culinary

Hanks Seafood - Food Shoot

Walking into Hank's Seafood in Charleston, SC is like walking into a beautiful old world restaurant. With it's rich beautiful wood walls, leather covered banquets and patina mirrors behind the bar, you just feel comfortable and excited about the food that's to come. If you're in Charleston and in the mood for some tasty high end seafood, Hank's is definitely the place to go! 

I recently collaborated on a food shoot with the restaurant to update its images for some marketing needs. I had the awesome Liz Demos doing what she does with props. The in-house Chef Tim Richardson was great to work with and super accommodating of our slower process of shooting styled and propped food, which can be tough on a chef.

We all had a great time working with the kitchen staff (who shared "family meal" with us, they can make a mean lasagna), learned about the chef's garden and pickling endeavors and created some wonderful photos (which was the whole point). These are some of my favorites, hope you enjoy them too and have the chance to check out the delicious food at Hank's soon!

Wall Street Journal - Chef Mike Lata

I happen to do a lot of work with chef's and I find that they are all very focused and always interested in doing new and inspiring things with their food and restaurants. Mike Lata is no exception to this. His two restaurants FIG and The Ordinary here in Charleston are wonderful and pushing the culinary scene around town. 

I had the pleasure of photographing his home for the second time recently for The Wall Street Journal. As always Mike was very welcoming and up for letting us do our thing and whatever we needed. We got some great images and had a good time as always. 

Below is the tearsheet from the printed edition. You can see the online edition here.

Till next time Chef! 

Here's a few extra's that weren't published online...

And here are a few of my favorite images from the first shoot I did at Chef's house for another publication just over a year ago...

The Local Palate - Red Peas...

If you've never been to Sapelo Island, GA then you are definitely missing out. It is a magical place to visit, consisting of a small community on a beautiful island that has the most spanish moss I have yet to encounter. The residents of the island are welcoming with a true southern hospitality. One of the things they are doing on the island is working very hard to sustain the Sapelo Island Red Pea, which is an amazingly tasty little legume that has a long history with the island and it's geechee culture. Check out the Sapelo Island Red Pea Project for more info on what they are doing. A few months ago I had the chance to travel out to the island for a shoot with The Local Palate to document some of the work they are doing and help spread the word about the sustainability of this pea. Here are the tear sheets from the magazine, which I though they did a fantastic job with! I look forward to visiting the island many times in the future...

Blackberries...

It's summer now and those beautiful blackberries are popping up all over. This is talented Pastry Chef Sean Ehland from McCrady's here in Charleston. He does some wonderful dishes with these and many other fresh fruit throughout the year. He was a trooper for waking up first thing in the morning and making a trip outside of Charleston for a shoot at the blackberry farm!

Sustainable Seafood...

I had a great time working with The Local Palate on a story about about sustainable seafood which is in the June/July 2014 issue. I learned a lot about seafood and how the sustainable market works and doesn't work. There are a lot of hard working fisherman that need their product used locally and purchased through the proper channels. The more this product is used in local restaurants and purchased by local residents the better!

So go out and buy some local seafood!