A Creative Food Shoot | Mobile, AL

I wanted to do a food shoot in honor of St. Patrick’s Day, so over the weekend I headed to The Fresh Market to buy some Guinness to be my subject. It’s so easy to get distracted in Fresh Market, especially when you’re either (a) hungry, or (b) have time to kill, or (c) are there when it’s not crowded and have free reign of the aisles. On Saturday, I was all three of these things and so I soon found myself standing there staring at a wall of beautiful green produce. I could tell everything had just been freshly stocked because not one bit of the produce wall looked out of order. It made me feel like spring had come and before I knew it, the Guinness photograph was pushed to the back burner. I wanted so photograph something green, fresh and springy (if that’s even a word). So I filled my basket with kale, brussel sprouts, artichoke hears, asparagus and broccolini. This was the end result…a little something green in honor of Saint Paddy’s Day. The brussel sprouts and asparagus spears made the perfect “shamrocks” for the center of this ring of fresh greens. 🙂

You might be wondering what happened to the aforementioned Guinness. Well, here’s the thing…I’m not a beer drinker and I had never even tasted Guinness before. As far as I can remember, this is my first time photographing a food item that I have not previously tasted. I honestly didn’t even know what to pair with Guinness for the photograph. When I asked a lady who was shopping in the beer aisle for her opinion, she looked at me like I was crazy. Sooo…I fell back to old Google and ended up buying some potato chips and vanilla bean ice cream to make a Guinness float (because beer and chips seems to be a classic combo and I’d seen Guinness floats referenced as a St. Patrick’s Day treat). Sadly, in the hustle of setting up this shot and trying to capture the foam, I completely forgot about including the ice cream in my Guinness float shot. Seriously, it was sitting off to the side melting away. I consider this second image sort of half complete, but I love how frothy the Guinness looks when the ice cream is added.

After I finished photographing the Guinness, I decided to take a little taste. I expected it to be strong, but I had no idea it would that strong. It definitely looked better than it tasted. I have to say that I am still not a beer drinker and I am decidedly not a fan of the Guinness float. I think root beer floats are more my speed. 🙂 So, here they are…the Guinness photos, my secondary tribute to the Irish and St. Patrick’s Day. Enjoy!

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