Visual Appetite

Oh, Portland you sure have impressed me.  I recently had the pleasure of photographing two restaurants in Portland for Kimpton Hotels and Restaurants.  Shown below is Red Star and I will follow up later with Pazzo.

Red Star has one of the biggest whiskey collections in town, and like a magician bartender Brandon Lockman brings a wealth of enthusiasm to what he does.  We used a number of backlit scenarios to bring out the action of cocktail-making. We also worked with 4 top-notch local models on the shoot and Executive Chef Kyle Rourke to round out the needs of marketing and pr.  Enjoy!

Assistant:  Michelle Pearl Gee

Models:  Michelle Lummus, Nola Mandels, Tyler Andre, and Jeremy Abe

There’s nothing better than when my clients can put my images to good use.  My recent shoot for marketing of the newly opened Hi-Lo BBQ received lot’s of buzz.  But, not only because of the talented Chef Ryan Ostler and the great Northern California barbecue concept, but because they had a dynamic PR team working on it.  Andrew Freeman and Co. made it happen so the images appeared in a number of places including the SF Chronicle’s Inside Scoop, Tablehopper, Tasting Table, Daily Candy, Zagat and many others.  Also look for my images on the restaurant’s site, which is in the works.  Thanks to everyone who helped make this shoot happen and for all the great press.

The Bay Area is adopting another community supported food model, and this time it is called CSF, Community Supported Fisheries.  CSF supporters say it’s a way to deliver local, seasonal, and mostly wild-caught seafood to consumers while shortening the supply chain and giving fishermen a more fair price for their catch.  In the past year the number of CSF programs in the U.S. has doubled to 35.

I had the opportunity to work on a story about CSF’s with food writer, Carolyn Jung, known as the Food Gal, for a new online publication called TreeFree Food (50mb pdf download).  Carolyn  brings up some great issues regarding how we consume seafood in the U.S.  For instance, the U.S. is the 3rd largest consumer of seafood, but more than 3/4 of it is imported.  For the story I photographed a couple of the businesses who supply seafood to a program here in the Bay Area.  Fair Share CSF has 45 customers and they work with Carapace Fishing and TwoXSea.  Also, I followed it up by photographing a crab dinner put on by Fair Share.  They had the tastiest rub on the crab that night.  If you make your own crab this year, make sure to roast it and use these ingredients:  thyme, fennel seed, chili, garlic, and olive oil.  Absolutely delicious!

There’s nothing like a Fall getaway to your neighbor’s cabin on a lake in Gold Country.  My girlfriend, mother, & I took Hwy. 4 up to Arnold to have some time away & relax with nice dinners & nature, including a visit to Calaveras Big Trees State Park.

At the lake we discovered two enormous apple trees and took a ton home with us (I made lot’s of apple juice).  On our last morning there, I woke up to find steam on the lake being backlit by the rising sun as it burst through the trees.  Of course, I grabbed my camera and made a sprint towards the lake to photograph.  Once there I began to tiptoe as I saw a lone Canadian goose who stood meditatively.  The goose gave me a couple of minutes to shoot before swimming off.  The image was featured last Friday night at American Photographic Artists’ annual Something Personal show.  This is the third year in a row I have had images in the show.  That’s quite an honor!  Happy Holidays.