Recently the owner of downtown Reno’s famous French restaurant, Beaujolais Bistro, contacted us to take some photographs to update their website. Our job was to capture different dishes from their menu including Mussels, Duck, Steak Frites, Salmon Crepes, and Profiteroles.
The restaurant is a charming brick building close to 100 years old, so we used a piece of slate for the background in some of the photographs to maintain that rustic casual French bistro feel.
Photographing food is no different from photographing a piece of fine art or sculpture, you are just working with the Chefs artwork.
To bring out their vibrant colors vegetables are blanched in salt water and undercooked and meats are seared on the outside to maintain their fullness.
Food tends to look stale and old very quickly so we always have the chef prepare a sample dish that is similar in texture and look in order to get the lighting right. Once everything is set up and ready to go, the final food plate is photographed within a couple of minutes.
It’s almost impossible to photograph food for an entire day and not be hungry at the end of it, so the Chef made up an entree of Onglet Steak and a side of Frites for us to try. The food was fabulous. The Frites were the best I’ve had since I was in the south of France. Their Profiteroles looked delicious, but I will have to wait until my next visit to try them.
