Behind the scenes, Beer and Asian

This post is quite exciting for me, It is the first time I can really bring you a "Behind the scenes" post of a commercial shoot. As most of you would know, magazines are produced at least 3 months ahead so as I started this blog only about 3 months ago, I had to wait until the magazine came out before I could publish these shots. Obviously the Magazine does not want the world to see what is in production before it comes out, that would be a real spoiler and land me in all sorts of trouble to boot!

In these shots I have illustrated the world of the Prop Stylist behind the scenes of a Photo Shoot, Folding tables are our friends as they help us edit through and display all that we need to see just to the side of the set. Jeanne Lurvey, my wonderful assistant on many Food and Wine shoots is seen here sorting through the various props. You can also see a stack of backgrounds waiting in the wings for their possible moment in the light, I like to have these displayed to really reinforce the color palette in evrybodies eyes. You can see a collection of blue and white plates also edited into their own category, ready to be considered for the right recipe.I also like to stage my combinations so the Photographer and Art Director can clearly see what I have in mind for the next shot. Lastly in these shots you can also see the treatment used as the background to many of the shots, the pinned up photocopies of a well known willow pattern from a Chinese platter, I think this is a great idea for a wall treatment even at home, note to oneself!

Hope you enjoy seeing a glimpse into my world, Look for future posts of this kind to come with future projects!

The Perfect Pairing....Beer and Asian Food

Who doesn't like a cold beer on a hot summers day?, Only thing is it's freezing here right now in NYC! Still the idea still sounds quite appealing, especially when you pair it with Asian food! : ) This story was an interesting one to style for Food and Wine Magazine, It features the recipe's and philosophy towards cooking by Chef Sang Yoon, whose L.A restaurant "Lukshon" is a place I will definetly want to visit next time I am there on the West Coast! With food and drink, Sang Yoon likes to blur borders, for example combining Indian with Chinese, throwing in some Belgium Ale! It was largley interesting to style based on the blurring, We decided to not do the cliqued combo of red and black and instead used rich blues combined with a hit of red. In my research, I noted that a lot of Chinese platters and plates do in fact come in the popular blue/ white combination, I managed to buy quite a lot on E-bay and was able to weave in vintage plates with new silhouettes.

Stephen Scoble, the magazines Creative Director had the idea of blowing up sections of platters to use as a background, so my trusty assistant Jeanne spent many hours chained to a photocopy machine producing just the right sized magnification. We then pinned these overlapping each other to create almost a wallpaper effect.

We shot the story with the very talented Tina Rupp, Check out more of her wonderful work at www.tinarupp.com, Food styling by the also very talented Alison Attenborough, www.alisonattenborough.com

"A Beer Geek's guide to Asian Flavors" appears in the Feb issue of Food and Wine Magazine.

Look for the behind the scenes on the post to follow.