We had some free time here in the studio recently so what better thing to do than take advantage of the summertime tomato crop. It’s amazing what the local farmers’ markets can deliver here in Nashville. Thanks to Hannah Messinger for her food styling and Shanna Shrum for her assistance with set and props. See the below tomato tartine, tomato pie and tomato gazpacho. Hungry now? To see additional food photography go to www.dreier.com. – Kyle

We’re having fun around here looking at images at their native resolution—which simply means we’re not sizing them down. When we do that we get to see so much detail that we don’t normally get to enjoy when an image gets reduced for a menu or advertisement. So, here are some more “up close” images. This is becoming somewhat of a series. See more here: Up Close.

Whenever we show food photography images of ice cream, we get questions about the food styling tricks used to make ice cream look good for camera. Do we use fake ice cream or real ice cream? Well, the answer is “yes” to both. Like so many things the answer really is “it depends.” Every client has a different criteria. Every ice cream has a different life on set. Every day is a new day. Now I sound like I’m going to start writing a country song. I’ll spare you.

Can you tell which of these images is fake ice cream and which is real? As it turns out, each of these is fake. We’ll have to do another post later with real ice cream. – Kyle

I thought growing up in Dallas I knew everything I needed to know about being a Southerner. Well, it wasn’t until I moved to Nashville where I was called “hun” and learned about things like sweet-tea and tea cakes—now I really feel like a part of the South. We got to spend some time with Mountain Jim’s Tea Cakes and captured the following images here in the studio.

We get a lot of requests for “natural light” food photography. We love shooting in natural light but also recognize that we can’t predict the kind of light we’ll get…clouds, late sun, or in December early sunset. So, we like to create natural light so we can get consistent results regardless of what mother nature is doing. That’s the case here…strobes used to create the natural light look. We think it looks like a nice summer day. What do you think? – Kyle

How about breakfast…anytime of day. Here is a another set of breakfast menu items we photographed for Cracker Barrel recently. I confess, I’ve ordered many of these items at various times when we go there as a family. It’s nice that my boys like to frequent this particular client’s establishment, because I do too. Food styling by Teresa Blackburn and Whitney Kemp. – Kyle

We did an editorial feature recently with a “Fresh from the Market” theme. The recipes were built on the idea of getting fresh ingredients during the summer to make your mealtime healthier. Here’s a screenshot of how some of these recipes turned out. I don’t know about you, but it makes me want to go to our local farmer’s market and stock up on some fresh, healthy veggies. Food styling by Whitney Kemp. – Kyle

We’ve been having fun with this client. We’ve been having fun with their product as well. Let’s see how many times I can get the word “fun” into this blog post. Needless to say, we enjoy what we do. Food styling by Bree Williams. She’s fun, too. – Kyle