I love beer. I love burgers. I love restaurants that excel in both departments. Enter Firehouse Brewery, anchored on Murphy Street in downtown Sunnyvale for several years now. The General Manager (Leticia Jensen) was kind enough to meet up with me before the craziness of St. Patrick’s Day was upon us to get a few food shots done. Nothing fancy or foo-foo here. This is comfort food, so just relax. Yesterday I shot Siam Taste, which is across the street, maybe I should just hit up all the restaurants on this avenue and be done with it!
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Tags: bay area, beer, best, burger, chris schmauch, Dining, dishes, fire, firehouse, Food, fries, general manager, good eye, goodeye, grill, house, images, jensen, leticia, murphy st., photographer, photographers, photography, photos, pics, plated, restaurant, sunnyvale
Murphy Street, the one-block heart of downtown Sunnyvale, is getting totally remodeled right now. To the casual passer-by, it looks like a serious construction zone. But the businesses are still open, and there’s some true gems – new and old. One such jewel is Siam Taste, and although there’s nothing extraordinary going on from a windowshopper’s perspective, the food is simply amazing. Cat brought out dish after dish of the tasty Thai food. I yanked the plastic protective tabletop off to reveal the beautiful multicolored / metallic tablecloth beneath, which made for some very interesting color and texture in the photos. Between the table pattern and the dishes, there’s a lot going on (and I tend to prefer “visual simplicity”) but for this place, it just worked. Enjoy my favorite photos in the slideshow below, or click here for all the photos from the shoot.
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Tags: bay area, best, cat, chris schmauch, colorful, Dining, dishes, Food, good eye, goodeye, images, murphy st., photographer, photographers, photography, photos, pics, plated, restaurant, siam, siam taste, sunnyvale, taste, thai
Kaama Lounge is almost open, here’s a few shots from the “Friends and Family” event – a chance to to the food and cocktails and generate a buzz in anticipation of the grand opening! Everyone had fun, and I enjoyed getting some nice shots of the guests and staff! Slideshow below. All 93 photos here.
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Tags: bay area, best, candids, chris schmauch, Dining, drinking, eating, event, family, friends, fun, good eye, goodeye, groups, images, kaama lounge, party, People, photographer, photographers, photography, photos, pics, Portraits, restaurant, san jose
Today I met up with Wayne and family at the Coyote Creek trail head in Morgan Hill for their family portrait session. It was a nostalgic trip as I used to live a stone’s throw from where we met, and we couldn’t have chosen a better time of year for the area. Instead of dry fields of brown grass, everything was lush and green from the recent storms. Luckily this sweet family was as adventurous as they were friendly, and followed me through poisoned oak and abandoned buildings alike to get some great shots! Since Wayne is an officer of the law I felt relatively sure we wouldn’t be fined for any mild trespassing we may have been guilty of. Enjoy the photos, I posted my favorites in a slideshow below! All 93 photos from the session can be viewed here.
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Tags: bay area, best, cari, chris schmauch, christian, family, farquhar, good eye, goodeye, images, photographer, photographers, photography, photos, pics, Portraits, wayne
In my last post, I showed some select shots from the first shoot with Matt Mermod, the Executive Chef at soon-to-be-open Kaama Lounge in San Jose. We were experimenting with high-speed (1/800 sec) food photography, which is fun, but a little stressful for the photographer (aka me) as I really only had one chance to get the shot, as whatever we were pouring inevitably ruined the dish. But anyone who knows me understands I crave the challenge and love to try new techniques and creative ideas. Well the first shoot was such a smashing success (according to all involved) we immediately got back into it for some more dishes. There’s really only one “money”action shot (above), and I’ve decided this is a special niche of photography I’ll call “food porn.” If you can’t figure it out, well, ask a friend.
The Setup
For this shoot, I opted out of my usual studio strobes in lieu of my Foursquare softbox powered by four nikon SB-800 speedlites, and another gridded sb-600 as off-axis fill where needed. The speedlites are ideal for high-speed photography, which I needed to capture the motion in these shots. Most were around 1/800 sec @ F7.1 or so. Studio strobes max out at 1/250th sec sync, and I was concerned that this just wasn’t enough for our needs.
Slideshow
Here’s a slideshow of my favorite photos from the shoot. All the photos can be seen here.
Popularity: 7% [?]
Tags: action, bay area, best, chris schmauch, Dining, drizzling, dynamic, Food, good eye, goodeye, images, lounge, matt mermod, new, opening, photographer, photographers, photography, photos, pics, pouring, radhika, restaurant, san jose, sprinkling
by Chris Schmauch
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