Behind the Scenes © 2011 Hugh Burckhardt

Full of daylight if I want it, or downstairs on the first floor if I don’t, the huge new 10,000 square foot studio has nooks and crannies, floor to ceiling windows, natural wood floors, an additional 5,000 square feet of basement storage, a 1,500 square foot workshop and I could go on. But I won’t. It’s just an out and out terrific working studio. And, I have been working.

Hugh Burckhardt, my assistant, and I set up some fabulous gluten free baked product photos for Karen Freer of Free Bread, Inc. (gluten-free, that is. - that’s the tagline) Karen’s wonderful, warm toned, pine antique ironing board was the key prop for many of the shots. And having skipped lunch, muffins and cream cheese were the placeholders. Who knew gluten free could be so good?

(And, what’s Frosty the Snowman doing in my background? My studiomate, José Pelaez, is shooting stock for next year’s holiday season. So, between the gift boxes, pine trees, ornaments and other holiday paraphernalia out and about, I set up my daylight shoot. While we were at it,  the holiday spirit was infused into the muffins.)

Addendum 12/7/2011: On a final side note, Karen left a box of muffins for the studio staff. That was Sunday. It’s only Wednesday and those three dozen muffins? They’ve all been eaten, nothing left but crumbs! 

Behind the Scenes © 2011 Hugh Burckhardt

Gluten Free Cheese Muffins from Free Bread, Inc. © 2011 D.A.Wagner

01/09/2010 - Akamaru Modern Ramen at Ippudo, NYC

I put an ad up on Craigslist in February for a food stylist and much to my surprise, there were responses from 2 chefs: Corey Earling, the third place runner up from Gordon Ramsay’s Hell’s Kitchen (season four) and Rob Endelman, a wonderful natural food chef and educator.

These responses plus responses from 5 other established food stylists and one dessert chef left me stunned. I never expected such great talent to respond to my posting.

This winter I started making my own udon and ramen at home. I’d been eating out regularly at Setagaya Ramen, Rai Rai Ken and Ippudo, each within a few blocks of each other, and each bowl of ramen is so very different in taste and appearance, it intrigued me. So it was bound to happen; this all started to migrate to my home cooking and somewhere along the way, I got the notion to shoot food and thus, the posting on Craigslist.

Everyone is so thrilled to be collaborating toward a vision and style that expands each of our individual books. I’m really looking forward to this new endeavor.

And I love the fact that digital food photography isn’t something that can be done with 3-D.