I had the chance to photograph Gregory Farruggio, Owner/Chef, and his wife, Alessandra, at their restaurant, Gregorio's in Chatham, NJ. The shoot was for Milburn-Short Hills & Summit Magazines.During the shoot, 
Greg and I spent some time talking about what he and Alessandra had created at Gregorio's. He is passionate about every detail from the color of the walls to the presentation of each wonderful dish. The menu is full of Mediterranean influence with just the right balance of "art" and broad appeal so everyone can find something special that they'll like.
Greg and Alessandra have created a place where people can relax and enjoy a great meal with tons of fresh ingredients and flavor.
I caught a few shots of fresh ravioli filled with butternut squash in the making.
And I highly recommend the pan seared tuna with eggplant caponata, herb pappardelle pasta, and a red wine reduction for a quiet explosion of flavor (above). Bennisimo!
Some technical details of the shoot:
Gregorio's has a large window and since it was daytime, I took advantage of the indirect sunlight to light the front of the dining room. I did need to bounce a Nikon SB-800 speedlight off of the white ceiling to add some fill light to the rear part of the dining room. I triggered the speedlight using Nikon's wireless Creative Lighting System (CLS). I seem to bounce between using TTL and manual when doing this. Either way, it's really convenient to be able to control the flash output from the camera, especially when the light is 20 feet away. For this shot, I used TTL. And even though you generally need to place the flash within the line of sight of the camera in order to get the signal from the camera to the flash, I placed the flash behind a shelf to hide it from the shot. Since there wasn't a lot of bright light, the flash picked up the triggering signal and fired every time.
For the portrait of Greg and Alessandra, I used a Nikon SB-900 with a small shoot-through umbrella as the key light and the indirect sunlight as fill. Again I used the Nikon CLS to trigger the SB-900. One drawback of this approach, however, is that the trigger, the pop up flash on my Nikon D300, fires a pre-flash to give the remote flash instructions on how and when to fire. Sometimes this pre-flash will cause people to blink just as the remote flash fires and the shutter opens for the shot. This turned out to be the case for this shot. That's when I turned to a pair of Pocket Wizards to trigger the flash instead. Since these are radio triggers, there is no pre-flash to cause people to blink. This worked for catching open eyes instead of blinking. I had to give up back of the camera control though.
I also gave up TTL mode of the remote flash. I switched the SB-900 over to manual and took it down to 1/4 power. I also dragged the shutter a bit to allow some ambient light in, lightening up the background. This change worked for dealing with closed eyes but it also shifted the white balance to a blue cast. With two very busy people in front of me, there wasn't a lot of time to mess with gray cards, so I opted to fix the color cast later in Lightroom.
If you happen to live in the Chatham area, look for the magazine in April. And stop by Gregorio's for a great meal.
Greg and I spent some time talking about what he and Alessandra had created at Gregorio's. He is passionate about every detail from the color of the walls to the presentation of each wonderful dish. The menu is full of Mediterranean influence with just the right balance of "art" and broad appeal so everyone can find something special that they'll like.Greg and Alessandra have created a place where people can relax and enjoy a great meal with tons of fresh ingredients and flavor.
I caught a few shots of fresh ravioli filled with butternut squash in the making. And I highly recommend the pan seared tuna with eggplant caponata, herb pappardelle pasta, and a red wine reduction for a quiet explosion of flavor (above). Bennisimo!
Some technical details of the shoot:
Gregorio's has a large window and since it was daytime, I took advantage of the indirect sunlight to light the front of the dining room. I did need to bounce a Nikon SB-800 speedlight off of the white ceiling to add some fill light to the rear part of the dining room. I triggered the speedlight using Nikon's wireless Creative Lighting System (CLS). I seem to bounce between using TTL and manual when doing this. Either way, it's really convenient to be able to control the flash output from the camera, especially when the light is 20 feet away. For this shot, I used TTL. And even though you generally need to place the flash within the line of sight of the camera in order to get the signal from the camera to the flash, I placed the flash behind a shelf to hide it from the shot. Since there wasn't a lot of bright light, the flash picked up the triggering signal and fired every time.
For the portrait of Greg and Alessandra, I used a Nikon SB-900 with a small shoot-through umbrella as the key light and the indirect sunlight as fill. Again I used the Nikon CLS to trigger the SB-900. One drawback of this approach, however, is that the trigger, the pop up flash on my Nikon D300, fires a pre-flash to give the remote flash instructions on how and when to fire. Sometimes this pre-flash will cause people to blink just as the remote flash fires and the shutter opens for the shot. This turned out to be the case for this shot. That's when I turned to a pair of Pocket Wizards to trigger the flash instead. Since these are radio triggers, there is no pre-flash to cause people to blink. This worked for catching open eyes instead of blinking. I had to give up back of the camera control though.
I also gave up TTL mode of the remote flash. I switched the SB-900 over to manual and took it down to 1/4 power. I also dragged the shutter a bit to allow some ambient light in, lightening up the background. This change worked for dealing with closed eyes but it also shifted the white balance to a blue cast. With two very busy people in front of me, there wasn't a lot of time to mess with gray cards, so I opted to fix the color cast later in Lightroom.
If you happen to live in the Chatham area, look for the magazine in April. And stop by Gregorio's for a great meal.
Looks great Anthony! Such talent! Awesome1
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