polara's table

Prime Food Photography For Portland Prime

2011-05-04T17:44:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite things to do is to go on location and shoot the best of what comes from a particular chef or restaurant. My crew and I had a great chance to to this for Portland Prime's new website.

This newly reopened venue serves the best in local wines, meats and has a beautiful charcuterie & fromage station at their bar where the chef comes out and freshly prepares each plate. It’s lovely. Their Happy Hour is one of the few in town that goes until 7 PM and features a delightful live piano bar that has a quintessentially Northwest feel.

Portland Prime tasked the Polara crew with capturing lifestyle mixed with environment, local wines and many of the tasty food varieties. We began with featuring the restaurant in a new and unique fashion. Gone were the empty rooms that have been a part of so much restaurant photography. Model releases in hand, our producer, Kasey Huber got many of Portland Prime patrons to let themselves be featured with Portland Prime's great food, service and comfortable surroundings.

On our second day at Portland Prime, Michael and Lucy (food stylist) developed a clean simple approach to many mouth-watering dishes, which made the great work of Executive Chef Russell Kool shine in a direct, honest and unadorned fashion. Chef Kool takes advantage of the best of the Pacific Northwest’s bountiful ingredients drawing on his strong relationships with local growers and purveyors.

The hospitality we encountered from Paul and Frank and their crew at Portland Prime Restaurant made us realize why so many are patrons are coming back time and time again.

There is nothing better than after a fun shoot to then enjoy the ambiance, drinks and food we had been eyeballing the entire time we were on set. We had so much fun enjoying the piano bar and many of us tried a lovely Pinot Noir on tap from the local winery, Sokol Blosser. It was fabulous!! Of coarse we had to try the delicious charcuterie & fromage sampler as well as sliders and the stuffed chicken crepes.

So if you get a chance please check out their new website http://www.portlandprime.net/ or better yet stop on in and try something off their enticing menu and you'll have almost as much fun as the whole Polara crew did.

An Apple a Day or More!

2011-01-14T11:04:00.000-08:00

The Willamette Valley is painted with a green swath of farm and forested land, sitting between the Coast Range and the Cascades, making Oregon justifiably famous. In the last ten years, this cool and misty breadbasket of the Pacific Northwest has produced everything from Hazelnuts, Marionberries to award winning Pinot Noirs. Some people would argue the slow food movement got its start here in Oregon where farm to table is merely an hour or so drive away.

This inspired one of our Food Photographers, Michael Shay. He began working on a series of still photographs and short videos celebrating the “Bounty of Oregon” showcasing local ingredients in their raw glory and preparing a dish in a wonderful artistic yet scrumptious fashion for us to try and enjoy.

In cooperation with ace food stylist Carol Ladd, the wonderful fall gift of Oregon apples was featured. And they don't get any more local than this, having been plucked from Carol's tree.

The video was done as a collaborative effort between Michael Shay and one of Polara's other photographers, Jeremy Dunham. Jeremy had a keen eye for angles while helping with gaffing and editing the final piece you see. Check it out at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4xYGfYt5Iw

Like so much of the work at Polara (especially food photography) “the sum of the parts is greater...” as the saying goes. And the sum of these parts was a delicious apple tart, as much a feast for the eyes as for the stomach. Bon Appetite!

The Bounty, of Oregon That Is

2010-08-14T10:36:00.000-07:00

One of the nicest things about working in a collaborative environment like Polara Studio is how we often “feed” off each others creativity for ideas, images and inspiration.

Jeremy, one of our photographers, spent a weekend hunting for something that Oregon is rightfully famous for, mushrooms. He didn't have much luck as these wonderfully tasty little gems take part science and part arcane magic to find. Nevertheless he was determined to eat some mushrooms so went off to the local Farmers Market and bought two big bags of morels.

That afternoon at Polara, he showed the studio those two big bags, smelling wonderfully of green and earth that he planned to have for dinner. As a food photographer at Polara, I asked Jeremy if he could hold off on dinner while I did something with them. He took them up to the natural light studio with an old piece of metal and a bottle of olive oil, which we had around, and just started “following” the light. That's how this first photograph was made. For the photo geeks reading this I'm shooting with a Nikon D3X and a 85mm tilt/shift lens. This is a great combo that allows spontaneity at the highest image quality while giving control for both depth of field and focus plane. God did most of the lighting (and does a great job BTW) with a little assist from a white card and a shaving mirror.

In the meantime, Jeremy looked up a recipe on how he was going to prepare his prizes. One peek at that gave me an idea for a neat image pair, showing this yummy food raw and ready to eat. An old cast iron frying pan and a little of the same lighting and this second photograph was created(with a little help from Chef Jeremy).

The only sad part is that many of his mushrooms didn't make it home as the studio promptly ate them after shooting. The morels, sautéed with little onion and garlic, had a taste reminiscent of a nice steak, rich and beefy. It is always fun to see how, with a little creative collaboration and some cool food photography, the bounty of Oregon can make those little things in life both look and taste a bit better.

PS Check out our first food video "Messing Around With Morels"

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0ZblmW5l5Y

Pearfect - Pears and Vino Gelato

2010-03-11T17:12:00.000-08:00

It hard to believe it's been almost 3 months since I posted. Between the holidays and a great studio party of almost 400 people the first part of this year has flown by. But as promised here's another recipe from the Ponzi Vineyards Cookbook and honestly one of my favorite photographs in the book. Hope you like the visual and try the recipe (and wine) as well. They both, well...Sweet!

PEARS POACHED in VINO GELATO
Serves 4

There are so many delights of fall you can almost forget harvest and Indian Summer portend the continual grey drizzle of Willamette Valley winter. Pears join the seasonal parade of prime fruits and nuts. The finest pears come from the high elevation orchards of Hood River that tower above the Columbia River and spread along the north slopes of Mt. Hood. The farmers host both Blossom and Harvest Festivals to show the orchards at their finest with stunning vistas of Mt. Adams and Mt. Hood as the backdrop. There are vineyards near the river and windsurfers in the river. Eighteen varieties of pears are produced, and if you visit during harvest (there are even historical train tours), you can taste them all.

For poached pears, however, we don’t get too exotic. Kelly Shattuck, pastry chef at The Dundee Bistro, agrees with sticking to the familiar Bosc for their elegant shape and fine texture. Pears evoke harvest, and this recipe has become a perennial Ponzi harvest season dessert.

INGREDIENTS
4 pears, just ripe, firm, nicely formed
1 1/2 C Vino Gelato (or other white dessert wine)
1 C water
2 T freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 vanilla bean
1/2 C very mild, soft goat cheese
1/2 C chopped hazelnuts
White sugar to taste

TECHNIQUE
1. To prepare the pears, cut a little slice off the bottom so each will sit straight. Leave the stems on. Peel and core from the bottom using a small melon baller.
2. Combine the cheese with the nuts and fill the centers of the pears with the mixture.
3. Bring the Vino Gelato and water to a boil in a heavy, flat-bottomed saucepan. When boiling, add the lemon juice. Reduce the heat. Split the vanilla bean and scrape the seeds into the liquid. Add the pears upright in pan, and simmer just until tender, approximately 8–10 minutes.
4. Carefully remove the pears with a slotted spoon. Set aside to cool or put directly into individual serving dishes (here’s a chance to use those old flat champagne glasses). Refrigerate until ready to serve.
5. Reduce the liquid in the saucepan to make a sauce. Taste and add sugar if more sweetness if desired. Strain. Garnish the pears with sauce just before serving.

NOTE
A cinnamon stick can be added with the vanilla—or omit the vanilla—depending on your taste. You can omit the cheese filling and serve with ice cream also topped with the pear sauce. This is an excellent choice as a dessert for a large dinner party; it’s light, pretty, and can be made ahead of time…and is perfect with Vino Gelato.

Ponzi Vineyards Cookbook

2009-12-15T16:40:00.000-08:00

This summer my crew and I got to spend 10 amazing days in the kitchen of of one of the most charming and self-effacing chefs I've ever met, Nancy Ponzi. Matriarch of the Ponzi Family which is not only one of the pioneer wine families in the Willamette Valley but also founded Bridgeport Brewery. Nancy's family recipe was also the secret behind Bridgeport's famous pizza served in the brewpub that many of us here in Portland have enjoyed over the years. For that fact alone she deserves the title of chef .

When she decided to write the book her family had been urging her to do for a long time, Nancy asked our photo team along with talented food stylist, Carol Ladd, to photograph many of the family's recipes that appear in the book. Our stylist and Nancy also carefully planned the shoot so that what we photographed in the morning was served for lunch. We all can personally attest to how good many of these recipes taste. During the whole process which involved us taking over not only her kitchen but most of her family room and guest bedroom for 10 staggered shooting days . Nancy proved so gracious and unflappable that we all wanted to be adopted by her.

Now that the book is out I will be posting recipes (and photographs) of some of the best food in the book, food that caused one of our photo assistants to gain almost 15 pounds in the course of the shoot.

The photography business can be tough and competitive at times, but it does have its perks when the subject is good food and fine wine. ;-) Thanks Nancy, Carol and the whole crew.

BTW the book is availble at your local Barnes & Noble and at Powell's. Or you can buy directly from the publisher at this link http://www.arnicacreative.com/dec09_ponzi.htm

Beer is serious business

2009-10-16T14:24:00.001-07:00

Working in restaurants and pubs always presents a different set of challenges to the food photographer. First of all one is often not just showcasing the food in all its glory. Though most of us go to restaurants or pubs BECAUSE of the food there is much more that influences our decision of where to eat (or drink) . Price is, of course, important but equally if not in most cases more important is ambiance. What does it feel like when you are hanging out someplace. Is it warm and cozy, bright and airy, fun or quiet...just how does it fit the mood you're in at the time?

Recently we've been able to document the ambiance (and the food/drink) in a couple of local restaurants which thank to their amazing staffs and fun-loving patrons was a wonderful experience. These photographs are from one of the local organic brewpubs called Roots.

The other thing that made this project fun is the way our newest digital photo technology allowed us to play with light, mood, color and composition in a very intuitive way. High sensitivity cameras that produce a wonderful image at 1600 or even 3200 ASA, portable lights which can be remotely controlled while they are adding accent or fill to a dark scene along with the instant feedback that the screen of modern cameras offer make this kind of environmental and beverage photograph much more spontaneous even than it was even a couple years ago. (For the photo geeks in the crowd, I am using an SU-800 controlling two separate stobes, 1 SB800 bouncing in the ceiling and one SB900 through a scrim or bouncing into a 36" umbrella and shooting at 400 or 1600 ASA to bring some of the ambient light in play)

Sometimes it seems computers and anything digital just add unnecessary complexity to our already complex lives, in this case the new cameras and way of controlling the lights help us find new ways of seeing and isn't that great!

Thoughts for the end of summer

2009-09-16T14:39:00.000-07:00

It been awhile since I made an entry..all thank goodness to the fact my clients have been keeping me very busy. With the end of summer I thought I post an image of one of my favorite summer appetizers, prosciutto and figs. A simple light dish prepared by my friend from portlandhomechef.com, Brittany Baldwin.

This was shot in the living room of her farmhouse near St Helens, OR where my wife and I spent splendid afternoon shooting for her website, meeting new friends and, of course, sampling all the lovely creations we photographed. Brittany, like many of us here in Portland, lives a double life, part chef, part published fiction writer and poet. I think her poetry carries into her food. It was really fun working directly with the chef, especially one with such great aesthetic.

You know some people ask me if I get bored putting just plates in front of my camera all the time. (especially those friends who knew me in San Francisco where I did more fashion work) For me shooting food is very analogous to shooting fashion. It is the ultimate test of composition just like a headshot or a standard full length clothing shot-deceptively simple yet difficult to make compelling.

Food is alive and just like people you work hard to get to that "decisive moment" when everything is at it's peak and if you dink with it too long that moment will be gone. Finally it is the ultimate collaboration with a chef and/or a food stylist acting just like a fashion model or hair and makeup stylist. They can even talk back like one. ;-) There is no shortage of divas in the food business either. And I admit I love watching everyone of them.

To steal a favorite phrase of an author I just worked with, I say "Salud!" to the summer and everything edible.

2009-08-21T11:22:00.000-07:00

Sometimes when I say it takes a village to make a photograph it can scare off clients because the feel they are working with a "diva" who brings a whole "entourage" with them. But in reality we work with a really tight team in a very collaborative environment. The group consists of me, my photo assistant, our food stylist who on larger jobs has an assistant/chef with them. Often we work with an art director who has created the label or ad we are shooting for and sometimes the clients who we, unlike many photographers, encourage to be there. So this little squad of 4 or 5 people are the ones responsible for making thing look like they should.

What are their responsibilities? Some are what you would expect, some are surprising. The photographer usually is responsible for camera angle, composition and, of course lighting. Practically that means as my stylist puts the dish in front of the camera, it's my job to find the right angle either to match the layout or make the photograph interesting. My assistant is my technical right hand in matters of lighting, composition and digital image processing. The thing that makes their job hard is they are also my right hand in making sure our client, art director and crew are happy in a service kind of way. That means everyone has the coffees, munchies, internet access and anything else the they need to be comfortable and productive during their visit with us.

The stylist's job has begun long before the photo shoot. She has met with the client or AD to figure out what it will take to realize the "vision" of the shoot. She(or he for that matter) has shopped the backgrounds, props and groceries for the shoot and talked to me about what the studio needs to have ready to make the shoot happen. In a sense, at least on food shoots, the stylist is part production coordinator,part stylist until she gets on set when her job is to style and my job(and my assistant's) is to make everything else happen. Very often the food stylist doesn't do any of the cooking but has her assistant prepare and cook everything while she concentrates on the presentation and making sure the client or AD are getting the look she needs.

So you can see how important a good stylist is. Very often clients even follow the stylist from photographer to photographer rather than keep their loyalties with any particular shooter.

All in all a smooth job usually comes from a team that has worked together long enough they know each others habits and foibles well enough to keep things light by not taking things to seriously..remember no lives are usually at stake when making a food photograph..just a career or two. ;-)

This photograph was shot on location at my friends', David and Nicole, restaurant Screen Door, dedicated to serving fresh local ingredients with a southern flair. One of my favorite places to eat here in Portland, OR.

2009-08-06T15:34:00.000-07:00

After a little break where I was shooting soup in a back-of-house environment and some chocolate and pecans for a catalog, I'm back working on the cookbook. We photographed (and had later for lunch) one of the mostly unusually named dishes I ever had. It was called "Oiseaux san la Tete" which literally means "birds without heads". At first I was thinking it was a French version of those exotic songbird dishes one finds in the East but birds have nothing do do with it. Imagine veal, pounded very thin, wrapped around a ball of spiced pork sausage, tied up with butcher's string and sauteed in a red wine and shallot reduction. When cooked it does resemble, vaguely, little brown birds bodies which you then slice into 1/2 inch thick irregularly shaped disks and enjoy.
Yes it was as good as it sounds., especially when served with a little polenta and dandelion greens as a counterpoint. This brings up a question we get all the time, "Do you guys use all that fake stuff to make the food look good, you know like...?" and I then get a litany of mashed potatoes for ice cream, glue for milk etc. That fact is that for the most part (except for the fake ice cream which is often necessary) food styling is real. A little oil, a little undercooking but for the the most part real and we often get to try what we shoot...as long as it hasn't been on set too long. We always say we can do a better job if we can taste what goes in front of the camera..especially if it involves really good expensive cuts of meat, fish or cheese, ;-). Here's a photograph I did of a couple of chefs for Bridgeport Brewing and our own inimitable Jeffrey Thomas(in the middle) our producer standing for the third chef. Prost!

2009-07-30T15:02:00.000-07:00

After shooting chocolate on Portland's hottest day of the year, I just wanted to write a couple of words about food photography. The best food photographers work collaboratively with a food stylist. These people are professionals, sometimes with a fine art background, sometimes with a catering or chef 's background but always with lots and lots of experience preparing food for the camera. Very important is to paraphrase Alexey Brodovitch, famous art director for Vogue, "..all that's required is good taste." That and a really good hand for something like Jango...the still camera is an all discerning eye which requires a perfection real time food or even moving food images don't. The best of these professionals are a joy to work with because they bring so much taste and very often humor to a shoot. They are usually unflappable and very detail oriented, every bit as dedicated to getting the job done as the photographer is. I am lucky to work with a couple of these people in Lucy Radys and Carol Ladd and I think these folks are really the unsung heros of the food world who make my job possible. Thanks you all. And how about now a picture of something cool and light for summer supper with local Oregon hazelnuts and Tillamook cheese

2009-07-24T08:03:00.000-07:00

Just started a new cookbook. This one shot on location in a beautiful house overlooking the vineyards in Oregon wine country. Long hours and lots of pressure to make everything look great mitigated only by the the facts of working for and with a really amazing family who make it loads of fun. Oh and did I mention the shoot lunches where we get to eat what we shoot. 1st day grilled salmon and baked savoy cabbage, 2nd day thinly sliced flank steak with farrow salad and fresh radishes...all served with the appropriate wine...life can be tough but it has its rewards. ;-) It's not fair to the author to reveal the photographs or recipes yet but here's another summery photograph we did just to wet the appetite, I hope.

2009-07-15T13:01:00.000-07:00

Some people have asked me what the secret is to great food photography. I first say teamwork...because it takes more than a creative person with a camera to make food look its best. But I'll talk more about the "village" it takes to make a photograph in another post.

There is another quality to great food photography and that is something I call "mouth appeal". Mouth appeal means more than a pair of luscious lips. It's the quality that sets apart great food photography from the mediocre. Mouth appeal makes the food look so appetizing that you can really imagine it's aroma and taste.

You simply want to eat it then and there...and making people want to eat is what great food photography is all about.

2009-07-14T11:04:00.000-07:00

2009-07-14T10:32:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the first post of my new food blog. I've started this as an attempt to reach out to the community of "foodies" in a way that we "pros behind the scene" don't do often enough.

Yes my name is Michael and I'm a food addict. But I'm not just addicted to the way it tastes but I am addicted to the way food appeals to all the senses. The sound when a skirt steak first hits an oiled skillet, the fresh smell of mangos as as they are just cut open, the texture of warm grits in the mouth or the wonderful feel of warm butter as it slides off an ear of corn. But I am especially addicted to the sheer beauty of food arranged on a plate. To me a beautiful image of food is the ultimate visual metaphor of anticipation which awakens all the other senses. Of course one can't forget even as the eyes are the first to devour the food it is the mouth (and the stomach) which give the ultimate satisfaction

But this addiction comes from the fact that for the past eight of the thirty years I spent in this business of photography I have been photographing food as a specialty. Sometimes it is for national clients who names you might recognized, sometimes for local shops or purveyors and once in awhile, for even single entrepreneurs with a great idea they feel the world is ready for.

Hopefully you who read this will find my comments and experiences of interest as we share some of the little part of the food world my photographic and culinary experiences represent.

Bon Appetit