Food Styling at Amelia's Restuarant in Gainesville, FL

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Yesterday I filmed a series of instructional videos and captured food beauty shots for Chef Andy Fass, owner of Amelia's Restaurant (www.ameliasgainesville.com) located in Gainesville, Florida. Our goal with this client was to create compelling website content that will attract people to come to the website, come back often, build his brand and reputation, and, ultimately, convert website visitors into customers . The videos consisted of Chef Andy teaching people how to create classic Italian dishes, insightful cooking techniques, how to determine food quality, and communicate his restaurant's cooking philosophy

Video Camcorders Used

We shot the videos with two camcorders, one on a Steadicam to handle the main shots and the second camera handheld to dive in for those extreme close ups. It was challenging working in the relatively tight space of a kitchen augmented with light

s. I had to be accutely aware of the light angles to avoid casting unwanted shadows onto the subjects while panning, pushing, and backing up the Steadicam. Oh, and avoiding getting the other camera operator or the audio technician with his boom into the shot.

Audio Considerations
Audio-wise this shoot was also a challenge with the refrigerator and fan motors whirring constantly in the backgro

und. We recorded Chef Andy with both a lapel lavalier microphone and a boom microphone handled by a roving technician. We also have the audio from the Steadicam camcorder which recorded the audio using its built-in mics. We monitored the audio as we shot, adjusting the levels as required, so we expect to get excellent resultant audio from mixing the various sources.

Organic Food Styling

For the still photography, I set up studio strobe lights on site i

n a corner of the restaurant. As Chef Andy completed the meals for the video, we then paused the video shoot to take the still images of the food.

As consistent with our trademark, all the food beauty photography was executed on the dishes just as they were prepared by the chef. Nothing inedible (or even edible, like oil) was added or spayed onto to the food. They represent the precise dish created by the chef that was created in the video footage.

It's great to see the positive reaction to the still images of the food as I take them even though the plated food is right there in front of them! It just reaffirms that the true drama and beauty can only be brought out with the proper balance and direction of the food itself, the lighting, mirrors, and reflectors.

Landscape Videos running at Southern New Hampshire Home & Landscape Show

Two videos I produced for landscaping companies are running now at the 2010 Southern New Hampshire Home and Landscape Show at Rockingham Park, Salem, NH. The photo shows their booth with two 42" displays running the videos. Both companies are great, family-run businesses that have been around over 25 years. Ron Libby & Sons (http://ronlibbyandson.com) and Groundhog Landscaping (http://www.groundhognh.com).

My Photos on www.ledzeppelin.com!

My Led Zeppelin photos have now been published on LedZeppelin.com!

As of this date, my photo is on the lead page of the photo gallery.

Clicking on the thumbnail and the same photo is the link to the 1976-1977 section.

Clicking on this thumbnail takes you to the 1976-77 collection and my photos are the first nine.

Led Zeppelin at Madison Square Garden June 11, 1977

I was a Junior in High School when Led Zeppelin booked Madison Square Garden in New York City for a week of concerts in June of 1977. We were able to score tickets because they were sold by mail order - the promoter's brilliant plan to circumvent the scalpers from getting the best seats. The downside, of course, was that we had no control where our seats would be. To our great surprise we received seats in the first tier of the Garden right next to the stage (stage left). Simply awesome seats! The last photo below shows the perspetive of where we were.


I shot Tri-X, Kodacolor II, and Panatomic-X. A whopping three rolls of film! Today I would easily snap off a thousand shots today at a concert. Boy, how times have changed.

I had a 50mm and 200mm lens and my Dad's Pentax body. Looking back at the photos now, I'm disappointed to see blurred shots and the graininess of the film. I kept the negatives in plastics sheets, but they still had tons of scratches and dirt on them. I discovered that the anti-scratch software on the Nikon Coolscan 4000 scanner would not work on the black and white images at all, so these shots were cleaned up entirely by hand - not the most fun Photoshop work.

I was amazed to see how much information there is on the web for this specific concert date. Personal accounts. Photos. Even audio from the entire concert! All these years I had no idea.

The first black & white photo of Jimmy Page was just as the show opened with "The Song Remains The Same" playing his famed double-neck Gibson guitar and sporting nice, blown-dry hair (that didn't last long). The color picture was taken during his extended guitar solo towards the end of the show. You can't see it, but he is wielding his bow above his head. During the solo he was touching the laser beam that was passing over his head. This scattered the light all over the arena. I remember at the time thinking it was a very cool effect and a novel use of the laser.

I know people might find this hard to believe, but I found the concert to be both one of the best shows I ever saw while also having the distinction of being the most boring at times (during the extended keyboard and drum solos). I think I would have appreciated those moments more now. Back then I was probably more interested in just hearing what I was familiar with from the albums. With age I've come to appreciate and enjoy the improvisation more.

I remember at the end of the show that the lights came up in the arena and no one left. The crowd continued to scream loud and unabated. After what seemed a VERY long time, the lights cut out and Jimmy starts playing those great notes from the beginning of "Heartbreaker." In looking at the play lists for all the shows during the week at the Garden, they didn't play this every night, so I think it was quite special to see them perform it. Great way to finish a Led Zeppelin concert.

I hope the die-hard Led Zeppelin fans find this article so they can enjoy the photos. I have more to post if there's any interest.

Go here for more first-hand accounts of this concert.