food
As a hired gun, sometimes a photographer is required to fill the shoes of someone else’s work. As Animo! opened it’s doors in the Upper East Side, it had a photo library captured before the restaurant was even in its space and the client wanted images that emulated the same feel. To me, the images didn’t look as lively and interesting as I thought they could be but I was grateful to have the hands of a stylist by my side and turn this dishes into life.
Rowdy Hall, in Amagansett, was included In The Infatuation’s guide to The Hamptons and, with a group of other restaurants, I went east-ward to shoot it. Unlike most of my shoots, I, unannounced and on my own, decided to strictly use natural light to take some surreptitious photos and, while I prefer the punch of a strobe, was pleasantly surprised by how these turned out.
Meju is a fine dining, set-menu restaurant in the back of a lovely Korean market in Long Island City. The Infatuation was in need of some photos to accompany their review, and so they called upon yours truly to do so. When I light food, I try to match the mood of the space and the vibe. As Meju is an upscale one-seating-per-evening speakeasy playing Sinatra, it gave off the vibe of a single softbox sort of aesthetic, which you can view below.
As Chase was a sponsor of last year’s US Open, so too did Chase-owned The Infatuation have a hand in the event, which meant a ton of exciting and new food. As part of the Infatuation’s list of Where to Eat at The US Open, I photographed dishes from the various vendors at the “Flavors of the Open” event, some of which were household NYC names, while others were compact versions of high-profile restaurants.
Gilligan’s is an outdoor oasis of a bar/restaurant at the Soho Grand Hotel. The client wanted their images to have a softness to them so, against my normal routine (and preferences), we shot only using natural light which did create a certain aesthetic that I’m happy to produce, but not the biggest fan of. It worked for the client, so it worked for me.
Food deliver service ChowNow has partnered with NYC staple Smorgasburg to provide secret menu items from each of their vendors. As someone who lives not far from Smorgasburg, it was a nice feather in my cap to be asked to shoot something I’ve known and attended for years (with a quick commute to boot!).
Sundaes Best is a Korea Town ice cream fixture from the owners of Baek Jeong KBBQ . It features diverse flavors, some of which are Korean, and a cheery, pink interior. This shoot was a little difficult since the ice cream containers were covered with a glass exterior, until I realized we could open the front windows and sneak the camera into the opening. Glass and flash are not a great photographic combination!
I’ve rarely worked with stylists because most often I work with restaurants where the chefs or the marketing contacts are the ones styling the foods. I was lucky enough to work with the super talented Judy Kim who elevated the red-sauce food of Tony’s DiNapoli and truly elevated my photography. I almost feel like I didn’t even take these photos because Judy was the true artist who crafted such beautiful scenes below.
MareLuna is a multi-location restaurant specializing in Italian/Mediterranean cuisine. At the time of writing this, social media is the fulcrum of much of the content created for restaurants and, as video is on the rise, clients like MareLuna try to create engaging content with these little stop motion animations that I created from a series of photos. You can view more in the motion page of this site.
What begin as a pop-up sprouted into its own brick-and-mortar location of KJUN - a fantastic mix of creole meets Korean cuisine, two cuisines I love separately and together. See some photos below from a review by The Infatuation.
The Infatuation tasked me with shooting a handful of deli’s for a write-up on pastrami sandwiches. Barney’s Greengrass yielded, in my opinion, the prettiest dishes which you can see below.
I’ve previously shown images of my work with Rosevale, at the Civilian Hotel, but I was also hired to shoot some dishes that the chef was experimenting with using for their opening. Here are some images of those plates.
For The Infatuation, I photographed 53, a gorgeous midtown Chinese restaurant with a stunning interior and beautiful shared plate dishes.
As part of Eater’s Best New Restaurants of 2022, I photographed Department of Culture, a Nigerian restaurant in Bed-Stuy. Although the staff was super helpful, the shoot was quite difficult as the space is quite small and the shoot happened during service. I was forced to rely on a single light source without any diffusion and my abilities to position the food and lighting where I could shoot both still life and the atmosphere (real life) in quick succession.
Not far from the water, in the west 40s is Cantina Rooftop. A festive Mexican restaurant and canteen which cooks up almost any Mexican classic you could consider. Not only do they have tacos but they have “The Big Ass Taco,” which lives up to its name. Check out some images below, including one very large taco.
In one of my more unique assignments, Eater NY hired me to shoot the barefoot contessa herself, Ina Garten, as she dined with friends at Soho’s La Mercerie. I was just a fly on the wall as she and her trio of dining compatriots sampled food, chatted with the chef, and had a good laugh. As I was instructed to be as discreet as possible, I was forced to rely strictly on natural light so you can bet I made sure Ina sat right across from the largest window possible. Here are some samples from the shoot.
The Standard Grill, the restaurant at The Standard Highline hotel, has a lovely bar with some elevated bar snacks. In addition to oysters, there are fried chicken sliders, tacos and other bites one might want to accompany a beer or martini. For this shoot, I really wanted to push the light through the drinks to assert their presence on the table so that they would be accompanying the food, as they are usually paired to do. This job was commissioned by The Standard Hotel.
CxRA specializes in catering to some of New York’s biggest and most well-known venues and they also happen to possess a fabulous stylist in their marketing department. Combined with a prop house, the stylist provides fantastic ideas and wonderful ways of giving life to these very small bites. It really makes my job easier and my photographs more vivid and beautiful with the help of a stylist.
Eater NY brought me on to photograph the opening of Atlanta-based chain Slutty Vegan in Brooklyn and it was an unexpectedly raucous block party. The line for the vegan cheeseburger chain ran around the block and, due to a lot of other press photographers, it was quite a fight to get shots of the burgers themselves. I snuck into the tiny, chair-less restaurant, and into the kitchen with a handheld light to get some shots but we were lucky enough to get a few burgers to shoot outside the restaurant.
In a previous post I had mentioned that I was hired to photograph for the Bagatelle restaurant group at their pop-up space in Soho’s La Duree. Here are some of the food photos from the shoot.
