Posts Tagged ‘food photography’
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, [...]
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 [...]
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 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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
Website Refresh and PhotoShelter Integration
I usually try to update my website every year or so to adapt for the way that my career and life has evolved. Last year when I updated jonathangayman.com I was more focused on marketing towards my corporate clients, but in the past year my work has started to slide more towards the food and [...]
Sauce Magazine – July 2011
As I mentioned in my previous post, I did some work for Sauce Magazine, a culinary magazine here in St. Louis. While the majority of my work these days is corporate, I have been exploring food culture and photography over at my blog Shoot To Cook, and it is always exciting to get food assignments. [...]
Companion at Niche
I was recently invited to attend an event at Niche along with other local bloggers and food writers. Sponsored by Companion the event was hosted by Josh Allen of Companion and Chef Gerard Craft of Niche, a Food & Wine Best New Chef in 2008 and a two-time James Beard Finalist. Companion’s bread is served [...]
Food Gallery
Jonathan is also a food photographer in St. Louis. He publishes a food blog called Shoot To Cook which features his recipes and experimentations in the kitchen. Check out his portfolio for some of his recent work as well as the samples below. This is a gallery of some on his recent work. Click on [...]
Making Pasta
I love the taste of home made pasta. Like home made bread, it is hard to go back to the store bought kind once you’re used to making it at home. While home made pasta can be enjoyable, intense and delicious, making it can sometimes inspire madness (like a Fellini film). This short series of [...]
Shoot To Cook
One of my motivations for getting into food photography was learning how to cook. As a way for me to learn how to be more competent in the kitchen and to hone my technique in food photography I started a food blog called Shoot To Cook: A Food and Photography Blog. On the blog I [...]