photo courtesy of The Comox Valley Shellfish Festival

Here’s an easy excuse to make that Vancouver Island trip you may have been considering lately!

The Comox Valley Shellfish Festival (and here on Facebook) is pleased to introduce this year’s list of BC grown chefs participating in the Gala Evening Dinner. On Saturday, June 19th, 2010, 200 guests will be treated to a nine-course gourmet seafood supper served outside along the lapping shores of Comox Harbour. For the first time, the festival is extremely excited to have two renowned chefs from famed Vancouver restaurants, Rick Bowman from Monk McQueens Restaurant & Patio and Scott Practico from Joe Fortes Seafood and Chop House.
Also volunteering their time and culinary mastery are:
• Nigel McMeans, Executive Chef, Blackfin Pub at the Marina, Comox
• Jonathan Frazier, Executive Chef, Atlas Café, Courtenay
• Troy Fogarty, Executive Chef, Kingfisher Spa & Resort, Courtenay
• Ronald St-Pierre, Executive Chef, Locals Restaurant, Courtenay
• Aaron Rail, Executive Chef, Avenue Bistro, Comox
• Mark Duncan, Executive Chef, Union Street Grill & Grotto, Courtenay
• Matt MacDonald, Executive Chef, Berwick, Comox

Tickets are $120 - to order yours and more information contact:
Matthew Wright, Festival Producer
250.890.7561 / matt@bcsga.ca

photo courtesy of The Comox Valley Shellfish Festival

***UPDATE: This workshop has been moved to Sunday, August 8th. Same time, same place, same food!***

This workshop is for all you Vancouver Island folk, or those of you who might be on the Island in June. Being held at Tria Culinary Studio on Sunday June 13th and brought to you also by Hans Peter Meyer, we’ll be shooting some beautiful creations from Tria’s Kathy Jerritt including Tuna Poke on a sesame crisp and Mixed greens with a beet carpaccio and whipped goat cheese.

As usual you’ll learn step-by-step how to set up for food shots, how to use your camera’s manual settings and achieve that sought after depth of field in food photography, as well as some basic food styling tips and a set of workshop notes to take away. This is a first - Jackie is offering an additional photo critique for every person who registers for this workshop: email 1 photo to Jackie that you take either at the workshop or on your own afterward, and she will critique it, giving you feedback and constructive criticism. Offer expires June 27th, photo must arrive by this date.

There’s also an optional lunch that will be prepared by Kathy Jerritt of Tria: Savoury Crepes filled with house smoked salmon, creme fraiche, sweet red onion jam and fresh arugula with Nature’s Way Farm greens. Delicious!

And if you haven’t been to Tria Culinary Studio/Nature’s Way Farm…it’s beautiful!

photo courtesy of Tria Culinary Studio/Nature's Way Farm

photo courtesy of Tria Culinary Studio/Nature's Way Farm

photo courtesy of Tria Culinary Studio/Nature's Way Farm

To register for this workshop: email Jackie and I will send you a PayPal link to reserve your spot. There are only 15 11 spots available.

Workshop: $75+gst

Workshop + Lunch: $85+gst

Hope to see you there!

***UPDATE: This workshop has been moved to Sunday, August 8th. Same time, same place, same food!***

Today is beautiful outside, in stark contrast to the weather of the past few days (we’ve had boats wash ashore, roofs damaged, ferry sailings canceled, all due to the high winds). Yikes.

I’m going to try and get outdoors today, because I will be in my kitchen all weekend recipe testing and photographing. I’m going to be making:

• • tomato, basil and goat cheese bruschetta (I watched Julie & Julia last weekend and can’t get the image of Amy Adams & the dude who plays her husband eating the most delicious looking bruschetta out of my head…and of course it looked delicious, it was styled by this woman!)
• • a new soup (I love soup!); the recipe I’ve found is for a tomato & red pepper soup…maybe tomatoes will be my theme this weekend. (This is the answer to my dilemma: “What do I cook for 1 vegetarian (me), 2 people who will eat anything, and 1 who doesn’t like fish?)
• • quinoa, but I’m still trying to find different ways to spice it up…this is in progress.
• • my sister gave me this recipe for Golden Trout which I need to shoot as part of a new project, so I might give that a whirl.
• • and apparently kale is something I’m supposed to be paying attention to…I feel like I’ve been seeing it everywhere. Ok, 2 sites doesn’t count as ‘everywhere’, I realize this.

And here’s a little something I’ve been working on for a few weeks now…it’ll stay a secret for now, but I’ll be able to share more info soon.

Happy Weekend everyone!

~ j

This was pretty much a dream day of shooting for me…except that I had to forego my breakfast with these three lovely ladies. But duty called, and I hope they will forgive me when they see what fun I had, and the teeny tiny, crust-less sandwiches I got to shoot!

I hope you enjoy these shots from Afternoon Tea at Shangri-la Hotel in Vancouver. And then I hope you go for tea! And invite me with you!

~ j

I love team efforts. There’s not much else more satisfying for me (the collaborative type) than to work with other creative, brilliant, talented and FUN foodies.

This article was written for the Winter 2010 issue of Chefs Quarterly by Simon Ogden, Lead Bartender at Voya in The Loden Hotel (and my other half, and yes, all talented bartender AND writer), featuring cocktails made by the fabulous Lauren Mote of The Refinery, and photographed by yours truly. What a team!

I’ve also included some of the other shots we photographed that day (above and below)…thank you to Simon and Lauren for a nice little afternoon.

We’re nearing the next 2 workshops, and there’s only a few spots left if you’re wanting to improve your food photography skills!

• SOLD OUT! Food Photography+Food Styling 101: A Workshop for Food Bloggers & Other Creative Types
Taught by myself and my food stylist Angie Martin, we’ll show you how to not only photograph your dishes, but techniques on how to cook for the camera. We’ll debunk myths about using glue, paint & other toxic materials in food photography (hint hint: we prefer the natural way of doing things, though a touch of glue can do wonders!)
Saturday March 27th, 1pm
• 1 SPOT LEFT! (c’mon…you know you want it) Food Photography 101: A Workshop for Food Bloggers & Other Creative Types
The focus here will be of course on the technical side of food photography as we’ve done in the past, but also because of all the feedback and questions I’ve received on this topic I’ll spend a large part of the workshop on composition (where does that darn fork go?!).
Saturday April 3rd, 1pm
Venue: The Refinery
$45 (gst included)

~~~

I continually get asked by those learning food photography how to shoot better in restaurants with low lighting, or at home in natural light, and without spending wads of cash on equipment. That is exactly what these workshop are all about: simple and affordable solutions that will improve your photographs. We’ll be doing a bit of talking but mostly shooting, so be sure to bring your gear. Not a food blogger, but love shooting your kitchen creations and want to learn new techniques? You’re more than welcome too!

The Details:

• • Guaranteed 1-on-1 time for every student
• • I will teach you step-by-step how to set-up your shots using some specific food & beverage examples, focussing on using your camera’s manual settings
• • I will be sending out some refresher notes before-hand, and some workshop notes for you to take away from the session
• • All you are required to bring is your camera, it’s manual and a tripod
• • I don’t accept more than 10 people to a workshop to ensure that I can give each of you dedicated 1-on-1 time.
• • The last 2 workshops filled up & sold out quite quickly, and payment is required to hold your spot. Please feel free to email me if you have any questions!
• • Click here to read info/see pics from previous workshops
• • To register for a workshop, please email Jackie and I will send you the PayPal details

Shooting meat can be tough - especially when it’s a giant rack of ribs slathered in an extremely thick, dark sauce. Usually shooting brown food is something that can easily turn out unappetizing, but when a client requests their half rack of ribs to be included on the shotlist, you’d better make it look good.

So, here’s the half rack of ribs I photographed last week along with my Food Stylist Angie and photo assistant Naz for Rockford Wok/Bar/Grill, Northland Properties‘ newest restaurant in the Nelsen Lodge at the base of Revelstoke Mountain Resort in Revelstoke, B.C.

Issue #1: dark sauce. I mean look at that - it’s nearly black.

Issue #2: we’re shooting in front of a window for the beautiful back-lit effect that I almost always strive for and most clients love, but because the ribs are so dark & glossy, the sheen that the entire right side of the ribs has is way too high contrast for my liking. We want the sheen, but not that strong.

Issue #3: that is one large plate of meat.

high contrast Ribs

Issue #1: the rich, dark sauce is what makes these ribs a signature item on the menu, so there was certainly no changing that. However Angie and Chef Harley did a great job of using it just enough to make the ribs, well, look like ribs, but not enough that we would have to shoot a saucy, soupy plate of ribs. Success!

Issue #2: Placing a diffusing panel between the food and the natural light coming through the window solved the problem of all those sharp edged shiny reflections. I carry a 5 in 1 reflector made by Interfit and I use it daily…it’s one of my ‘don’t leave home without it’ items.

Issue #3: Again, when you’re shooting a menu item for a client it’s extremely important to stay true to form - there’s not going to be much deviating from how a guest would receive the item when ordered off the menu, so shooting this rack of ribs, at this portion size, was a must. The key here was composition; keeping a focus on the ribs while using the french fries & coleslaw to balance it all.

Better Ribs!

Atlas lunch menu: Fish Tacos

Avenue Bistro & Atlas Cafe, both in the Comox Valley and owned by the lovely Sandra & Trent, are return clients of mine for which I’m incredibly grateful. I’m not even exaggerating for the purpose of this blog post - they are talented and generous and collaborative and I could eat nothing else but Atlas Cafe’s falafel for the rest of my life and be happy. Ok, and maybe bartender Christina’s smoothie to balance it out.

Initially I photographed Avenue when it first opened (2 years ago? 3?! Wow time flies!) and recently went back to take some updated shots, followed by a day at Atlas shooting food, staff, and the restaurant interior for an update of their website. I occasionally need to dust off my headshot shooting skills for some of my restaurant clients (there are actual people full of talent & creativity behind all of the delicious food that I shoot) and they need to be in the spotlight sometimes too, as much as they resist every waking second of it. The interesting part about this here though, was that we shot customers: real restaurant guests that we often ambushed prior to their lunch. Thankfully they were all wonderful sports! Here’s a few of my favourites, plus some tasty food shots too.

Christina @ Atlas garnishing a Mojito

Atlas dinner menu: steak, potatoes + seasonal veg

Avenue Bistro

Find Avenue Bistro: website •  @avenuebistro • Facebook Fan Page

Find Atlas Cafe: website

Seriously, go for the falafel! Go now!

~ j

Here’s something from The Fish House in Stanley Park photographed by yours truly to inspire your leisurely lunching activities. (c’mon, what, you mean you don’t go lunching?!)