I feel lucky to be a part of the Restaurant/Food Service Industry. You meet a lot of very interesting people, get to work in fast paced environments, and in some places, feel like your going into battle for a busy Friday night.
I recently left my
day night job to pursue photography this winter. But that's no reason to stay out of the kitchen! I have a couple good friends from my days of Lake Louise, operating the
Bohemian Cafe and Catering Company in downtown Kelowna. So I took the morning to get in there and shoot some food, and the dining room. What a great spot, they are obviously doing something right there because every time I have been in there, its been busy as...
Take today for instance, I am no stranger to restaurants and figured a Wednesday lunch wouldn't get too off the hook, making it a pretty safe day to be another obstacle in the kitchen. No dice! I showed up around 1130 after Jon (my friend, and the chef) texted me saying perfect timing, and its slow! Great news for photos! However, by 1215 I was letting myself out the door since the whole place filled right up and the staff went into worker-bee mode. Great news for the restaurant's revenue! Bad news for photos... I went back at 145 and the crowds were starting to dissipate at last.
One thing a lot of people think about food photography is the horror stories of this delicious appearing, yet inedible food, possibly even made of plastic. I would like to take a moment to point out that
in no case is any of my food photography done in that fashion. Take my Arnold's Sports Bar photo shoot of last February. Photos were for their menu, but no special attention there. Everything I photographed was presented and cooked exactly as a guest would receive it.
Here is their menu available online.
The best thing about leaving a job in professional kitchens, is that you start to feel like cooking at home again. (Ask some Chef's this, they can probably give you an insight to what I mean) So I am excited to be taking more images like these, with the new home studio set up, in the coming months.
Great food photography can be done in the comfort of your own home. Make appropriate use of big bright windows, fill flash (yes even on a P+S camera) and a reflecting surface or two, and you can very easily get some tantalizing food photos like they do in Bon Apetit!
Happy shooting!
