FOOD PHOTOGRAPHY FOR A COUNTRY CLUB

With the advent of cell phone camera's just about every person with a camera on their cell phone takes a picture of just about anything. One of the most posted picture online is food that we eat at a Chinese restaurant, a Vietnamese Pho, Filipino cuisine, at the Japanese Sushi place and even gourmet food from high end restaurants. One encounter of a client who was the owner, cook and marketing man for his restaurant, called for me to quote him for pictures of his food product for a brochure. I checked on the type of food that was to be photograph and then made my quote which did not agree with the owner. Then to add insult to injury he said he will just take the pictures himself since he has a Canon camera. What I am trying to say here is that this is not an isolated incident since every Tom, Dick and Stanley who has a camera thinks that they are photographers already. I have always said that let the Doctor do the doctoring and the photographer do the photographing.

Anyway, I have images below that I photograph for a Country Club that ended up on their menu. The location was a room in the club that I have set up as my studio and the chef prepared the product right before they were ready to be photograph. I had to visually prepare my presentation for each of the plate that was brought up to me. I used a set of strobe lights present using a mock up model to accomplish the best presentation.  When I do shoots like this the goal is to see to it that the client is always satisfied with the finished product, after all they pay the bill. In the coming food articles I will feature inside restaurant shoot, an italian restaurant and a Filipino cookery sales company.

This is a Crab Ball on a white plate and due to the way it was presented I had my main light at angle off

centered so the light shadow on the foreground gave detail to the depth of the plate that directed the eye

to the food itself.  

The sauce on this presentation was allowed to flow towards the front of the plate to grab the attention of

the onlooker to the fish which is the main dish plated on top of shortened crab legs and away from the decorative rim of the plate.

 The berry's where place of centered to the front of the camera and by doing so it balance out the dominant figure on the round dish and the peppermint leaves separated it from the white plate.

ALLEN FREDRICK - SINGER

I spent the 2016 Thanksgiving weekend in San Francisco get away. I stayed at the Holiday Inn which was about two blocks from Fisherman's Wharf and that was very ideal since I just wanted to walk around and play tourist. I have been and had seen this tourist destination many many times but more on a professional basis so my attention was more on work such as photographing various interest for a client. Today was all different since as I mentioned, today I was a tourist. I brought my walking camera, a Canon G15 and taking pictures of things that a tourist does. On the photographs below you will see some of what the location offer such as a good crab sandwich and tomato soup that is superb and other theatrical elements that Fisherman's Wharf offers.

But what a caught my eye or maybe to be appropriate, what caught my ear is hearing a street performer singing Beach Boys songs, hey this was my era. Anyway, I went closer and sat down on a bench and watch and listen to this guy belt out a variety of selection from my time and pretty soon it felt like I was in a concert in the park. So being a tourist I took bout my camera and started snapping pictures of the singer, the surroundings, event a man hitting the bottle drinking from a bottle inside his jacket. I saw people participated by freely dancing to the music and singing with him. I travelled back to my a time that was a big part of me and I was enjoying it again.

I had to meet this singer so I approach the man to find out what his name was and I ended up buying three of his CD's that had his name on. ALLEN FREDRICK that is his name and if you want to know more about this concert artist in the park go to his website: http://allenfredrick.com and check him out.
So, when you go to San Francisco, I strongly suggest that you go to the Fisherman's Wharf and sit down and enjoy his music that just blends to the ambience of the area which just a great place to relax.

Please check out the pictures and the video of Allen Fredrick actual performance. Your comments will be highly appreciated.

So until our next featured artist, be safe and keep SMILIN........

 

 

ASIAN AMERICAN PACIFIC ISLANDER

The Asian American Pacific Islander, a group of Hillary Clinton supporters had introduced to mainstream a traditional practice in the Philippines of community camaraderie, celebration a show of support, and in this instance to elect the first woman president of America. I remember when my friends and I played basketball on a vacant dirt lot every weekend that turns out to be a local community entertainment for the kids and the surrounding houses around this one goal dirt playground. After a half day of playing basketball, we will head on to a very clean flowing river nearby and have an impromptu picnic where banana leaves are placed on flat bed of rocks and rice with whatever dish we cooked on the leaves and we'd all gather to eat with our hands (Kamayan) and tell stories of the day. That is how we'd spend a beautiful sunday with friends. The Asian American Pacific Islander group brought this to the Hillary campaign headquarters in Las Vegas and started this tradition and immediately it was a hit amongst the locals, because it gave them an excuse to get together and tell stories as to why they support Hillary etc. etc. etc.

This Kamayan idea was an effective way for the organizers to convey their messages to both the young and the old why they should go out and vote. AAPI successfully came across the community and was able to desiminate the message " Stronger Together". Below are some pictures that I have taken that clearly shows the success of this event headed by Margie Gonzales, Kate Recto Susan Rowland, Cindy  de los Santos, Felipe Danglapin, Jo Beck, Gwynne Dumbrique, Ian Amaranto, Rose Manalo-Bortles and assisted by Norberto Harvey, German Eusebio, Tony Mendoza.

This is in collaboration with Fil-Ams and Phil Kim AAPI Outreach Director of Nevada Coordinated Campaign. The photos below shows how this event was an enjoyable event due to the entertainment and good Filipino food.

Organizers: The Asian American Pacific Islanders

Community leader Kate Recto Torres with West Sacramento Mayor Christopher L. Cabaldon
a Filipino American

Delicious Filipino food served on banana leaves

West Sacramento Mayor Christopher L. Cabaldon

Rozita Lee a long time community leader speaks to the group of Kamayan attendees.