Photo Shoot in Philly

I know that Penny had a post talking about our trip last weekend to Philly and the amazing food that we had at one of our favorite restaurants. But the reason that we made the normal 2-1/2 hour one way drive (and with the snow that they had recently this became a grueling 3-1/2 hour one way drive) was to see our photographer for a photo shoot. We are in the process of adding 11 new spices, chiles and herbs to our site. I still have to write the copy for these so we are at least another week out.

I am particularly excited to add the Cinnamon Chips, De Arbol Chile Powder, Black Cardamom and Organic Cacao Nibs. We also went through and reshot some of our earlier images from our initial launch  over a year ago that we weren’t happy with.

Our general photography philosophy on SpicesInc.com is to show the real up close detail of what dried spices, herbs, chiles and seasonings look like. Certainly when you look at something like the peppercorns you can see amazing details and you can practically see how the fruit dried and the berries withered during the drying process.

Tellicherry Peppercorns

I wanted to do this instead of showing some brown, red or yellow looking spice in a pile or in a boring jar. The quality of spices and seasonings shows through in our images and to me gives a much more appealing visual presentation since you aren’t able to smell the amazing fragrance that so many of these possess.

They say that a picture is worth a thousand words and when we are hand blending our seasonings it is often a wild splash of colors, textures and scents as each ingredient is added to the mixing bowl that almost gets lost when they become one. But when you look at the detailed image of something like our best selling Manzanillo Seasoning you can almost see the individuality of the 12 ingredients – because I know what I am looking at (kind of like a where’s Waldo) I can see the almost black flecks of Ancho Chiles, the cut and shifted leaves of Mexican Oregano, the white specks of granulated garlic and onion and the deep reds of the chipotle and pasilla chile powders.

Manzanillo Mexican Seasoning

We are constantly looking to expand our selection of seasonings, spices, dry herbs and organics as adding high quality flavor to our food and to that of our customers is an obsession that is incredibly rewarding.

We have already started testing new blends in our kitchen that we want to add in time for grilling season that is right around the corner!

Tagged as: new spices, photo shoot