Salt and Pepper Chicken Salad. Copyright Tony May 2011.

The shoot took place in the restaurant before it opened and whilst it was still being fitted out. Only after the restaurant team had finalised the menu after days of tasting and tweaking (nice work if you can get it) were they ready for the photographer.

Gourmet Chicken Burger. Copyright Tony May 2011.

The primary use of images is with graphics and text on illuminated display panels above the serving counter, so the brief called for food images with clean white backgrounds to hand off to the graphic designer.

Barbeque Chicken and chips. Copyright Tony May 2011.

Without the need for styling additional props and table settings, the number of shots that can be achieved on a shoot increases,  but it still required a long day with food stylist Christine O’Leary and the Chickano team to get through all of the menu.

Gourmet Chicken Wrap. Copyright Tony May 2011.

I was given the opportunity to confirm that the food is indeed as tasty as hopefully it looks, so thanks to the guys at Chickano’s!

See more of my food portfolio here or see a bit more about my food commissions here.

Amethyst, onyx and diamond pendant. Copyright Tony May 2010.

The image of an amethyst, onyx and black diamond pendant was one of series of jewellery images shot for a full page magazine advertising campaign.   Whilst most jewellery photography is subject to extensive post-production work, the retouching for this particular image was relatively straightforward with the desired lighting effects being achieved in-camera.

The image was captured using Hasselblad and Phase One equipment and all post-production was carried out in-house in Leeds, as usual.

As well as retaining the Yorkshire Advertising Photographer of Year title for the second year (and for the third time in five years) I’m happy to say it’s just won the April Flair Photography competition on creativematch.com

Merry Christmas!

Chocolate yule log. Copyright Tony May 2010

So commercial  photographers and stylists who work with food, jewellery, giftware, clothing or almost any product related to Christmas or which has a Christmas or winter catalogue will find themselves in studios or on location creating wintery sets that make it Christmas time.

Jersey Pearl Christmas Image. Photograph Copyright Tony May 2010.

Fake snow, decorations, ribbons, Christmas trees all come out months in advance in photographic studios. It’s hard to find holly with ripe red berries in early October (although we do have large holly trees near the studio in Leeds). Even the heavy snow the UK experienced in Late November would have been too late for most Christmas shoots, although many photographers will have captured scenes and images that will find there way onto cards and into marketing campaigns for next year.

Mince Shortbread. Copyright Tony May 2010

My Christmas-themed commissions this year were about yule logs and all manner of delicious Christmas cakes and a lovely new Akoya pearl jewellery range.

Xmas Chocolate Cherry Cake. Copyright Tony May 2010.

Merry Christmas!

Jonathon Davies, winner of Britain's Best Dish 2010. Image Copyright Tony May 2010.

This year’s edition of Britains Best Dish, ITV’s television competition for amateur chefs, finished screening on ITV1 less than two weeks ago and the winner was Yorkshire’s Jonathon Davies with his exquisite dish of Seared Masala Cannon of Spring Lamb.

I’ve worked with Jonathon before and he asked me to produce all the photography for his new website which launched last week following the broadcast of the final.

Britain's Best Dish 2010. Copyright Tony May 2010

His dish was judged the overall winner by the final studio audience after triumphing in the heats, the regional finals and the main course final, where it was highly praised and voted through at every stage by the celebrity judges.

It’s a very modern and inspired take on a classic “British Indian” theme, using marinated lamb with with pea and mint puree, a bombay potato served on a bed of spinach, finished with coriander lemon and rosewater foam and accompanied with a mango and yoghurt raita and sweet onion chutney.

Sweet Onion Chutney cooked by Jonathon Davies. Image Copyright Tony May 2010.

We spent a busy day in his kitchen producing images of him cooking the winning dish, including the preparation of the spices which he imports himself and which are key ingredients in the success of his dish.

Spices and raita ingredients. Image Copyright Tony May 2010

Jonathan prepared the dish three times so that we could capture the creation of his dish at each stage as well as on the plate.  It also meant we got to try it!  The freshness and intensity of the flavours were miles away from an everyday Indian food experience and I was amazed at how tender the lamb was.

Seared Masala Cannon of Spring Lamb. Image Copyright Tony May 2010.

It was an enjoyable day and we had some fun. Back in the studio in Leeds, some of the delicious aromas of Jonathon’s food had stayed on my lights, so for several days I had a mouth watering reminder of the shoot.

It wasn't all serious. Image Copyright Tony May 2010.

Jonathan has a lot of talent to support him in pursuing his dream of a career in food and he’s well on the way.

See more of my food and people photography on my website.

Searing. Copyright Tony May 2010

Not, that is, until I was asked recently by Nathan and Matthew at 1885 Restaurant in the village of Stainland, nestling in the Yorkshire Pennines near Halifax, to go and shoot their kitchen during Saturday night service.  To get right in there with them and the staff and to record a restaurant kitchen at its most hectic.  To try and convey in pictures the clattering, shouting and rushing, the flames, the searing and the sizzling; amidst the heat, the supercool  attention to detail as ingredients are assembled and plated.  Only without the sound, the smell, or the colour, just as black and white photographs.

Nathan and Matthew at 1885. Copyright Tony May 2010.

It’s been done before – think “White Heat” and Marco Pierre White. The brothers know their heritage and Nathan and Matthew are familiar with that classic of food photography, which sits on my bookshelves.  Shot on hugely grainy black and white transparency film by one of the masters of black and white printing and one of my personal heroes, Bob Carlos Clarke.  If you just know the classic image of Marco with his head round the kitchen door, bearing a cleaver, well there’s more of that in White Heat,  including horseplay in the kitchen led by Gordon Ramsay who was working under Marco Pierre White at the time.

Tools of the trade. Copyright Tony May 2010.

The boys show me a few other tomes of masterly food and kitchen photography when we arrive from Leeds early on Saturday evening.  Not much pressure there then.  The brief – to  record the 1885 kitchen at work, in black and white. Not staged, not slowed down, just documented as it happens.  Not lit, except for a couple of speedlight units which weren’t used very much thanks to the low light capabilities of today’s digital cameras.   Having shot carefully set up photographs of their food, interiors and the brothers themselves before, tonight I’m off the leash.

Plating up. Copyright Tony May 2010

Service. Copyright Tony May 2010

“Give us some blur” says Nathan.  That’s fine – movement is on my agenda too.  I want to try and capture the adrenaline and the rushing – always controlled – and the processes of producing dishes that look and taste like works of art in a kitchen environment that is purely functional, like a foundry. It’s the atmosphere I want to capture, I’m not after precision, exquisite lighting or pixel perfection.

Waiting. Copyright Tony May 2010

I’m with second photographer Catherine, drooling at the opportunity to do her own thing in the busy kitchen.  But that’s two of us to get in the way of the brothers, the sous chef, the other kitchen staff and the waiters and waitresses, in a kitchen that’s compact.

The counter. Copyright Catherine Kerr 2010.

A meal for two at the end of the evening is part of the deal, an opportunity to try what has been created. To unwind in the oasis that exists at front of house where the products of all that effort and skill in the kitchen are presented in an atmosphere of calm elegance.

Starter. Copyright Tony May 2010

We spend a couple of hours. It’s quiet at first then it really starts to move, the shots present themselves and in an instant they are gone. Move fast. Don’t get in the way. Those top lights over the counter are just so bright but just a couple of metres away by the range its dark. The waiting staff, efficient, well trained, whisk plates away the moment they are ready to go. It’s hot. Except in the walk-in fridge where meat, champagne and yet to be burnt creme brulee are laid out on trays, waiting to be transformed.

Naked and unburnt. Creme Brulees. Copyright Tony May 2010.

We get the shots. We review them, we shoot a few more. We leave the boys working and walk outside into the cool evening air before entering the restaurant via the public entrance to claim our reserved table, the last of the night. We don’t bother to put our camera bags in the car or to use our intended changes of clothes, we managed to stay quite clean. We relax, we order.  Despite seeing all the dishes made it doesn’t spoil the surprise of tasting them. It’s all delicious. We taste. We unwind.

Front of House. Copyright Tony May 2010

By the time we finish the boys have clocked off and left the restaurant manager and staff to finish off and close up. The brothers are up early tomorrow to cater for a shooting party. It will begin all over again for them.

The interface between front of house and the kitchen. Copyright Tony May 2010

We catch up in the week, everyone has different favourites, Catherine and I each have our own, Matthew and Nathan have theirs.  They love most of them, they think a few don’t work. We may disagree on what works best but in this case it doesn’t matter because everyone has something that does it for them.

Orders. Copyright Tony May 2010

What do you think?

See more food photography on my website.

Billboard advertising in York for YSJ. Image copyright Tony May 2010.

The billboard advertising photography I was commissioned to shoot for York St John University has now gone live and will be greeting train passengers arriving in York Railway Station for the whole of the next year. The picture was shot with the University’s Marketing department, using real students, in the quadrangle at the campus in central York.

The image is being displayed on a “48 sheet” (that’s 20ft x 10ft or 6m x 3m) rotating billboard in the arrivals area at the station.

The billboard advertisement at York Station (snapped by iPhone).

We weren’t blessed with the best weather at either of the times that we had the students booked but we ended up with finished images that looked a bit brighter than we first hoped.

We shot several from several viewpoints with different students, so the University has more photography to use for its prospectus and marketing materials.

York St John University. Copyright Tony May 2010.

To see more of my advertising work for clients in Yorkshire and across the UK, go to www.tonymayimages.com

It included an interview with the Vice Chancellor of York St John University, which has five and half thousand students and is tucked away near the Minster in York city centre.

Observant viewers may have noticed a photo shoot taking place in the historic quadrangle there.

We were shooting photographs for a new advertisement for the University so we appeared in a panning shot of the quad.

It was a very enjoyable shoot with the Marketing department and some great students. Visitors to York should be seeing the advertisement in the near future.

I’ll be posting more details and some images from the shoot once the ad goes live!

Lance Armstrong before he became the subject of doping allegations and employed a lot of lawyers. Image © Tony May 1995.

So can we expect to see any British riders bring us the kind of success in this year’s Tour that has eluded us in the World Cup and at Wimbledon? Well probably not, judging by events so far.

Sprinter and green jersey hopeful Mark Cavendish (he’s a Manxman but a quick check of the mysterious constitutional status of the island on Wikipedia leads me to believe we can count him as a Brit) has continued his run of bad fortune/bad judgement this year by attempting to wipe himself and two of his rivals out on the penultimate corner of yesterday’s first stage.

Londoner Bradley Wiggins, who finished a magnificent 4th overall last year, is now riding for the highly funded, highly organised, squeaky clean Sky team run by British Cycling supremo Dave Brailsford, who delivered 13 Olympic medals in Beijing. Unfortunately he’s already a minute down, following a misjudged decision to put him off in an early slot in Saturday’s prologue in Rotterdam where he caught the worst of the rainy weather.

I’ll still be watching the highlights avidly. It’s magnificent. As a cyclist (and someone whose first serious photographic endeavours were in cycling photography) its still the greatest sporting event in the World, watched live at the roadside by more spectators than any other sporting event.

Yes, seven times winner Lance Armstrong (doing “his final Tour ride” for the second time) is still there and is now the subject of some serious blood doping allegations.  But the sport has changed. There are now so many riders, managers and organisers who are committed to a clean sport, who are not afraid to say so and who have the testing programmes in place to ensure as far as they possibly can, that they and their teams are walking the walk.

Vive Le Tour!

I was pleased to win the title of Advertising Photographer of the Year with this food image.

The winning Advertising image

Entries were down in some categories even though the BIPP in Yorkshire has plenty of talented commercial and advertising photographers. Whether this is a reflection of people not having as much work to choose from over the past year (or maybe because they are too busy?), I’m not sure.

In any case the judges don’t have to award any winners if they consider the entries aren’t of a winning standard, so I’m pleased.

You’ll be able to see all the winning images posted in the next few days at the Yorkshire BIPP website. You can see more of my food photography at www.tonymayimages.com