It was a fun summer shooting with Yankee. In addition to the regular editorial shoots we do with them, this summer we shot a "bookazine". It's basically a cookbook in the form of the magazine. The recipes were great and I am told that people are raving about the issue which comes out this fall.
Here's a number of production stills from the process shot by Mike and Whit.

Have a few props...

No assistants... where is everybody?

Probably helping Lori unpack and re-pack all the props

Still no assistants anywhere in sight... Mike are you reading this?

Guess this is what he was so busy doing...

Maya was helping Catrine out

Then it was off to Catrine's house for a shoot inside and outside in her gorgeous garden!

It's a French thing.....

Lunch outside was perfect

This is Caper, Catrine's dog... only Catrine would name her dog after a food

Here are a few of the final shots that are on the newsstands now

We shot another cookbook with Deb Samuels recently. Catrine styled and propped it and Deb had a crew of assistants helping her out in the kitchen. It was a very aggressive shooting schedule with 7 days of shooting and multiple set ups each day. Given the number of shots needed we used available light as often as possible and we moved around a lot depending on the dish and the props needed. Inside, outside , front porch, back porch and rotating surfaces and props with every shot. It was fascinating to me to see how particular the Japanese are about certain things, like where the chopsticks must be placed and which direction they point in relative to the dish. Here are some of the production stills shot by our intern Whit Haynes.

This was a "sushi party" scene

For this "how to" shot we had lights outside blasting into the kitchen.

Cutting some ingredients from Deb's garden for one of the dishes

Another "how to" process shot

Deb needed a little realignment of the knife relative to the camera...

There's Elsa- she was always shadowing me with that camera of hers.

One of the best parts of this shoot was that we got to eat everything for lunch...sooo good!

They brought out a cake for my birthday!

I know what Deb was thinking. My question is what was Mike thinking in this picture?

Another book finished...

Had a great weekend in Vermont over Labor Day. The last day in our pond up there and the kids took every advantage of it. Not wanting to miss out on the fun I decided to join them and play with my Canon G10 and the underwater housing.

The house looks like it's in the final stages but there is so much more to go. HVAC isn't in or the finished electrical or plumbing, roof isn't done etc.. etc... but it LOOKS like it's done... and except for the counters the kitchen is pretty much complete as of today!

Here's a look at June and July

The house in early June

The grass started coming in and they started the deck

This was June... it still pretty much looks exactly the same

The front entrance area was finished and looks great!

The sheet rockers came in and they moved very fast. I barely had time to shoot any pictures

Isabella wanted to know when I was going to be done...

The finished sheet rock made us feel like we were getting close

Then Tidi came in to do the floors - great guy and he does beautiful work. Fast work. They laid the floors and stained them in less than 3 days. I went out of town came back and they were done...

This was just after the polyurethane but you can see the color- it's exactly what we wanted

Then in July they started on the kitchen cabinets

Outside they were putting the siding on the garage. It will be treated with bleaching oil and made to look like an old barn attached to the house. The grass, however got washed out in the week of torrential downpours we had and and then burned out in the following 2 weeks of 90+ degree heat. How do you like my crabgrass?

Through all of this the kids were mostly oblivious. Just preoccupied with finding ways to have fun and stay cool. Ohhh to be a kid again...

One of the food stylists I work with on Hannaford, BJ's and Dancing Deer among others is Catrine Kelty. She is fast, efficient and as good with the food props as she is with the food. Last week while editing a few of the Hannaford jobs I came across a number of images of her which I thought was indicative of how she starts the day and how she ends it... too funny.

Always the professional...

and always an adventure....