Garden Dinner Party

I have been wanting to do a photo shoot that would help me incorporate more of the human element into food photography, people, hands, etc.  A few classmates of mine had done dinner party shoots while they were at Port Townsend, which looked beautiful, so I thought I would try my hand at it as well.  This was also coupled with some suggestions by people in the industry wanting to see more lifestyle type of shoots from me as well.  So a few months ago I arranged a date with my sister so we could shoot it at her and her husband's beautiful home. Rob, my brother in-law, is an architect and designed this house, including the lovely backyard patio.

I invited several of my friends and planned a menu of 5 courses, to include a tomato tart, salmon (originally trout), peach, pistachio, and arugula salad, corn, and  a peach cake, preceded by a cheese and bread platter.  At about 2pm that day, after getting all my props together and shopped for earlier that morning, I really wanted to call it quits!  And the thoughts that ran through my head were why on earth I wanted to shoot this, and how could I get out of it, maybe I could just call and cancel the whole thing.  Ha ha, realizing that 1 assistant may not have been enough to coordinate the whole thing (who was also my lovely sister who had agreed to help with the cooking).  Typically if you were to do a photo shoot like this, you would have about 5 people on set helping to make everything look great. I would totally do it again, but next time get a one or two more assistants! Pretty typical of me to think I could do the whole thing nearly by myself. :)

I did not call it quits though, deciding to power through, and it turned out really pretty and the food was great! My friends Mel, Kate, Allison, Liz, along with my sister Nicole, and brother in-law Rob, who were gracious enough to open their home for the shoot, were fantastic participants and helping out where needed, setting things up. And I hope they had a great time. Thank you Liz too for agreeing to come last minute!

Here are links to the recipes:

Tomato Tart - What Katie Ate

Peach & Arugula Salad

BBQ Corn

Apple Cake-Nicole Franzen
(I substituted peaches for apples, since I don't like apples ;)) This was so good!! Thank you Allison for suggesting it, as an easy cake even a non baker can do.

I totally winged the Salmon, because that was a last minute decision, rather than going with my originally planned trout.  So I just seasoned it, and placed in a cast iron skillet on the grill, with fresh marjoram, and thyme.  Then Kate had the brilliant idea of tossing the remaining roasted tomatoes from the tart over the top.


Enjoy!