This week, my daughter Vivienne and I took a detour from our errands around town and followed my stomach to Lark bakery for a cupcake.
The cakes and cupcakes at Lark are both beautiful and profoundly delicious, especially in my humble opinion the icebox and flourless chocolate… but on to the point of this post, food or more specifically food porn. After enjoying my treat, I noticed a tray filled with miniature cupcakes all topped with berries. They sat there neatly lined up, in several rows with a beautiful, long shadow articulating the shape of each raspberry. I pulled out my little point and shoot and took a few photographs. Later on I thought about what drew me to the image and remembered one of my favorite painters, Wayne Thiebaud.I’ve been a fan of Thiebaud’s paintings of food, San Francisco city scapes, and even his portraits since I discovered him years ago. Long before people started to document everything they eat, drink and do with a smart phone, Thiebaud was making images of food that were way ahead of their time. Many are of mundane things like a cake in a diner or several lollipops on a counter, yet his paintings have a real depth and presence. I love the way he uses color in unconventional and subtle ways, like making an afternoon shadow bright blue instead of a golden brown. Oddly enough, his paintings never really look like something you’d want to eat, yet they are beautifully constructed and so satisfying to look at. Who says you can’t eat a lipstick?
When I’m doing a job with multiple sets or complicated lighting that’s in the studio, it’s necessary to have a prep day which is devoted to building the sets, setting up furniture or props and setting up the lighting so that we can work out all the kinks before we shoot. Recently I had a chance to direct television commercials for the first time. I always love shooting behind the scenes photos on jobs, and realized this would be a fun opportunity to do this. There are so moments on a shoot where the irony in a chosen moment is too precious to loose. During the prep day on my Von Maur project I decided to make a stop action video of the 3 days of our shoot.
With the help of my friend Hector Prida who worked along side me on this job, we shot our set every 5 minutes for 3 days. I love seeing everyone involved in the project and all the things I missed while working. Look out for more of these to come.
Last month I had a chance to work with a new friend, Jenée LaMarque who wrote and directed a short film called “SPOONFUL“, that was recently accepted to Sundance 2012. Jenée and I met oddly enough at a restaurant last year when I noticed her daughter who looks incredibly like my daughter Vivienne. Since then we’ve all become great pals. Jenée asked me to shoot the one sheet for the festival which was really fun. Whenever I get a chance to work with friends I jump at the chance. I’ve made a little stop action video of our shoot. FYI, the poster was designed by Michelle LeClerc, and the set was designed by Emilio Ramirez who did the production design on “Spoonful”.
+ high-res version
DIANA KOENIGSBERG PHOTOGRAPHY 
