We were lucky to catch up with Gabriel Lucido recently and have shared our conversation below.

Gabriel, appreciate you joining us today. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.

The big learning curb for me was lighting, for that, most of my education actually came from YouTube. If I wanted to speed up my learning process, I would have spent more time researching the latest trends in photography instead of trying to mimic the old trends. I think the most essential skill for food photography is being able to identify good photography, otherwise you won’t be able to recreate whatever makes those photos amazing. An obstacle for me has been moving away from soft light, everyone teaches and shoots food photography with soft light so I was mostly learning to shoot with hard light on my own.

Gabriel, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I’m Gabriel Lucido, the commercial food photographer for Studio XMI. I create photos, videos, and gifs as well as graphic design and web design primarily for the food industry. I stand out by always growing and improving as a photographer. I’m most proud of my portfolio, which will always have room for improvement, but finally feels like something I don’t need to be ashamed of. I’m very easy to work with and welcome anyone to reach out if they have questions about my services.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

The best photo is not the most technically proficient and most complicated photo. For example, a 12 photo composite of a complex dish shot with 4 lights to me is worse than a simple photo of toast or something that has not been touched by photoshop.

Are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

Tin House Studio on YouTube is a great resource.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.studioxmi.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/studioxmi/
• Other: https://www.pinterest.com/StudioXMI/ https://www.tiktok.com/@studioxmi

Image Credits
Some photos have been food styled by Elizabeth Normoyle. Some photos have been food styled by Peilin Breller.