Q&A: 3rd Ward's Max Kelly On The Flavor of Food Photography

All photos by Max Kelly

With 3rd Ward's Culinary Incubator on the horizon, food has been on our minds quite a bit (read: nonstop--someone make us something now.) Anyhow, as we yearn for that mouth-watering future, we've been busy feasting our eyes on the food photography of 3rd Ward member Max Kelly. We caught up with him to find out more about how it all began.

You can check out some of Kelly's delicious shots both below and on his new website--but first, our Q&A:

3rd Ward's John Ruscher: So how did you get into food photography?

Max Kelly: I've always known that I wanted to work in a field in which I could physically see my accomplishments at the end of a day's work. Before food photography, I worked as a camera operator on commercial film sets, and realized that while I enjoy video, still photography is where my true passion lies.

The thing I love most about photography is that it's a gateway to any other subject matter that you find you're passionate about. I'm fascinated by the mechanics of cameras, the ways in which light can interact differently with a subject, and the effects of composition on a viewer—and it's a privilege to explore my other interests through this lens.

JR: Where's the passion for food come from?

MK: I grew up in Brooklyn, in a very food-minded family that cooked and traveled often—so I had the benefit of being exposed to many different flavors and cultures at an early age. Food is a vast topic, and one which is universally shared. I'm captivated by the fact that there are infinite possibilities and variations for any dish, and that two people from different parts of the world can look at the same ingredient in totally different ways.

JR: Does food photography require a different approach from shooting other subjects?

MK: Still life photography is more focused on creating an environment than other types of photography. Sometimes, this means rearranging or adding props to a real-life location, while in other instances, "locations" are fabricated from scratch. Creating environments and choosing props that impart visual cues about a dish is a large part of food photography.

Beyond that, there is of course the factor of having a small window of time to photograph the food before the ingredients wilt, dry or otherwise lose their fresh appearance. For this reason, communicating well with your team and having a clear vision of the final product before beginning to shoot is essential.

JR: Did anything at 3rd Ward influence your work in particular?

MK: I found 3rd Ward's classes and coworking space to be a great help when I first struck out on my own as a freelancer. The Branding Your Vision class for photographers drove home the point that it's essential that your work have a unique and consistent look. It helped me create a style that was my own, and not rooted in what I thought was "popular" and "marketable". 

The Business of Photography class gave me insight into how publications hire photographers, as well as the most effective ways to get my work into the hands of photo editors and creative directors.

...and now for some of Kelly's gorgeous attempts to make you eat your laptop:

-- John Ruscher

3rd Ward Member Barnett Cohen Named A "Contender" For His Southern Gothic-influenced Photography

'Bust' by Barnett Cohen

3rd Ward member Barnett Cohen was recently named a "Contender" in Hey, Hot Shot!, an international photography competition presented by Jen Bekman Projects, so we asked him, how does it feel? "The opposite of Marlon Brando," he said. "I feel like a somebody."

In that witty and poignant response we see the spirit that makes Cohen's work so powerful and unique. The most frequent subject of his photographs is Oliver, who seems like a quintessential "Southern Eccentric," but Cohen's photographs don't simply affirm that stereotype. "They reflect an intimate relationship based on even needs: He wants to be seen and acknowledged, and I want to see him in the starkest of terms," Cohen says in his Contender post. Check out more of his photographs after the jump.

Here's how the Hey, Hot Shot! folks described Cohen's work:

In seeking out "eccentrics" from the South, Contender Barnett Cohen met and befriended a man named Oliver, the subject of much of his portfolio. Rather than creating images that focus on his subject's eccentricities and idiosyncrasies, however, the series offers an intimate look at a willing subject, complete with relics and glimpses at a past life.

While Cohen has been pursuing photography for a long time, he dispenses with any sort of myth-making or exaggeration in describing how he got started. I found a copy of COLORS magazine many, many years ago and was hooked," he says. "I did not grow up with a brownie box camera in my hand or drenched in processing chemicals."

Cohen continues to travel between Brooklyn and the South for his photography, and in June his will be featured in Small Works, a group show at Boston's Flash Forward Festival. "The show is curated by Jon Feinstein and Amani Olu of the Humble Arts Foundation in conjunction with the Magenta Foundation," he says. "I am pretty stoked about it." Then, in the fall he's headed for grad school to get his MFA in Photography. "No names just yet but I am going somewhere for sure," he says. "As always, stay tuned."

We will, and in the meantime we'll be rooting for him in Hey, Hot Shot! The competition's grand prize winner gets $10,000, a solo exhibition and two years of representation from Jen Bekman Gallery.

'Mailbox' by Barnett Cohen

"Oliver #1" by Barnett Cohen

'Oliver #8' by Barnett Cohen'Toothbrush Holder' by Barnett Cohen

'Present Tense' by Barnett Cohen

'Mark' by Barnett Cohen

'Shaka' by Barnett Cohen

-- John Ruscher

Essential Event: Over 30 Years Of Cindy Sherman's Powerful Photography Comes To MoMA

Untitled Film Still #21, 1978 - Courtesy MoMA and Cindy Sherman

Here's the abbreviated version of this post: Cindy Sherman is amazing and you should go see the Museum of Modern Art's new retrospective of her work, which just opened this past weekend and is on view through June 11.

If you're not already out the door and on your way to West 53rd Street, let us elaborate. For the uninitiated: Born in 1954, Cindy Sherman was the youngest of five children. She started painting while attending Buffalo State College, but she ultimately discovered that photography was where it's at. Searching for a unique subject for her work, she didn't have to look far: herself.

To say that she is really the sole "subject" of her photographs, though, barely scratches the surface of her work. In her art Sherman takes on many different identifies, using wigs, wardrobe, makeup and more to pose as everything from a film noir heroine to a frightening clown to the subject of paintings by paintings by Caravaggio and Raphael. "I feel I'm anonymous in my work," she said in a 1990 New York Times article (which aptly opens by calling her "the woman of a thousand faces"). "When I look at the pictures, I never see myself; they aren't self-portraits. Sometimes I disappear."

Here's a choice description from Roberta Smith's Times review of the new retrospective:

Unfolding in discrete, chapterlike series, her work has proved to be as formally ambitious and inventive as it is psychically probing. Her photographs are inevitably skewed so that their seams show and their fictive, constructed nature is apparent; we are always in on the trick, alerted to their real-feigned nature. The rough, visible nonchalance with which they are assembled for the camera has expanded the boundaries of setup photography, incorporating aspects of painting, sculpture, film, installation, performance, collage and assemblage.

Smith goes on to say that MoMA's survey, while historic, could have been even more monumental. That's no reason to delay your visit, though. This is a rare chance see the singular work of an amazing and capital-I Important Artist at one of the world's top museums. So get on it folks.

Below, watch a video about the retrospective, and remember: MoMA admission is free on Fridays from 4-8pm. Oh right, if this makes you want to brush up on your photography chops, we've got classes for that!

-- John Ruscher

Catherine Kirkpatrick Profiles 30 Contemporary Women Photographers For Women's History Month

March is Women's History Month, and we're looking forward to a great project that one of 3rd Ward's own members will be unveiling throughout the month. Catherine Kirkpatrick will be presenting 30 by 30, a daily series of conversations with thirty contemporary women photographers about other women photographers who inspire them--hosted on the Professional Women Photographers website.

"The photographers range from photojournalists to fine art, fashion and portrait photographers, from age 26 to 99," Kirkpatrick tells us. A new segment will run each day on the PWP blog starting March 1.

"It grew out of a conversation with a museum publications director about how women of the Photo League were much less documented than their male counterparts," says Kirkpatrick. "And working in the Professional Women Photographers' archives I saw how much photography has changed in the past few decades. Opportunities we take for granted now didn't exist 30 to 40 years ago, both for women photographers and for photography as a fine art. So there was a need to acknowledge change, yet honor the pioneering women photographers who came before and were often overlooked."

Kirkpatrick is an accomplished photographer in her own right, and you can check some of her photographs after the jump. "I'm currently working on a portfolio of images using a Diana Camera plastic lens on a Canon 5D," she says. "It's a wonderful blend of high and low tech. The digital SLR provides a large, 16-bit file, and the plastic lens slurs the colors and warps the image in unexpected ways. Since you can't control everything, you have to relax, let go and have fun! Sometimes wonderful images result."

Photographers Gigi Stoll and Flo Fox, who are featured in Kirkpatrick's 30 By 30 series.Photoshelter named Kirkpatrick's article Sgt. Pepper Uncovered, on pioneering women photographers and policewomen in the 1970s, one of their Best Photography Blog Posts of 2011. Her image Train Coming (check it out below) also received an honorable mention in the PWP International Open Call, which was juried by renowned photography Mary Ellen Mark. You can find more of Kirkpatrick's photography and art on her website and more of her writing on Photospire.org.

Train Coming by Catherine Kirkpatrick Overpass by Catherine Kirkpatrick

Clouds by Catherine Kirkpatrick

-- John Ruscher

Infographic: How Photographers Actually Spend Their Time

If you've spent even 30 seconds hanging out on any social network in the past few days, chances are high you've bumped into a few different versions of a new Internet meme in which different professions are given the "What ______ think I do" treatment. For instance, here are ones about graphic designers and directors, the latter of which seems to have started the trend. There's also one about photographers, but since we're much bigger fans of fascinating, informative charts than crudely designed jpegs, we'd like to share the chart below, which compares how people think shutterbugs spend their time with the actual nitty gritty specifics of a career in pro photography.

When we first came across the chart, we thought its numbers might fall into that infamous 73% of statistics that are made up on the spot, but after a little research we discovered that they are actually the results of a survey conducted by the International Society of Professional Wedding Photographers. Whether they shoot weddings or not, we think the chart provides a thought-provoking contrast between the realities of editing, office work and marketing and the preconception of photographers as leading lives of endless glamour, traveling and creativity.

Next time you're out at an event and spot that photog snapping away on her DSLR, you can still be jealous, but don't forget the other hard work that goes on after the party is over.

-- John Ruscher

NEW MEMBER PROFILE // In Yulia Gorbachenko's Photography, Pleasure Produces Perfection

Yulia Gorbachenko was well on her way to a career in marketing when a birthday gift that changed everything. Having graduated with a marketing degree from the Kyiv National University of Trade and Economics, she scored an internship in the United States and was excited about entering the professional world. "During the internship I began to wonder if marketing was something I really wanted to devote my life to," she says. It was then that she received that gift: a Canon Rebel XS.

It quickly became clear that photography was what she really wanted to pursue. "I spent all my spare time photographing, editing, reading about photography, and basically, breathing photography," she says. "I slowly understood that photography was the thing I enjoyed more than anything else." It soon became clear that she was a natural. "I won’t deny that I was pretty good as a beginner and that fact made me even more confident that I found my place," she says. "I actually got so good at it that the company I was working for hired me to photograph their main shows instead of dealing with marketing, which was the initial job I was intended to do. In that point I realized that I found my real passion in life."

Read more about Gorbachenko and feast your eyes on her dazzling photographs after the jump.

With her dream coming into focus, Gorbachenko packed her bags and headed to New York, where she's made it a reality. She's worked with a variety of prominent modeling agencies, and her work has been featured in many major publications, including Harper's Bazaar Ukraine, Marie Claire China and PDN. She's also been recognized multiple times in the International Photography Awards, as well as in many other major competitions. In 2010 she signed with JUMP Management, which recently connected her with a major beauty company for an exciting collaboration later this year.

A look at Gorbachenko's work makes it obvious that she's a jaw-droppingly talented photographer, but her extraordinary use of color is particularly remarkable. "For me colors are as important in my works as composition and cropping, they simply draw the eye of the viewer," she says. "Colors can change the mood of the story dramatically so they give me an amazing opportunity to bring the mood that I want to my pictures."

She's found 3rd Ward to be the perfect home base for a career that requires a large studio but also frequently takes her overseas. The space is there when she needs it and doesn't go to waste when she is away. She was also drawn to the friendly atmosphere. "When I first entered 3rd Ward I felt at home," she says. "The people were cool and nice, and the great design immediately caught my attention."

If you're looking for proof that pursuing your true passion is a worthy goal, you'd have a hard time finding an example better than Gorbachenko's story. "Aristotle said that 'pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work,'" she says, "and I agree with every word.

In addition to her professional work, Gorbachenko will also be traveling to Russia and Ukraine in February to teach master classes on fashion and beauty photography. She's also planning workshops in New York and Washington, DC, so stay tuned to her Facebook page and website if you're interested.

And now for more of her stunning images:

-- John Ruscher

NEW MEMBER PROFILE // Photographer Jonavennci Divad Follows his "Artistic Eye"

Many who've studied to become professional photographers may recognize a common sentiment amongst college advisers: Being a graphic designer is a safer, more lucrative career path than becoming a photographer.

New 3rd Ward member Jonavennci Divad began as the former. Though while on a design job, he experienced a shift: "I was motivated to purchase a DSLR camera to photograph my clients for their custom MySpace page designs," he tells us. "After recieving a great amount of commentary from clients on my photography it became an eye opener for me that I had an artistic eye for creating art through photographs. It wasn't till a year later that I knew I wanted to pursue photography as my career."

In what may be a college adviser-approved route, Divad has merged his newfound eye with his original design education and is now a "self-taught retoucher" with a sizable celebrity portfolio.

Fabolous for Rich YungIn recent years, Divad has shot hip-hop artists (Fabolous), major athletes (L.A. Laker Matt Barnes and Giant Devin Thomas) and reality stars (Gloria and Laura Govan of Basketball Wives ). In addition to beauty shots for Ford models and editorials for Essence, he's learned how to play nice with the occasional celebrity ego: "Some like to play the name-dropping game in defense of an opinion on how the styling, the make up, or even the hair looks. But this is nothing that anyone should let affect their workflow."

A Divad beauty shotAnd forever intent on not letting anyone interrupt that workflow, Divad's keeping his sights aimed high. "My dream assignment would be to shoot a campaign posted on a billboard in Times Square," he says. "I would also love to shoot for Cover Girl; I just love the way their campaigns bring out the beauty in celebrities."

Keep an eye out for this hardworking Brooklynite.

--Layla Schlack