News
Overdue Vacation and the Fuji X100
Dr. Fiance and I hadn’t had a vacation since we went to South Africa in 2010. Which isn’t to say we haven’t traveled at all. I am on the road all the time for work and of course we’ve hit the east coast a number of times during the interim for holidays and friends and [...]
Food Photography Tips: Using Salt and Pepper Shakers as Stand-Ins
If you’re shooting food for a commercial client, before you get to the actual shot you have plenty of time to prepare. You start by building your set and lighting scheme, you get your camera set, and then, using a stand-in dish, you tweak every detail until everything is exactly the way you (and the [...]
Hot Pots!
Once upon a time, I went a birthday dinner of a friend at Grand Sichuan in New York City. There were about ten people in attendance and the meal consisted of a giant pot of simmering broth over a table side propane burner into which we dipped all manner of delicacies both familiar (raw vegetables, [...]
Wes Johnson for Feast Magazine
Last month right before the print deadline, I squeezed in a quick shoot with Chef Wes Johnson for Feast Magazine. I met Wes at his downtown loft for an impromptu portrait session right before he was scheduled to head off on a “barbecue road trip.” I kinda wish I would have had the opportunity to [...]
Still Life With Eggplant
Working with raw foods can be an interesting task, mainly because you need to create drama and interest without having a fully cooked dish to work with. When shooting raw foods or ingredients it is particularly important to start with really beautiful subjects. As I mentioned in my last post about the bitter melon, I [...]
Personal Projects and A Bitter Melon
How many posts do you think I can possibly start with some variation of the phrase “It’s been a busy month and I haven’t had time to work on the blog”? Apparently a lot. The good news (for me anyway) is that the reason posting has been so light lately has been because of the [...]
Bacon, Lettuce and More Bacon
You know, the best things in life come with bacon. Pretty much everyone will tell you that adding bacon to something will make it that much better. Have you ever had a BLT? Well, de.lish Cheesecake Bakery and Cafe has taken that sandwich up a notch by removing the tomato and replacing it with … [...]
The Art of Making Coffee
Let me get straight to the point: my name is Jonathan and I am addicted to coffee. Like a lot of people I start each day with a giant mug of the stuff. Thanks to a great travel mug that my dad got me last year, my coffee stays nice and warm all morning. I [...]
St. Louis Taste Makers
I have a fascination with the food culture, which is one of the reasons I jumped at the chance to photograph some of the influential people in the St. Louis food scene for a feature in Feast Magazine. As I mentioned in a previous post, one of the people that I photographed for this project [...]
St. Louis Magazine’s 50 Best Dishes
There is a lot of really excellent food in St. Louis, but with my work schedule I don’t get to eat out as much as I would like. The great thing about being a food photographer though is that you get exposed to all sorts of great food that you might not otherwise simply by [...]
On Assignment: Catherine Neville, Publisher of Feast Magazine
If you’ve been following my blog for the last few months, you will have noticed that I’ve been doing a lot of work for Feast magazine here in St. Louis. Feast is one of two excellent food publications that I work with. As a photographer interested in food and food culture, I am lucky to [...]
Strip Mall Cuisine: Korea House in Creve Coeur
I always seem to start my blog posts these days with some sort of comparison of my old life in New York City versus my current life in St. Louis. The reason this happens, I suppose, is that things really are different in a my two cities and I’m constantly amazed as I discover new [...]
On Assignment: Mayor Francis G. Slay
When people ask me what I like about St. Louis, almost always the first thing that I mention is the awesome loft that Dr. Fiance and I were able to buy here. In New York, we had approximately 450 square feet in the East Village (which was the largest apartment that we’d ever had in [...]
Comfort Food at Dressel’s Public House
Even though it hasn’t been super cold in St. Louis so far this winter, there have been a few chilly days. If you’re looking for some comfort food, take a trip to the Central West End to Dressel’s Public House. It’s a cozy pub (with a fireplace) that has some delicious cold weather food. In [...]
Food Gift Ideas for Self Promotion
2011 was a really spectacular year for me as a photographer. It was my first full year working as freelance photographer in St. Louis, and with the purchase of a downtown loft over the summer it was the first year time in my career that I have had dedicated studio space. In addition, I was [...]
Blood & Sand
Last month I was given an assignment to photograph Blood & Sand for Feast Magazine. Unlike other speakeasy-style bars in St. Louis, you don’t enter this one through a back door in an alley by the dumpsters. Tucked away on a side street off of Washington Avenue in downtown St. Louis is a small set [...]
Salsiccia Pizza with Egg at Mad Tomato in St. Louis
A few days before the Cardinals won the World Series, I was on assignment in Clayton at Mad Tomato photographing (among other things) their fabulous Salsiccia pizza for Sauce magazine. I am a huge pizza fan and have been making it at home for quite some time now. My version of a salsiccia pizza is [...]
To Crop or Not to Crop
Cropping in photography is an important tool that can be used to change the meaning of a photograph, by drawing the viewer’s attention to a different part of the image than in the un-cropped version. Digital photography has made cropping easy as pie. Heck, these days, you can even crop your photos on your cell [...]
Home Wine Kitchen
Last month I photographed Home Wine Kitchen in Maplewood for Sauce Magazine. Nestled in a strip of retail stores and restaurants Home Wine Kitchen has a rustic design (with some beautiful photography on the walls) and some amazing food. Chef Cassandra Vires (who was super cool to work with) changes her menu frequently with a [...]
The Other Side of the Camera
As a professional photog, it is a rare occasion when you are the subject rather than the photographer, and it can be a bit disconcerting to be on the other side of the camera. Last week, my friend and fellow photographer Corey Woodruff lugged his gear over to my studio to photograph me as part [...]
Feast Magazine Donuts and Coffee Shoot
Back in August I was assigned a coffee and donuts shoot by Feast Magazine. The brief was fairly straight forward: five local donut shots, five local coffee companies, five shots of coffee and donuts. This project turned out to be incredibly fun, both from the standpoint of dreaming up five different breakfast scenes for the [...]
Feast Magazine and The Beauty of the Spork
Over the last few months I have continued to extend my editorial client list which now includes Feast Magazine, another excellent culinary publication here in St. Louis. My first project for Feast was for an article on Porters Fried Chicken for the September issue that hit the newstands a few days ago. Have you had [...]
On Assignment: The Block in Webster Groves
I have been in St. Louis for just over a year now (where did the time go??) and while my navigational skills are getting better, I still have a lot to learn about the various neighborhoods in the area. I have enough trouble getting around these neighborhoods, let alone familiarizing myself with all of the [...]
Dvin for Sauce Magazine
I recently had the pleasure of photographing Dvin restaurant in Webster Groves, St. Louis. Dvin is a tiny family restaurant run by the mother/daughter team: mom cooks and daughter serves. The interior really feels like you’re having dinner in a Ukranian grandmother’s living room filled with Eastern European tsotchkes and knick-knacks. The exterior windows are [...]