The Dairy Part 2: Beautiful dishes

The shoot started in earnest with so many beautiful dishes

 

If you missed The Dairy Part 1, click on the link and you’ll be whisked back to that post, if not, welcome back 🙂

I had now set up at the front of the restaurant, the stunning plates of food started to be brought out to me. Such beautifully prepared and plated food are a joy to photograph and I don’t feel they need any dressing up with props. Anything that takes away from this food would be a distraction and it’s all about the food.

There were plenty of textures and surfaces to shoot on. I used floor slabs, stool and table tops and an old chair that was in the roof garden. In this case, shooting in a studio would loose the feel and texture of The Dairy, it is so much more important to capture the energy of the restaurant, this way when folks look at the website they get a good idea of how it will feel to be there.

 

I was very fortunate with the natural light, which stayed at a pretty constant level for the first five or six dished, I only needed to use my Tri-grip reflector to lift the shadows . This allowed me to concentrate on making beautiful pictures. I’ve heard of many food photographers who exclusively use natural light, but when you live in a country that’s not so bright and sunny, you need to know how to use other light sources, such as small flash, to replicate the look.  Not all restaurants will allow you to shoot right at the front of their restaurant, you could be set up in a room with unsuitable lighting.

What do you do then?

In these, less than desirable, situations there are a couple of options. If you have all the tripod paraphernalia where you can shoot from above and at several angles, use a long exposure to get the shot, give that a go. Remember, you may have a good exposure using a tripod, but do you have a light direction which will give the food depth and dimension? This also goes for choosing the ISO of plenty option. In some cases you will need to bring your own window light and as the days grow shorter and darker, this will increasingly be the case. I’ll be demonstrating this in a future post.

Moving swiftly on

In, what felt like no time at all, the main course dished were leaving the kitchen and heading my way. When Head Chef, Robin Gill, says “This is one of the favourites. You need to try this whilst it’s hot.” you don’t quibble. That certainly had me working a notch or two faster, to take full advantage of this.

 

The care and plating precision of all the dishes, perfectly cooked and packed full of deliciousness, is something you can only understand if you eat here. This is what I’m always trying to convey with my images. I’m there to help the restaurant get more folks through the door. Many will come based on reputation and referrals. Others will want to take a look at the website, see what’s on offer and plan their meal before they arrive, especially if they are travelling quite some distance to dine at your restaurant.

Snapshots are just not good enough. People are very visual, websites are where people research, if your photography is poor and low quality, your website looks poor, that’s what it portrays about your business to potential customers. Restaurants like The Dairy deserve far more.

Summer showers

The rain was intermittent and during a dry spell we decided to get a couple of dishes photographed in the roof garden. There was an old weathered table which I used and the seat of a chair. I was able to get a couple of dishes shot before the rain returned. This time we started with “Lady Hamilton” pollock, wasabi butter, sea spinach and cucumber, don’t mind if I do.

 

Robin joined me in the roof garden and presented with a couple of tasty canapés which we hadn’t gotten around to shooting by this point. I was having such an enjoyable day, the most difficult thing is to review the images here and not get extremely hungry. When food dishes are this pretty, you smile all the way through the shoot.

 

The bees create a gentle background hum, when you’re in the garden, the breeze brought a mixture of aromas, summer plants and more beautiful food leaving the kitchen below. The bees are all around you, pollinating the whole rooftop garden and beyond I’m sure. In fact I was positioned just off the main flight path to the hives. It’s like a little oasis in the middle of a city, something I wish we would see much more often.

 

As the pitter patter of the rain started I gathered my gear and headed back inside. Carefully passing through the kitchen, which was a hive of activity by now, I could see the restaurant was beginning to fill with eager and hungry customers.

I took down my small lighting rig, to get it out of the way before the first dessert was brought over to me. I have a bit of a sweet tooth so I was really looking forward to these.

Tune in for the third and final part of The Dairy, when I’ll be treated to some of the most delicious desserts and I hang out at the pass, capturing some kitchen action.

Thanks very much for stopping by and I’ll see you back here very soon.

 

🙂