants, tonight we went to Anchor and Hope and to the Salt House to get a feel for the restaurants.

My goal for tonight was simply to try and capture the feeling of these two very different restaurants for the book.

So that was it… it was just a start, but it was a fun start. And the perks of photographing in restaurants for cook books… the food, drinks and service are so amazing. I had the best salad of my life tonight at the Salt House. I highly recommend both restaurants for any kind of date.

%d bloggers like this: