In France McDonald's are trialling RE-USABLE packaging!   I was delighted to be asked to shoot this campaign - even if the biggest challenge was getting the logos to show up.   (I actually thought they had sent me the wrong containers when I saw the white salad dish - talk about subtle!)

Always a pleasure working with the superbly professional and talented team at TBWA\Paris and we enjoyed some great lunches shooting in Shoreditch.   My French still leaves much to be desired, though I keep trying....

Agency TBWA\Paris, Art buyer Carine Gullaffo, Art Direction Paul Reyrolle, Food Styling Anne-Claire Delphin.

 Interview:  BBC Radio - The Food Chain - Thursday 16th March 

You don 't really think of radio as featuring photography, but last week I was interviewed along with South African food stylist Claire Ferrandi and New York food photographer and director Steve Giralt, for a feature on Food Photography on BBC Radio's World Service today at 11.30 am and 11.30 pm and available any time on BBC Sounds at link below photo.

It was great to be involved, if little surprise to hear that we have the same challenges with our work the world over....

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/w3ct38pb

Wild Garlic Recipes: Time to pick and cook

Where can you find wild garlic?   If you are lucky enough to have deciduous, broad-leaved, mixed woodland nearby, the chances are you might find a shady spot hosting a patch of wild garlic. This lovely vegetable is a real treat as it has a short season and, so-far, doesn't seem to be commercially grown. It's not only tasty - a mild form of the more pungent bulbs we are well used-to - it's versatile and also really good for you. 

In 2021 I had the pleasure of shooting for Janice Murfitt's The Little Book of Wild Garlic  published by Austen McCauley https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=oTSuxe-bcuc. We braved some very chilly mornings to get good light for the location shots and had fun chasing the sun in Janice's garden for a few more while keeping the overall lighting and props styling fresh and simple to emphasise the delicious, natural foods.  The resulting book includes a lovely diverse range of wild garlic recipes to suit all occasions - I thoroughly enjoyed being "tester"! 

Trug with bunch of flowering wild garlic and garlic oil

                     

Chunky wild garlic spring soup

Wild garlic and feta stuffed aubergine pockets

Seared scallops with chorizo and wild garlic

Sue's special Thai Prawn Salad

So on 24th March 2019, with our lease up and our landlady selling, we left Grafton Mews, arriving home just a few hours before COVID lock-down! Since then what changes we have all seen! I am now hiring studios as appropriate to the job - sometimes East London, sometimes West and sometimes literally 5 minutes down the road in Maidenhead. I am pleased to report that hire studios have come on a pace since I used to hire them back in the '90's. But looking at this sadly-neglected Sue in the Studio Blog reminded me that I always promised to post a favourite studio lunch recipe - which we still do sometimes. 

Here it is:  This should serve about 6 with some flat bread (we use Sainsbury’s multi-seeded) on the side. 

Ingredients: 

1 large courgette, 

1 large carrot, peeled, 

1 bunch spring onions, 

1 -2 red chillies, heat as to preference, 

1-2 baby gem lettuces or 1 large bag rocket, 

1 red pepper, 

approx 300g good cherry tomatoes, 

2 packs cooked tiger prawn, 

1 bunch coriander, 

sesame seeds, 

approx 1 tblsp, 

juice of 1 lime, 

sesame oil, 

2/3 volume to lime juice, 

fish sauce e.g. Squid Brand, approx. 1 tblsp, 

1/4 teaspoon sugar, 

Nanami Togarashi - Japanese chilli seasoning, available on-line (optional).

Wash, finely shred or grate all the vegetables (we use a Papaya shredder). Halve the tomatoes, chop the coriander. Toss together in a large bowl, adding prawns and sesame seeds. Mix lime juice, oil, fish sauce and sugar to taste. Dress salad immediately before serving, adding a good shake of chilli seasoning for a bit of heat. Serve with warmed flat breads. 

Enjoy! Better still, come and have some in the studio with us on your next shoot....

OFF THE WALL - Food and Drink Portfolio Print Sale - Thursday November 28th

Between 5 - 9 pm on Thursday November 28th I will be holding a once-in-a-lifetime sale of prints of Food and Drink photography at my studio: 18 Grafton Mews, London W1T 5JG Tel 020 7387 5577 All the colour and black and white images were printed by me for my portfolios and/or have featured on the studio walls with average prices between £15 and £50. The aim is really to get them out of storage and give them all good homes! There are plenty of duplicates, but if you miss a favourite, re-orders may be placed on the day although at a higher rate. Any queries please call or email. Looking forward to seeing you on the 28th!

Exhibition of Drinks Photography

During October a selection of my drinks pics are on show at The&Partnership, thanks to the kind invitation of @tapartbuying.

In the black

I have been totally seduced by the new trend for black foods. I don't know where it began but Prezzo have their range of black pizzas and I was happy to be able to recognise the black burger bun I was served at The Ivy, Cobham as an aesthetic presentation rather than a very mysterious result of some occurrence in the kitchen! Here are some from the series I shot just recently. I prepared the food too!

Shake, Rattle and Roll?

Or Stir, Splash, Storm.... Hot on the heels on my walking holiday in Spain's beautiful Aracena Sierra - ie the first day back! - I had a great time shooting three Blue Dragon ads with the lovely people from Reci.pe and Nico Ghirlando as food stylist. It was all a bit of a whirl-wind, as matched by the turn-around time. The posters were up within less than a month!
I love the fact that they wanted to keep everything as real as possible - right down to the incidental splashes on the wok. The chilli sauce splashes and falling herbs were quite fun and, happily, a bit more controllable than action-effects in other recent shoots! These are the 48-sheet crops. For 6-sheets see on the main web site.

Chocoholic?

Every so often I go through a phase of photographing a lot of chocolate which means, of course, there is a lot of it about in the studio. It's OK to begin with, then I get addicted and it takes me months to shake (and wear) it off!
We recently did a fun Godiva shoot, lots of close-up chocolate shots but also a very "creative" session making splashes of chocolate, caramel and milk of various shapes and textures. Hard luck if you missed the picture of me dressed in my protective "chocolate suit" on Instagram, I have sufficient pride not to put it here as well! But you can see a video spin-off I did at:http://www.sueatkinson.co.uk/film/2017/3/28/melting-chocolate
And here are a couple of stills for you to droole over:

Jacob's Ciabbattery Crunch!

It's been a great start to 2017 with super jobs on McVitie's and McDonalds already at the retouch stage. But there's nothing quite like seeing your own work on the roadside - as with the Jacob's Chiabattary posters and light boxes at bus stops around town now! Lovely working with the team at Grey. I styled the props and Lucy-Ruth the food. NB. This is our version - can you spot-the-difference from the one in print?

Flying food...

I recently did this test shoot playing around with making food look as though it's flying/levitating.... IT coincided with a trip to the wonderful Parkway Greens in Camden Town where they have such a fab range of fruit and veg it's almost impossible to choose.
Two different techniques here....

World foods...

A lot to fit in but thanks to good planning and great teamwork my recent shoot for Knorr/Unilever with William Murray PR went really smoothly. They needed shots to work for three different crops, including a long pan (even longer than this) and with space for copy so I found a delicious surface with graduated colour to help give a bit of variety without losing continuity.

Art Direction: Carrie Bateman, Chef: Alex Hall, Food styling: Nico Ghirlando, Photography and props styling: Sue

Macro mackerel

Just heard that my very close-up mackerel shot (Folio 2) is a winner in this year's International Color Awards. Nice...

Stop motion

I don't know why I haven't shot any stop-motion before but it suddenly seemed like a good idea. Here is a little fun thing I put together the other day. Enjoy!

One Eyeland

Chuffed to find out that three of my images were selected as Finalists in the 2015 OneEyeland Awards!
Any guesses?

Beefing it up

I've been fortunate enough to enjoy collaborating on test shoots with some of the most talented food stylists in London just recently - on my gingerbread stars Christmas card with Dagmar Vesely plus another fun day with Clare Ferguson. With the freedom to "go boldly..." we decided to shoot joints of roast beef really rare and then to play with up-market sandwich and burger ideas as a link-up with Philadelphia cream cheese.
Nothing for the faint-hearted...




And what wonderful sandwiches we enjoyed afterwards....

Twinkle twinkle

In case by some great mishap you didn't get to see my Christmas card this year (and if that's the case and you'd like to be on my mailing list you'd better let me know!), it was a great relief to me to share the decision-making as to "what to do" with fabulous food stylist Dagmar Vesely.
After playing around with various gingerbread stars ideas and arrangements this is my favourite. So Merry Christmas to you all!

A quick get-away

Grapefruit tree, Reale Alcazar, Seville
Earlier this month I finally stopped procrastinating and treated myself to a week's city-hopping in southern Spain. When I wasn't "researching the local cuisine" I had a terrific time wandering about with my treasured Sony. I still can hardly believe the quality it produces!
As you can see, I took some rain with me but, rain or sun, I would be hard put to choose between Seville, Cordoba and Granada - or their palaces! Here are a few pics of Seville for now....
Street, Seville
Nuns, Seville

Pool, Alcazar, Seville

Plaza de Espana, Seville
The Plaza de Espana is extensive. It not only looks like a film set - it is. When I was there they were filming a top-end Renault racing car which produced the most horrific noise echoing around the Plaza. You can hire a boat to go around the decorative canals of its semi-circular facade. But the Reale Alcazar and its gardens is Seville's most remarkable treasure. Water features significantly in the architecture and gardens of the area, not least in the Alcazar where they have a unique water clock which chimes profusely on the hour!

Decorative canal with ubiquitous Seville orange, Alcazar, Seville

Peacock, Alcazar. Just amused me.

There are some wonderful "proper" shops in Seville - hat shops, bathroom furniture, old-fashioned fabric shops and haberdashers and TWO traditional covered food markets. It would be easy to spend a day just window-shopping.

New representation and exhibition

I am pleased and excited to have signed up with Angela Woods Agency www.angelawoods.com
Only a week in and Angela has already been out showing my fresh portfolio full of loads of new work. You only need to ask!
Starting early next month an exhibition of work by all of Angela's photographers will be on show in the foyer at JWT - lovely big A1 prints. Wow. A great opportunity to make quite a few of you really hungry!

Beautiful Beck's

No, not the one with the pecs....
In total contrast to a somewhat challenging soup job I've just finished shooting (more on that another day...), I have been playing around with some slightly moody drinks tests and having great fun building little sets in the studio. Yes, the floor did get a bit slippery with wallpaper paste and yes I did have to drink some beer - in order to get the levels right of course. But it is the real thing!