We recently connected with Melena DeFlorimonte and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Melena, thanks for 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.

My current knowledge of food and product photography is a culmination of several sources – observation, practice/trial and error, what I like to call YouTube University, formal online courses as well as tips from other food and product photographers. Most of my immediate photographer friends shoot portrait, lifestyle or wedding/event photography, so I didn’t have someone to bounce ideas off of or to ask questions related to my specific genre.

My journey through food photography was far less complicated than my product photography journey. Generally, food is uncomplicated, you just have to find the happy balance between color, texture and depth when plating food. If the food naturally looks good, exploring the angles will yield good results. This isn’t to downplay food photography, because it does come with its own set of challenges, but for me, it was a smaller learning curve than product photography.

Product photography, on the other hand is far more complex. Styling your scene, lighting your product in a way that is flattering, while controlling for glare/reflections, managing dust particles and fingerprints on the product, keeping product in place while incorporating motion, not to mention editing. Whew! There are so many variables that must be taken into consideration with product photography. But the final product is so incredibly rewarding.

My biggest obstacle to learning more is time – time to spend practicing and experimenting. As an entrepreneur who still holds a full time career as a Registered Nurse, I have to divide my time between my two careers as well everything tending to life tasks. Sometimes, I’m just so exhausted to do anything.

Aside from starting sooner, I don’t know that their was anything I could have done to speed up the process. I’m happy with my journey. I’m glad that I explored other areas of photography prior to discovering my love for food and product. I know this is where I belong.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your background and context?

Hey friends! I’m a commercial food and product photographer and owner of M. Shonell Photography. I’m based in Maryland and service the DMV (DC/Maryland/Virginia) area but also open to travel. I’ve explored all areas of photography, but my heart belongs to food and product photography, I’ve been a professional photographer for about 10 years now. I pivoted completely to food and product photography at the height of the pandemic and have not looked back. My desire is to help businesses (especially small, Women-owned businesses), by creating bold imagery that will help to magnify their business and and elevate their brand. Clients are typically attracted to my bold and vibrant imagery and my use of color in my work. However, my goal is always to meet my client’s needs. I’ve worked with local chefs and restaurants to create imagery for their social media, websites and menus as well as many local product-based businesses. There aren’t many product photographers, much less Black owned product photographers, in my area so it gives me great joy that I can meet the needs of the food and product based small businesses in my area.

What do you find most rewarding about being creative?

The most rewarding part of being a creative is to seeing all your hard work culminate into a beautiful end product. To be able to conceptualize ideas, gather resources and create something amazing is indescribable. But the ultimate satisfaction comes from the feedback that I receive from my clients. When my clients are happy, I am happy.

Where do you think you get most of your clients from?

Social media and referrals are the top two sources of new clients for me.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://mshonellphoto.com/
• Instagram: @mshonellphoto; @esculentbymsp
• Twitter: @mshonellphoto

Image Credits
D2D Focus Photography (Portrait Image) M. Shonell Photography (all other images)