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

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

So this was a dose (ha ha) of something different into my food and beverage shooting routine: prescription medication! However, Jane & Greg at Living Room Pharmacy were a breath of fresh air. They were recommended to me by a dear and long time client of mine, Sandra of Atlas Cafe & sister restaurant Avenue Bistro, all of which are in the Comox Valley (that’s on Vancouver Island, about mid way up, for all you city dwelling folk).

The main focus of the day was to get some shallow depth of field still-life shots of what happens behind the pharmacy counter, as well as a few lifestyle photos in and around the store. The behind the scenes shots was the fun part, because us creatives on set got to pick out the most colourful, crazy, psychedelic looking pills for the shots…like kids in a candy store (and then we got the explanation of what each one was for!).

Also on this project, and driving Living Room Pharmacy’s re-branding from their previous identity, was Perry & Mandy at Spring Advertising. I’ve been to Spring’s office, and it’s busy, let me tell you. I don’t know exactly what they’re doing, but they’re doing something right because they’ve got some great clients and neat projects on the go. Maybe it’s because they offer to go out and grab a coffee for all those waiting in their lounge chairs like they did for me (or else that kind man thought I was someone much more important than I actually am). Either way, I just hope Perry’s fancy new wheels didn’t get him a speeding ticket on the way home from our shoot that day. Perry: I, too, have new wheels now, so ha.

Find Spring: @SpringAd •  Facebook Fan Page •  website

Find Living Room Pharmacy: website

Find Atlas Cafe and Avenue Bistro: Atlas website • Avenue website • @avenue • Avenue Facebook Fan Page

~ j