Il Totano

From chef Harold Dieterle comes Il Totano, a west village Italian restaurant with a gorgeous interior and beautifully seafood-focused dishes. This may have been discussed in another post but, usually, when I’m faced with a restaurant that, often always, I am experiencing for the first time, I tend to choose lighting that compliments the space and the vibe. When the entrees are climbing into the $40 range, I often tend to use a softer light which, to me, feels a little more elegant. However, given the bright colors of the food and the interiors, I convinced the team to allow me to use a harder light that would create some shadows but also allow me to use the glassware/drinks to create a glossier and fresh look that I think makes all the dishes more appealing and somewhat conjures the feeling of eating seafood on a sun-drenched balcony overlooking the Italian Riviera.

The Standard Grill

The Standard Grill, the restaurant at The Standard Highline hotel, has a lovely bar with some elevated bar snacks. In addition to oysters, there are fried chicken sliders, tacos and other bites one might want to accompany a beer or martini. For this shoot, I really wanted to push the light through the drinks to assert their presence on the table so that they would be accompanying the food, as they are usually paired to do. This job was commissioned by The Standard Hotel.

Rosevale Cocktails

The Rosevale is a restaurant opening at the Civilian Hotel in Times Square and I was tasked to photograph their cocktails but also some process shots of their cocktails in action. The Carver Road Hospitality-led beverage director, dressed to the nines, and provided a great background for these shots.

Macchina

What once was a pizza pop-up is now a permanent fixture in the back space of The Bedford, Macchina serves delicious pizzas and wonderful cocktails in a charmingly rustic space. I photographed the interiors and drinks for the space and there’s a warm charm in the space that I attempted to capture.

Dowling's at The Carlyle

The prestigious Carlyle has opened a new space which I was fortunate enough to shoot for their marketing collaterals. This was one of the first shoots that I started using my 100mm macro lens, which if of of the few prime lenses in my arsenal. For efficiency, I’m usually using zoom lenses (including my 24-70mm) but having an entire restaurant closed for the shoot allowed for plenty of space to move around, which allowed for greatly flexibility using a less flexible lens.