Examining Modern Mythologies About Camera Equipment. Part Two.

Fonda San Miguel: Thirty Years of Food and Art.

It's a little bit scary to work on a project that spans years, or even decades. Especially if you didn't know that everything you were shooting would one day end up as a packaged project. I've known and worked for the owners of the famous Fonda San Miguel Restaurant for many years and have done numerous photographic shoots for them. Tom Gilliland is an amazing collector of Latino and Caribbean artwork and he uses his fabulous restaurant as a gallery for parts of his collection. Part of the draw of the restaurant is the five star cuisine but the other draw is the ever changing show of museum quality modern art on the walls. And the walls themselves which were recently painted over the course of a year by a very famous muralist from Mexico City.

Where do I fit in? Well, ever since the inclusion of Fonda San Miguel in a cookbook I did back in the early 1980's for Texas Monthly Press, Tom has been hiring me to document the art in its environment. Wide room shots that show the juxtaposition of the art and the dining rooms, the furniture, the murals, and even the tile floors. I've shot the dining rooms from every direction and I am particularly fond of documenting the temporary displays like the ones they do each year for the "Day of the Dead" celebrations.

But here's the rub. Some shots were done in the 1990's on transparency film, some on an Olympus e-10 in our early days of digital. Some on an old e300. More on a Nikon D100, then a D200, then a D300 and so on. So, of course, I was expecting that with the ever improving cameras that the older work would suffer by comparison. Especially the early digital work with the low megapixel count Olympuses and the early Nikons.

But you know what? It all hangs together beautifully. Dozens and dozens of images. Double truck spreads with older digital cameras. Detail shots with the latest cameras and historical shots on film. The uniformity of style is pretty remarkable, given that it is for the most part unintentional. But the whole package works.

At least that was the concensus of the International Association of Culinary Professionals who made the book the 2006 winner of their Best Cookbook Design award and the cookbook winner of the 2006 Independent Publisher Book Awards.

All the recent food images were done by ace food photographer, Tracy Mauer, from San Antonio.

For my part I relied on a few techniques that seem to minimize quality differences and these are: 1. Shoot in good light. Even if you have to bring the light. I always shoot this kind of imagery on a tripod and at ISO 100. 2. Use really good glass and use the apertures that make every photographer look like a technical expert. Those are f5.6 and f8. If you are shooting with zoom lenses you really can't afford the quality hit at the wider or smaller f-stops. 3. Trust good designers. (That has nothing to do with technique but I loved the way they used the images we shot).

I hadn't intended to blog about this book but it brought to my attention the fact that, across the spectrum, the differences between generations of cameras really become apparent to most audiences only at the edges of performance where things start flying apart. If my style had been to shoot only available light I am certain that more modern cameras would have less noise in the dark areas than the older cameras. If I shot the images using only high ISO the results would be immediately discernible between cameras. But when we equalize the playing field with good technique the differences a become minor.

I have a few copies of this book on my shelf and I really love the images because they remind me of my own experiences over the last thirty years of dining in this fascinating and ever changing restaurant but I was reminded of the book when I walked through Costco today. There was a stack on the book table staring up at me.

Next time I write I think I'll share the story of my very first cookbook experience with Creative Mexican Cooking, by Anne Lindsay Greer........It was one of my very first book projects, done in the early 1980's, on a shoestring budget, and it always comes to mind when I hear people put off projects because they don't think they have the right gear. But that's next time.

Do you have one image that is head and shoulders above the rest?

I took this portrait of my friend, Anne, in the early 1990's. It wasn't done on an assignment for anyone. She worked for me in the studio and I always liked the way her face looked and the elegant way that she carried herself. On days that were quiet, bereft of client direction and drama, we'd occasionally set up some lights and practice. Just for the love of photography. One afternoon I thought it would good to make an image using a large, soft light source with no fill to the opposite side.

We'd been doing images for a theater and set up multiple backgrounds, draped in the background at different distances. We lit those with gridded lights and small umbrellas. Then I asked Anne to sit in an old wooden, Texas bar chair. The afternoon was lazy. Nothing on the schedule. Nowhere to be and nothing pressing.

We worked quietly. Shooting at f5.6 with a long lens on an old Hasselblad. I used a slow shutter speed to incorporate the warm glow of the model lights. I can't remember what we talked about. Only that in those days I felt like I understood my path and my craft and could take the time to just relish a moment of pure photographic joy. We shot four or five 12 exposure rolls of Tri-X. Then, when we knew the image wouldn't get any better we left the set intact and went off to do our own errands and make our own separate liasons.

A few days later I souped the film and inspected it as I pulled it out of the photo flo and hung it up to dry. I stopped and stared at this frame. And it stared back at me. This was what I'd been working toward all along. It was beautiful. But not in a glamour, sexy, hot way. It was beautifully complete and rationalized. It sang out to me as a perfect score. I could hardly wait to print it.

I'm sure that the myriad computer screens that are the dna of the web won't do justice to the rich tones or the complex yet subtle nature of the print on my wall. Someone out there will dismiss the image because it lacks a hair light or the forced sparkle of HDR.

But to me it will always be a high water mark. A place to aim for. If all my work could be this good I'd be so satisfied. But it's good to have a target that you've made with your own hands because at least you have a fighting chance of getting back there some day.

If only you can take yourself out of the way of your own progress and let the subconscious core of emotional understanding that we all have inside commingle with the other skills required to make great craft and good art.

I hope you have an image that you've done that really moves you and motivates you. It's empowering to know that you've been there once and may be able to find your way back again..............




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