The Insatiable Lens: Premiere Issue

At the end of each year I put together a larger-than-normal promotional mailing, mainly targeted at the clients that I have worked with over the past year. And while this is definitely a form of self-promotion for my business, I also see it as a thank-you to all the fantastic clients that I have had the opportunity to work with. I couldn’t make it as a professional photographer without these fine people putting their trust in me and my skills, and I am very grateful to all of them. Every day I work very hard to live up to the high creative and professional bar that my clients set for me. Seriously, a big thank you to everyone.

For the past few years, my holiday promotion has taken the form of recipe cards featuring beautiful food photography and recipes for holiday-themed goodies. Each year I’ve been able to increase the production value of these recipe cards to really showcase my work. This year, however, I decided to take the concept a bit further. Instead of the usual recipe cards, this year I put together a full-fledged periodical! I am very pleased to introduce my very own food photography magazine: The Insatiable Lens!

I should mention at this point that generally I try to get my “holiday” packages out by early December. This year’s production took a little longer than normal though. My initial idea was to design a simple, one-off newsprint piece, more of a ‘zine than a magazine if you know what I mean. But then I decided that my options for short-run newsprint wouldn’t give me the quality that I was looking for, so I switched to a more traditional, glossy magazine format. This meant almost doubling the amount of content as well, which took a whole lot more time than anticipated.

However, now that I have gone through the whole process, I’m really really excited about it and I want to do more! To be fair, the first issue took me 6 months to put together from start to finish, so The Insatiable Lens isn’t going to be a monthly magazine. However, I have already started planning issue two and am hoping to release it sometime this summer.

The first issue of The Insatiable Lens is focused on the most basic ingredient in the culinary world: salt. This issue features recipes for a salt-crusted whole fish, chocolate chunk cookies with black walnuts and sea salt, and much more, including a salty take on a classic cocktail. You can read a digital version of the magazine below!

I would like to thank PAK Creative for a spectacular job coming up with the overall brand for The Insatiable Lens and for all of the layout and design help, particularly since I changed so many things throughout the process. I promise, next issue will go smoother guys!

I would also like to thank Carrie Province, an up-and-coming food stylist based here in St. Louis who generously contributed her time and skills to the food styling for several of the stories in the magazine.

Interested in receiving a hardcopy version of The Insatiable Lens? Get in touch via email at info@jonathangayman.com. You can also order a copy directly from the Blurb if you’d like, although I’d love to hear from you!