Autumn Sweets

I saw an opportunity to work with a local shop and I took my shot. I was once told, if you want to grow you should work with people in your area and they will in turn support you and what you do. So that’s what I set out to do. Let’s talk about working with people that have something I’m interested in and have passion for.

With COVID going into wave 3 in Japan it’s hard to get things moving and part of the journey is taking that first step. I love food… who doesn’t so when I saw a local bread shop I thought about the possibility of doing something with them. My major issue on a self-conscious level is making a pitch in Japanese. English I’m not worried at all but Japanese… I’m a bit out of my league… or so I thought.

The pieces to the puzzle.

So I went in to this bread shop and took a look around to see what they had and I just got inspired to do an autumn theme shoot. With the season starting to change also it was starting to get cold and some of the leaves were changing, this seemed like a no brainer. In Japan autumn brings out the reds of apples, and the oranges of mikan oranges. I saw that they had an apple tart or danish looking pastry… look, I eat em not make em so I’m not exactly sure what you call it but it looked great!

I talked to the owner and asked her about the pastry and if it was seasonal. She went on to tell me about it and I could see her staff member or husband, not really sure of their relationship, off to the side hand rolling the dough and making a bunch of tasty looking desserts. They checked all of the boxes that got me interested in their business and I WANTED to make something for them.

I think most creatives know what it’s like to put your heart and soul into something and have it either go over swimmingly our fly under the radar. I’ve always enjoyed working with businesses to see what makes them special. Why do they love what they do and what gets them up in the morning. Then taking that to make something special that represents who and what they’re all about.

Dressing the food and setting it up to tell the story you want is just as important as the product / food itself.

This time things were a bit different. I didn’t really make a pitch because they didn’t know who I was or where I was coming from. I’m sure they just saw some big black dude walk up in the shop looking EXTRA hungry lol.

I let them know about the home page, my IG @TDKONKARA_PHOTO and that I wanted to make something using their products. The lady looked really happy and encouraged me to make something.

I happily took my 2 apple sweets and my brain started turning. What could I do with these, what colors will I use, how will I dress it, what kind of lighting, the usual things I think about when planning a shoot.

On my way home I saw leaves on the street. Tall grass in an abandoned lot, berries on the trees and I decided to stop by a local supermarket to pick up some apples to really tell the story.

What I saw after working on the images in Adobe Lightroom.

So after getting things straight in my head I got to work and go a hand from Hiro with the lighting and … well this is what I came up with. The best thing was after shooting I took the images into lightroom and got to styling and coloring everything the way I wanted and I couldn’t be happier. Product and food photography can be a lot of fun. Everyone loves to eat so making it look delicious and fun is just a good time. Also at the end you get to eat. That’s a WIN / WIN!

And for the record Hiro ate more than me… as usual but we both agreed after heating it up in the toaster oven it was absolutely DELICIOUS. So I got to meet some new people, shoot some food photos, eat and be creative. I’m happy I stopped into the shop and picked the apple pastries up.

YUMMY YUMMY Destroyed in under a min… like for real!

The next day I sent a few of the images to the shop and they were very happy and excited to see the images. They also said that if they make a poster or some kind of advertisement going forward that they’d give me a call. But until then. Just gotta keep working on any and everything. I’m sure I’ll be up in that bakery to get some holiday sweets so I know they’ll see me again real soon.

If you haven’t stopped by my super random Instagram page … @TDKONKARA_PHOTO why not? I’m trying to practice my Japanese… show of my tastes and chat with all of you. So if you have IG and like what I’m doing why not follow and feel free to DM me with any inquiries. I’m in the Tokyo / Yokohama area but always up for a new adventure in a new place. Enjoy the rest of your day and thanks for reading the post. I’m working on getting a Youtube channel together as well so keep an eye out!

PEACE AND LOVE!