One of the most enjoyable shoots of late was to provide images for a feature on the 50 best dishes in Paris according to the writers at Time Out Paris.
The assignment called for images of both the restaurants interior and exterior aswell as the main shot of the dish that was going to be featured in the article.
I've photographed lots of restaurants in the past but usually the client asks for the focus to be on the interior and I usually saw photographing the dishes as a bit of sideline shot that would rarely make it into print.
This shoot gave me a nice opportunity to really focus on shooting the dishes, I decided the best decision was to light them to give the shots more of an impact and also provide continuity across the different dishes.
Another reason for this is that restaurants are usually dimly lit and contain a mixture of different light sources which is far from ideal ideal. Using supplementary lighting meant I could also get away from the usual plate shots often seen in print where they are shot at an extremely short depth of field (when you don't have the light you are limited to this).
Using artificial lighting was also a bonus as I knew that with the amount of restaurants needing to be shot in such a short space of time some would inevitably need to be photographed in the evening where the lighting would be dim or non existent. All of the dishes were shot with a two light set up, the main light camera right shot through an umbrella to provide a soft flat light without any harsh shadows as well as a second light behind the dish camera left which provided a key light to separate the dish from the background.
An example of how the images were used can be seen below and I've also included some shots from the more memorable restaurants. As a sideline a great bonus of the shoot was that almost exclusively after shooting each dish the chef insisted that I eat it which was fantastic. I think chefs and photographers have lot in common - we're both judged on what we produce and take pride in out work. They were happy with the shots of the dish and the resulting publicity and I was only too happy to sample their creations...
This dish was the French classic 'Blanquette de veaux', the restaurant was called 'Le Jadis' and I noticed they had a French paperback with their name in the title as part of the restaurants general decor so I decided to include it in some of the shots
The above dish is a desert called 'Pain perdu'- lost bread - which is basically an old peasant dish for using up any stale bread. It's the sort of thing any French granny will make on a regular basis, but serve it up on a piece of slate in a Parisian Restaurant and you can charge 10 Euros for it. It was very nice by the way!
For this shot of a carrot cake I got involved in a bit of 'food styling', the tables had paper table cloths which looked a bit uninspiring so I took it off to show the table top which had a bit of texture to it, I also grabbed a tea pot from another (empty) table to add to the scene. Unfortunately I wasn't offered this dessert, but then again I don't like carrot cake
Steak tartare, another classic. Basically raw mince meat with capers mixed into it. The chef at this restaurant was very well known and took a great interest in seeing the list of other places I had to photograph, he had some harsh words to say about some of them...
A desert called 'Paris Brest', so called after a bicycle race between the two towns. The restaurant served specialities from Brittany and the Bretons are known as seeing themselves as separate from the rest of France (a bit like the Corsicans but without blowing up the post offices), hence out came the Breton flag which the dish was photographed on - it worked well in the shot and gave context to the dish
There were some international dishes too, this dish was a cantonese speciality and the owner of the restaurant took the award for using her initiative. Once I'd set up my lights and was waiting for the dish to appear I looked round and saw her bringing the entire restaurants menu from the kitchen.
I only needed to shoot the one dish in question but she kept asking 'Oh and could you just photograph this too, oh and this too perhaps'. I really didn't mind and found it quite sweet - lets just say that she has some new images for her menu and I happily took home about 5 kilos of food in doggy bags...
Of course snails had to be on the list, I was offered these but it was very early in the morning and I hadn't had breakfast yet so had to politely decline
But the highlight has to be the chef at the restaurant 'Le Duc', not only did he insist that I eat the whole of this 'Sole Meuniere' with him and the rest of the staff while they had their lunch before service began but it was also washed down with a few glasses of wine from their excellent cellar - one of which was on the menu at 850 euros a bottle! There is such a thing as a free lunch
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