Canary Food Photo: About us

Canary Food Photo

When we left Germany some years ago to establish the bilingual (spanish/german) magazine ¡DISFRUTA! La Palma on the sunny canary island La Palma (according to UNESCO one of the three most beautiful islands of the world - not to be confused with Palma de Mallorca or Las Palmas/Gran Canary), we could already rely on 30 years of experience in international advertising agencies, publishers and photo studios as well as in photo journalism.

The main theme of the magazine was from the beginning „the good life on La Palma“ in all its facets - as the spanish name of the magazine says …: Enjoy La Palma. From the start we intended that the quality level of design, text, photography and production was to maintain the highest and advanced quality in order to be able to compete against the rather modest competition and to be unique. A larger format imaging of the photography in the magazine, based on a high professional level, should be one of the visual identification features.

During the realisation of the first editions, the sectors food and beverages cristallized as particularly extensive and important - a large part of the reportages and features finally related to the gastronomy of the island, which offer a large variety of dishes, although spanish/european, but strongly influenced by the close linkage to Latin America. For the magazine this meant: In addition to attractive location and journalism photography, we had to capture also food and beverages on a high level - after all every single photo should promote the respective gastronomy. Because: The better the photography the more satisfying the cooperating gastronomy will be. And because of this, we too!

With our journalism based photo equipment, which was available to us at this time, we initially moved from location to location and photographed as well as our creativity, equipment and local conditions allowed - the contemporary stye of presentation had a documentary rather than a compelling character. But our vision went far beyond …

The solucion revealed itself with the property, which we are still at now: A total of 300 square meters, a spacious photo studio with high ceilings, a large open office, storage and archive space, centrally located in the biggest town of La Palma, Los Llanos de Aridane, as well as a truck access for the problem free delivery of the editions (currently at 20.000/quaterly).

This was the time to move our storaged studio technology from Germany to La Palma and invested extensively in further professional equipment, cameras, digital equipment etc. We installed a professionally equipped kitchen to the studio, where clients, chefs and food stylists can prepare, cook and style their dishes. A great deal of the photographic work for the magazine is produced here. Since then the style of the food photography has changed from the documentation style to sensual visualisations with a tasteful character.

Over the years we have developed a number of advertorials for the magazine, which, in addition to our main focus topics, local presentations and recommendations have appeared as regular sections and offer the local gastronomy to present their dishes in a media based manner: „Top-Seller-Dish“, „The chef recommends“, „Meal of the Edition“, „We tested for you“, „The ¡DISFRUTA Menue“ and many more. - The dishes are usually photographed with original props - plates, cutlery, napkins etc. - and the original food styling of the respective client. But: The studio lighting, the unique perspective, the selective focus and the composition transforms a modest dish into a mouth watering highlight. Through the feedback of our readers as well as the success control of the respectively promoted gastronomy we immediately learn about the preferences and trends of our target group, the ups and downs and what visually works. Based on this we continue to develop our skills, our photographic style and the storytelling.

Today, after years of hard work, we can proudly claim to not just only be one of the top notch most successful printed magazines in the entire canarian world and the competence of La Palmas gastronomy, but also have many motivated followers in Continental Europe. We were honoured to be included at the renowned library of the University of Tenerife. And our photographic work is no longer limited to our magazine - under the label Canary Food Photo we continually work for external clients as well as for personal projects.