Chugrad McAndrews Photography – San Francisco Food, Advertising and Catalog Photography

I was hired by the owners of a great new restaurant called Hot Spud, to make some photos of their food and restaurant.

Their concept, while popular in Europe, is not very common in the U.S. It’s a baked potato “Gourmet Fast Food” place where they start with a HUGE baked potato, cut it open and add butter and cheese to the insides, then offer specialized menu selections with special sauces over things like steak, shrimp, crab, chicken and bacon, coupled with a variety of veggies. Or, the customer can select whatever they want from the fresh and extensive salad bar and have that put on the potato… for that matter, a customer could leave out the potato altogether and just eat from the salad bar. The result is a very filling, and quite delicious full meal.

One of the things that makes Hot Spud unique is the spectacular architecture. I made a few extra shots specifically for the architects, Martinkovic Milford Architecture.

For more information about Hot Spud go to their website: http://www.hotspudsf.com

To find Martinkovic Milford Architecture, go to: http://www.martinkovicmilford.com

I had the pleasure of teaching a class this summer at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. A colleague of many years now has a position at the school and asked if I’d be interested. I saw it as a great opportunity to share some of the many years of experience I have accumulated in Photography so far.

The class was to focus on Still Life Photography. I felt it was important for the students to learn about the real world of commercial photography, in addition to the technical details of creating excellent images, so I structured the class where we did a “real life” shoot every other class for the whole class period. We were shooting a faux catalog and rotating positions each time. The positions were some typical roles played on a commercial photo shoot such as “Photographer”, “Digital Technician”, “Art Director”, “Prop Stylist”, and assistants. It proved to be a very successful way of bringing the real world of commercial shooting into the classroom. My hope was that when these students start working in the real world, they will already have some valuable tools such as terminology and set-etiquette, as well as all the technical photography skills.

I was truly impressed with some of the work produced. In addition to the faux catalog, the students had weekly homework assignments that focused on technical aspects of photography, such as Composition – looking at how objects and/or subjects play off each other within the frame; Background – paying close attention to how every detail in the background can dramatically affect the foreground; Shadow Quality – playing with different light sources at different distances from objects on a surface to see how their shadows change qualities; Color, Texture, Patterns, Elements – combining all of these things in a conscious way that works well aesthetically and doesn’t get too busy and difficult to look at; Focus Slicing and Depth of Field – how to achieve precise focal planes through an image – choosing where will be sharp focus and where will be soft focus; Combine Strobes, Candlelight, and Daylight – mixing all three light sources in a balanced blend. After following precise directions on how to do the assignments in a technical way, I asked the students to do something “creative” of their choosing that reflected an understanding of the assignment.

Teaching was a great opportunity for me to reflect on the many years I have been a student of photography as well as a working professional. I never cease to learn more and stay excited about the small details and the big possibilities.

Remember the Post I made last year about the Allergen-Free Cookbook I worked on? Well, the author has done several demos on a few TV shows including the Martha Stewart show, ABC 7 Chicago, Good Morning America Health – ABC News Now, and The View From The Bay – ABC San Francisco. They all feature a nice shot of the book cover in the beginning of each video. The book also just got to #1 on the “Best of Martha Stewart Show” Bookshelf.

The Book has been selling very well. It’s called “The Allergen-Free Baker’s Handbook” by Cybele Pascal and is available in stores, online, or at the author’s website http://www.cybelepascal.com.