Jul 25, 2011

Behind the scenes at otakara supper club

On a blistering hot Friday evening, I headed over to Fort Greene to get some shots at a new supper club run by the talented Sawako Okochi. The outdoor space is quite charming and perfect for an intimate dinner party where strangers can get to know one another. For those of you in the NY area, you knew just how hot it was on Friday. Well, it was nothing compared to the heat of the kitchen! In fact, after shooting in the kitchen and then walking outside, I daresay that it felt downright COOL in comparison. Scary, eh? I have some serious respect for the others in the kitchen that night who had to wear chef coats.

Despite the heat, it was fun to work with Sawa and her crew (as you'll see, straight faces were hard to come by in the portraits :P). And getting to sample all the dishes served was a nice perk.

The rest of these pictures show some behind the scenes of each dish. Flash is always an ugly challenge, but I'm really hoping these shots don't scream "on-camera flash."

It'll be a long while before I conjure up the skill to have my own (even informal) dinner party, but I love the idea of these supper clubs. See my previous behind the scenes post on another dining club run by some awesome folk whose kitchen is more or less bigger than our apartment.

Thanks to Sawa for having me!

16 comments :

  1. most excellent. and good work dealing with the shooting conditions.

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  2. what an amazingly cute place... man, i have never seen anything like that out here. i wish.

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  3. Looks like so much fun..and so DELICIOUS!

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  4. Wow all of this food looks so scrumptious! And now I'm feeling so inspired! Now I really want to have a dinner party in my backyard someday! Beautiful photographs :)

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  5. alice! those indoor shots are lit beautifully - i feel like "on camera flash" would mean washed out food photos, and i know you know better ;)

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  6. wonderful series, I love their table set up :)

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  7. Absolutely wonderful. Good use of the flash too.

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  8. They turned out great!! Lovely job :) you captured the atmosphere perfectly

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  9. I love those mismatched chairs. what a lovely little spot.

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  10. amazing couple shot from the window frame :)

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  11. What lovely shots, wish I was there!

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  12. This is my favorite series yet. Great portraits of the staff and action. So much textures

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  13. oh these all look very very delicious. <3 chef sketches!

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  14. a dinner party for strangers sounds like a cool idea (and bit like a setting for a murder mystery) and the photos are gorgeous.

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