Dark rich moody and delightfully tasty salty gorgonzola with orange blossom honey on tasty Gail’s sour dough
Gail’s Bakery baguettes smothered in the nicest garlic butter. Bet you can’t just have one!!
OUT WITH THE OLD AND IN WITH THE NEW
As summer draws to the end, we photographed the last sun ripened tomatoes on Gail's Bakery wonderful new sour dough bread range
As the the fruit begins to fall off the trees the ‘funghi’ appears as the dew becomes heavier and the cooler nights draw in. The girolles (or as predictive text tries to write ‘girlies’) are so beautiful with their amazing yellow tone and wonderful flavour.
This has been an amazingly warm Indian summer which has resulted in the sweetest butter nut squashes. Our daal & butternut squash with chilli oil fire-cracker recipe for bonfire night captures amazing seasonal autumnal tones with an added firey hit.
NEW CHOCOLATE SHOOT
This job featured the most amazing Cocoa Jones chocolate made by family Michael & Naz Ogazi & packaging from http://supplestudio.com/ Phil Skinner the designer produced the most beautiful designs. Stunningly colourful and reflective of the product.
M&S CHICKEN TIKKA MASALA LAUNCH
We shot a social media campaign for M&S to launch their new Indian range. Our brief was to shoot their best seller, Chicken Tikka Masala with the main shot being the tikka cooked over red hot coals in a tandoori oven.
We shot the coals separately because of the heat haze from the charcoal below and the tikka as a separate layer against red so it would reflect into the meat to simulate the flames below.
It will make a really good campaign
JUST EAT
There is very little humour in todays advertising which is a shame. We used to have wonderful funny ads from Heineken, Castlemaine to name two but obviously today ads have to be more hard hitting
Our recent campaign for Just Eat is an exception. Although we don’t have the Just Eat Subway, Itsu, Pizza, KFC posters and Gifs I attach a few in situ examples
The layout for the KFC ad
AMV BBDO
I love working with AMV BBDO, the Rolls Royce of advertising. They have been the top or second best agency for 30 years. We had a fantastic few days shooting the newly won Asda account (which replaced Sainsbury’s) with 2 brilliant CD’s/Art Directors Colin Jones & David Hillyard. The poster, press , SM & Pos is out this September
DAVE and TOR TIE THE KNOT
Dave’s now married and what a wonderful day, full of northern hospitality and to a lovely young lady, Tor.
I have known Dave for seven years and have never seen him in a bad mood. He is very open and non judgemental and deserves to meet and marry such a lovely girl.
We wish you years of happiness. It was lovely meeting Dave & Tor’s lovely family and friends.
“He’s only gone and done it” (quote by wonderful MOTD commentator, Barry Davies
Congratulations to a really very special couple. They are wonderful, you couldn’t meet a better matched team
Tor blooming on her special day marrying her Univ’ sweet heart.
Yorkshire Dales
After arriving back from Italy we shot AMV BBDO’s first campaign for ASDA with Colin Jones and David Hillyard (2 great AD’s & blokes) before heading up North to the Yorkshire Dales.
Although the barometer dropped from 36 to 7C the scenery was spectacular as beautiful as anywhere in the world. It will stay with me for years (& also the incredible haddock & chips in Magpie’s, Whitby - simply memorable).
What we forget is how clear the air is on the Yorkshire Dales and how polluted London is, which must be bad for our health.
The three trees, in Muker (sounds like a pub)
The grass is so wonderfully green and weather is so changeable
If you only eat fish and chips once in your life make sure it’s from Magpie’s, Whitby. The beef dripping gives it so much flavour.
A slightly chilly beach resort
Haddock & chips, 100% delicious
The beautiful mountain sheep
Yorkshire at it’s finest
Beautiful salmon river with rich tan water from the peat
The dairy, Wensleydale. Beautiful Yorkie cheese
ITALIAN SUMMERS
What a brilliant project to shoot in Italy celebrating their hot summers. I have shot so many food shoots in Italy it was lovely shooting something else, especially when it is 36C, full sun and no clouds.
One of the main areas I wanted to capture was the blue sky and lots of summery primary colours.
Monte Rosso, Cinque Terre, Liguria
Girls having fun
Swimmers
Summer holidays by the beach - fishing and swimming
Not a cloud in the sky
Aqua fresh - the Med, simply magical
Pravha adv' campaign
We used a wonderful location for this shoot owned by a great friend and wonderful food stylist, Sarah Tildesley at Paper Mill Studios and a beer expert genius, Adrian flew in from Malalaga in Spain to style the bottle.
With two incredibly important cogs we shot a really nice campaign for Pravha, Vccp who are a brilliant agency to work with.
NEW KRICKET WORK
Kricket was voted number 52 in the Best 100 Restaurants in UK. Chef, Will Bowlby's ambition was to have his own restaurant by 30; he better that as he has 3.
We had a great day with Will & Rik last week, here are some of the pics.
Beef tartare
Old Naranghi cocktails
Kricket's beer kegs
Indian mangoes
Ultimate pork scratching
Asparagus & mushroom
Crispy oyster and mussels in a coconut Keralan sauce
Pigs head vindaloo
New menu range
Seafood range
Will in the kitchen
Partner, Rik Campbell
Brixton is a great venue
KFC, Kerelan Fried Chicken, so good. One plate is never enough
LINA'S STORES
I thought I knew a fair amount Italian food but watching and photographing the pasta being made at Lina's made me really appreciate the craft and what good value it is at Lina's.
Now I appreciate every mouthful and recognise the work that went into it.
Piping the ricotta and spinach into the agnolotti
Rolls of pappardelle
Opened in Brewer Street, Soho in 1947 by Lina an Italian immigrant from Genoa
Pasta sheets being turned before rolling and slicing into pappardelle
Eating gnudi outside on the bar
Head chef, Masha with a selection of her wonderful pastas
I love this dish, lemon sorbet served on a glass of lemoncello; such a wonderful simple execution
We all love a Sicilian cannoli which was made famous in the film The Godfather https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35fLKn2Tq3o
Masha on the pass
Marina, a Puglian beauty
I love sitting on the bar, chatting to the staff, watching the dishes being prepared, seeing delicious pastas being served
The lovely team at Lina's
FORTNUM & MASON'S PHOTOGRAPHER 2018
We take photos because we love our craft so to win awards is a real endorsement of our creativity and passion. To win the F&M Awards means even more because I love everything Fortnum's stands for.
Winning Photographer of the Year 2018
Chicken Tikka from my winning folio entry.
A huge 'Thank you' to Dave Gatenby for his brilliant food styling and superb work behind the camera. Dave has played a huge role helping me win this award.
Burrata, I love these silky moist textures
Hake in coconut Keralan sauce, Kricket. I have worked with Will and Rik from the early days in Pop Brixton serving superb food from a tiny metal container. Will plates up food beautifully, a very rare gift and Rik is a charming serial entrepreneur a wonderfully open and positive man. They have started a brilliant Indian tapas, which could open in any trendy city in the world.
KFC, Keralan Fried Chicken, Kricket. Will Bowlby has such a unique skill with flavour combinations and textures.
Lamb chops from the Kricket cook booked with Hardie Grant, commissioned by Kajal Misty. Natalie & Laurie with the great food styling. Who wouldn't want to pick up these and eat them?
Octopus, nature is so wonderful. Used by Giggling Squid for their identity pr.
Hot Dogs with Frenchy's. I love these brash NY strong colours
Butchers under their sign, 'A little fat does you good', Tuscany from a project I have been working on with chef Aurelio Barattini on a trattoria 'Antica Locanda di Sesto, Lucca
FORTNUM and Mason Best Photographer Award
I love this brand, so I am delighted to be connected and selected to be in the final three of their Awards 2018 as their photographer of the year.
The party is on 10th May, so fingers crossed. It's a great party.
Kricket book
This has been a wonderful project to work on. Will is an amazing chef, Run for the Hills are a great design team and Hardie Grant have been fun to work with.
NEW KRICKET
It is a busy time for Kricket and I am delighted to have been involved with them from the embryonic stage, going back to the early days in Pop Brixton.
They are now well established in Soho and are returning to Brixton in the old Brindisa building. They are also opening in White City in the old BBC building under Soho House. Will & Rik have an amazing concept and i don't think it will be too long before they have some more venues abroad, possibly in trendy cities like Berlin, Melbourne. Perhaps they will do a deal with a top hotel chain?
TREATMENTS
Most jobs now require a photographic treatment which comes from the tv commercials side of the business and designed to eliminate all problems prior to a shoot, so when the agency & client arrives everyone knows what each group will do with everyone pulling together.
It's similar to a 'Cook Up' prior to the shoot, which is such a sensible practical approach to how each dish should look in the final ad and how it would work with certain props, the size required etc. Both ideas are good as we all arrive on the day of the shoot knowing what everyone wants.
However, I was talking to another photographer who said she has one proto-type 'Treatment' which she sends to every client just changing a few tweaks, like changing names. As these are generally successful pitches for jobs it made me think that this can't be right as each treatment should be different for each job or are the people that make the decisions actually reading the treatment? Maybe they already know who they want to use or perhaps they like one picture which is similar to the job? This means the technical breakdown, prop descriptions etc are irrelevant.
Most agency provide 3 treatments to clients and sometimes the decision is made prior to these treatments being presented. In someways this is good; if the client chooses an agency to do their ads why not trust them to make a decision who they want to work with.
A few years ago agencies had Art Buyers who recommended a few photographers to the art director would make the final choice. Nowadays Project Managers decide the suitable candidates, sometimes using Instagram to find a certain photographer. They may hash tag Coffee and see what turns up or who has the most likes.
I love Art Buyers but they are a dying breed. A good AB can recommend a certain experienced photographer to work with a young art director or vice versa. I showed my folio recently to 2 AB's and I was impressed with how much they know about the craft of photography. A PM can't have this information as they have been trained differently - this isn't to say they have other useful skills to add, such as the business side.
I have a top award winning senior art director friend who lost his job and now works freelance at a top agency. I would have thought he would have been wanted by every agency. He is a very nice person with a brilliant work ethic, hugely creative and easy to work with so he must be the perfect AD to have in an ad agency, especially as he wins major awards every year. Maybe the advertising business no longer wants wonderfully crafted ads; if you look at many ads they no longer have that wonderful creative spark, there are very few with humour or superb design. I think this is a real shame.
Recently a lot of financial institutions have bought advertising agencies which doesn't help with creative input from the top. The crazy days of Mad Men appear to have disappeared!!
Although Don had several negative points, nothing satisfied him more than a good ad. We all love good photography, type, design and brilliant ads, some with humour. Some of the most successful ads, like Heineken and other beer ads used humour as a huge selling point - bring it back, please.
NEW WEBSITE
This week we launched my new website, so wanted to shoot a picture for the 'About' section. Rather than having an image of me I thought I would shoot my Dad's wonderful old Canon rangefinder. Not only are these cameras beautiful, all metal, I thought it was a good reflection of my recent work. I decided to shoot this in black and white, adding some grain in post as if it's a retro Magnum photo from the 60's.
A website should be something you're proud of as it's the show piece of one's work and career. It should be constantly updated with new fresh images. I anticipate we will add 100- 200 pictures a year. If you love your work, you should be adding new pictures every week.
CHARLIE HICKS, Mr FRUIT & VEG
Last week I went to a school friend, Charlie Hicks' funeral. He was the 5th generation fruit and veg man and presenter of Veg Talk on BBC Radio 4 with Greg Wallace http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09r3qv0
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/ng-interactive/2018/feb/25/the-ofm-50-everything-we-love-in-the-world-of-food-right-nowCharlie was a character and started off in Covent Garden working for his Dad's company Richard Hicks, when it was the original Veg market. His Dad owned Shorts Gardens, WC2, buying it when the area was rough and ready. They ran a very successful business supplying 95% of London restaurants. As a result, his Dad who flew a Spitfire in World War 2, flew Charlie to school in his helicopter and commuted to London from their Sussex farm in his chopper. His father who was an old English eccentric formulated a way of preventing his fleet of 50 veg lorries from receiving parking tickets from outside their warehouses by linking them together and connecting them to an electrical power surge.
Charlie, like me was a huge Bowie fan, which played almost throughout his funeral service. It was lovely talking to fellow foodies Greg Wallace, who is full of charm and enthusiasm, Xanthe Clay and so many good friends. He was a very popular man, a great friend.
David's photo was from one of my first commissions working for Bowie on the Isolar 11 World Tour, working alongside David Hemmings who starred in the classic film Blow Up. He directing a feature on the tour
RIP CHARLIE, you will be hugely missed by all of us
CHIPS
I really wanted to shoot a wall of the Triple Cooked @McCains chips, all ends-on just like a wood pile. For frozen chips they are a great product and really need a fried egg yolk (or 2 or 3) to dip a chip into.
