"The set-ups come from a very natural place. I'll usually start with the food, observing what's in season at the farmers market, considering what I've shot before. Or I think about iconic American foods, like Oreo cookies or Twinkies, and how an image of those things might tap into someone's early memory. I also consider how I can populate those images with figures with a context that makes sense.  By now I have quite a little community of figures that I use, and I keep adding to the arsenal all the time. So that's a big factor: finding a clever match for what I want to shoot. These images look simple but can be tedious to set-up. I'll often try to do multiple set-ups over a few hours. Some go quickly. Others take longer. I'll work out lighting and depth-of-field.  

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There is a certain corner of my studio that I tend to use for this project. We have a lot of overcast days here in Seattle, so it has marvelous, diffused light. I try to use available light as much as possible, though if I'm still working in winter as the evening approaches, I'll very rarely set up a couple of off-camera lamps to add light. Sometimes a set-up just doesn't work the way I had hoped, and I'll change the orientation of the background and/or the figures.

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The figures in this work are all hand-painted and their meticulous detail is a big part of why the images work. On occasion I'll re-paint or modify figures to suit my purposes. They’re designed to be glued down so they don't stand on their own. The trick is getting them arranged. A lot of food is soft, so I can use a toothpick to make a small hole into which I can insert one of the feet. Other times I use agave nectar or a proprietary putty to get the feet to stand on hard surfaces. Most of the process is enjoyable, from getting the idea, or seeing a food product that would make a good  backdrop, to actually setting it up in my studio and shooting it while I'm rocking out to music.

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Other than some light and color adjustment, the images are not heavily manipulated with image processing software.  The food I use is even totally real. Especially with commercial food photography there is a lot of cheating, for instance, using white glue in place of milk or glass cubes instead of ice. But I don't really need to cheat with the food either. It is not always something you'd want to eat at the end of the shoot.  But it is real."  -  Christopher Boffoli