Test Shoot With Janine Kalesis and Penelope Bouklas

2024 started off with a bang! I collaborated with food stylist Janine Kalesis and prop stylist Penelope Bouklas to create these vibrant scenes incorporating cannabis and some indulgent food. Each environment had a color scheme which was complimented with accent props sourced by Penelope. Each food component was styled and created by Janine. This was a super team!! We were able to work around the scenes and capture all sorts of variations, crops, and angles. Can’t wait till the next one.

Check Instagram for more shots from the shoot!

@perrettiphoto

@foodstylistnewyorkcity

@penelope_props

Feature On MDRN Creative Blog

Excited to be featured on MDRN Creative in their artist spotlight section. https://mdrncreative.com/nyc-food-photography-felicia-perretti/

End of Year Thanks!

Happy Holidays! 2023 was an exciting year with lots of new clients and fun projects. It’s great to continue challenging myself in my work and growing my business connections. It was my first full year working with my rep Carolyn Somlo who has been a great production partner. Can’t wait to dive into 2024 and work on more exciting projects.

Enjoy this tasty whipped coffee drink for the holidays styled by Janine Kalesis.

Photo Shoot with Unilever + Meijer Stores

Excited to share a recent shoot with Arc Worldwide, Unilever and Meijer Stores collaboration. Ice cream 7 days a week is fine by me! We created 7 tasty and vibrant shots of ice cream and their recipes you could make every day of the week. A really fun play on words and even better treats! Couldn’t of been possible without the amazing support of AgencyMJ, Rocket To The Moon and the entire crew:

Food Stylist: Charlotte Omnes

Prop Stylist: Maya Rossi

Studio: Space28

Assistants: Regina Tamburro, Desmond Reich

Rita's Italian Ice Photo Shoot

So excited to finally share some new work I shot for Rita’s Italian Ice! Growing up with the brand this was a dream client to be able to work with. I worked with food stylist Alise Arato for the week capturing all sorts of Italian ices, custards, hand scoops. It was so fun and tasty of course! Looking forward to the next one, and keep an eye out for the new images.

1 - Reeses Concretes copy.jpg

3 - Gummy Bear Ice copy.jpg

4 - Frozen Coffee copy.jpg

11 - Unicorn Cone & Gelati copy.jpg

13 - Fall Concretes copy.jpg

15 - Unicorn Cone & Cups copy.jpg

16 - Strawberry n' Cream copy.jpg

International Photography Awards Contest Honorable Mention

This was such an honor to be an official selection, then continuing in the judging process to have my images selected as Honorable Mention! So much talent in these categories. Another reason entering my work into contests is so important. The judges did not have an easy task.

My Twizzlers series received Honorable Mention in the Professional Advertising Food and Beverage Category and my Leftover series received Official Selection in the Professional Fine Art Still Life Category. It’s so nice to be recognized for all the hard work put in over the years. Thank You IPA!

Summer Grilling and A New Car!

It's been a fun and very hot summer so far! Really excited to share I finally got my new car I ordered from Ford almost 20 months ago. Productions just got a whole lot better :). Dream car for a small business owner, and it was well worth the wait.

Other than that, lots of grilling has been had. Can’t shoot too many hot dogs and hamburgers. Check out the motion section for my lastest shoot playing with colors, and making food look fun!

As the summer winds down to its last month I’m ready to turn the AC off and see what Fall brings.

B.T.S. Buona Vita Photo Shoot

Love this product! Really great to work with the Buona Vita team again on some new recipe photography and updated packaging work for them. This is such a tasty, great quality meatball that you can get in store. The recipe concepts we shot ranged from a meatball sub to a gyro! So tasty and creative. Couldn’t of been possible without the amazing styling team of Lisa Russell. Shot at the String Theory School. Can’t wait to see the images out in the wild.

AI-AP American Photography 39 Winner

Wow! This must be the year of contests. So excited to be included in AI-AP 39!! https://www.ai-ap.com/

“This year’s distinguished jury included: Maïa Booker, The Wall Street Journal; David Cooper, Freelance Photo Editor; Maura Friedman, National Geographic; Lauryn Hill, WIRED; Amy Kellner, The New York Times Magazine; Robert Miller, The Washington Post; Laura Oliverio, CNN; Amy Silverman, Airbnb; Allyson Torrisi, People; Karen Williams, Freelance Photo Director and Producer; Andrea Wise, ProPublica; and Cengiz Yar, Rest of World.”

APA Chicago 10th Annual Artist’s Perspective Exhibition Selected!

Excited to be a selected photographer in the 10th annual APA Artist’s Perspective exhibit!

APA Chicago, “Natasha Egan, Executive Director at the Museum of Contemporary Photography, has completed judging our 10th Annual Artist's Perspective Personal Work Exhibition. We are pleased to announce that she has selected 47 images from 42 artists to be featured in our one-night exhibition on Friday, April 28, at Fulton Street Collective. Our celebration includes drinks, food, fun, a photo booth, and more - please join us.”

Fri 28th Apr, 2023
7:00pm–10:00pm

Fulton Street Collective
1821 W. Hubbard Street
Chicago, IL 60612

Free Admission

Link to event and all photographers to be in the show:

https://chicago.apanational.org/events/entry/10th-annual-2023-artists-perspective-exhibition/

B.T.S. - The Not Company Shoot

NotCo What a fun brand to work with! It was so exciting when they reached out to work together on shooting new photography and video for their NOT chicken patties and their brand new NOT MILK product line. The vibrant colors in the brand were used in the background as well as table settings. We had a variety of set options for the recipes we shot. Tiffany Schleigh food stylist created indulgent dishes for us to capture. There were a variety of recipes that used plant based cheese, yummy sauces, and layers of goodness. When I tried their chicken patties and nuggets I coulnd’t belive it wasn’t actual chicken! They were so good!!

Along with the creative team we were able to work with the super talented kid model Miles @milesandre_14 He had fun expressions and excitement with each dish as well as the NOT MILK Chocolate Milk and regular Milk products. So much fun tossing things in the air.

We got to work with one of my favorite studios, Space28. We were able to shoot table top imagery as well as use their kitchen to shoot other dishes and Milk drinks.

Can’t wait to see all the shots out in the wild. You can find their products at a variety of stores like Whole Foods, and Giant Food Stores.

Pink Lady® Food Photographer of the Year 2023 Shortlisted!

Excited to share for a 2nd year in a row I’am shortlisted in the Pink Lady® Food Photographer of the Year 2023!! I always look forward to entering contests, and this is one of the best out there. It’s great to be recognized for the hard work put in to making memorable food photos. This year I entered an image from my Leftover Series! I entered it in the category MPB Award for Innovation.

You can see the whole list of talented photographers shortlisted here: https://www.pinkladyfoodphotographeroftheyear.com/pink-lady-food-photographer-of-the-year-shortlist-2023/

News: Now Represented by Carolyn Somlo Talent!

Excited to start the new year with big news! I’m now represented by Carolyn Somlo Talent! Looking forward to growing my client reach, projects, and traveling all over! Work is now live at her site http://www.somlotalent.com/ Along with other amazing photographers and directors. Reach out to us for your next project!

B.T.S. with Felicia and Carolyn on set!

Thank You 2022! Hello 2023!

Wrapping up 2022 with a full heart and many thanks to go around! So many new clients this year that trusted in me and my team to bring their concepts to life. It takes a village for these projects to come to fruition and every year that village grows. Every project this year was unique. I can’t pick one that was better than the other. Also each project comes with its own challenges, but we always find the light at the end of the tunnel and finish with amazing work. That’s why I think it’s really important to wrap each shoot with a blog post and some B.T.S. because what might look like a simple image or video from the outside, takes a lot of planning, and various stages to go through to get us to that finish line.

Again thank you for helping me grow my business in 2022 and look forward to seeing you in 2023!

Stills - Beyond Meat Commercial Shoot

This was a really fun shoot in Los Angeles at the end of the summer. I got to work with the best, Chuck Studios from Amsterdam and my favorite Table Top Director Olaf van Gerwen. Food really does get famous here. It was a real treat to be with a fun, creative team. Olaf was capturing the beautiful video work with food stylist Joseph Celis. After the scenes were wrapped I came onto set to work with the stylist, and models to capture various stills of the Beyond Meat Product and the recipe that went with it. It was great to capture the natural moments and real expressions of the talent. Of course we highlighted the food and showed how appetizing it was! It was a really great product to work with. The Beyond Team was there for the shoot and loved everything we were able to capture for them. It was a busy 2 days at the various spots on location. We captured a back to school scene, friends at their apartment, and a outdoor BBQ scene. It really takes a village to get these projects off the ground. I’m so glad I was able to be apart of it! You can see the work out now.

Go buy Beyond Meat, it is soo good!!

Personal Series: Leftovers

This concept has been on my mind forever! A kitchen staple that is so versatile it was the perfect vessel to capture food. I came up with common uses we use aluminum foil that leave residues, grease, colors, and burn marks. In a normal situation we would crumple this up and throw it away. I wanted to capture the beauty in essentially this piece of food trash before it made it’s way to the can. A fun part of this project was how easy it was to manipulate the foil and it hold it’s shape created. There had to be a feeling of movement as if it was actually dancing in mid air. The lighting and rigging on set was really important to me for this project to get the idea across. I used muted backgrounds and surfaces so the colors of the food really stood out.

What else do you use foil for??

National Pizza Month - Pizza Promo

October is National Pizza Month! Of course we need to dedicate a whole month to our favorite food group. There are other pizza holidays throughout the year, but this is the big one. I’ve always wanted to do a fun over the top printed promo and this was the perfect opportunity.

This month was not just about any pizza, but a great way to showcase my shoot I did overseas for Domino’s PIzza! Get right to the heart of the project and show the tasty, beautiful, cheesy pizzas we shot over the month. YUM!!

To make this promo really fun and creative I worked with graphic designer Amanda Stringer on a concept of a pizza box with my branding and a photo booklet to go with it. In addition to the booklet to make it run and interactive I had a QR code made that would take you right to my website and the BTS Video from the shoot. Also I found this really cool pizza frisbees, and build your own pizza stickers!

The promos were sent to a super targeted list of pizza brands across the country and their coinciding agencies that also work with them. I sent out for the month of October my newsletter highlighting the pizza shoot and talking about the promo.

B.T.S. Domino's Pizza MENA (Middle East North Africa Division) International Advertising Photo and Video Shoot

This project was a great way to finish out 2021 and ring in 2022 with a month long advertising project in the Middle East. I don’t know where to start with this amazing opportunity to shoot for a dream client! I hope all the behind the scenes will help do it justice. There were months of pre production planning this shoot while still dealing with international travel during COVID. In the end everything came out great and the client loved the shots.

The first half of the shoot was the still components. We went through and captured fresh imagery for their menu showcasing all the different pizza offerings and sides. Beautifully styled by Jamie Kimm. In addition to the menu items we captured combo deals that they regularly advertise. The New Yorker pizza was a very prominent pizza we shot. Really great hand tossed pizza with big slices just like in New York City! The most exciting and challenging aspect of this shoot was getting the cheese pulls right. Jamie’s attention to detail and experience was paramount in getting these shots right.

After we captured the still components the last 2 weeks we shot various short video moments of cheese pulls, wings dipping, sauces being poured onto pizzas, and beautiful details of the regional ingredients. These videos will be used on their digital sings in store as well as social media. I couldn’t of done this project without the local rental house Action Filmz who was able to put together all the lighting and grip I needed and deliver to Abu Dhabi. Highly recommend!

We had 3 core surfaces we used for the different channels the images and video were going to be showcased on. I had a super talented local prop stylist fabricate these. Again highly recommend Caroline of Food Art Concepts. Domino Blue Color was very important!

We had just a couple days off to site see and enjoy the local food. Some of the best I’ve ever had. The weather was in the 80’s and sunny, no humidity Every Single Day. What a beautiful place.

Hope you enjoy these images as much as we do. Any questions on this project or if you have similar needs please feel free to reach out.

Fine Art Food Friday

This was a fun creative exercise exploring simple foods and viewing them through fresh eyes. Working with my medium format system allows me to explore products under a close view without obstructing the quality of the image output. The color spectrum I was able to produce with these images made for a magical photograph! The play with light and shadow, and shallow depth of field turned the food into abstract objects allowing you to immerse yourself into the photo.

Understanding this really helps with creating packaging photography for my clients which is one of my Favorite things to shoot! I love those super tiny details and how the light is shaping the product.

B.T.S. Violife Foods Photo Shoots!

I love what I do because you never know where your next food project may take you! The Violife brand 100% Vegan is a fun, tasty, and fresh product hitting the shelves in the USA! I’ve been working with the T&C team creating colorful social assets featuring their products used in recipes. Each month we have been shooting different recipes that may correlate with an upcoming FOOD holiday or special event. The recipes are tested and concepts are sketched out for each recipe. Lisa Russell helps with styling, art direction and sourcing props for each setup. Each recipe gets a hero still image and a supporting stop motion. So fun to watch these shots come to life. Make sure to follow along @violifeus