When you Bring the Restaurant to the Event
There are functions, and then there are events! This week I was invited to photography a spectacular corporate event in Fortitude Valley at the architectural and design house Hassell Studio.
They did what some would described as impossible, transplanting the entire team and kitchen of the one-hatted Gauge Restaurant in Southbank to a side area off the function room. But they didn’t cut any corners with their cooking methods either, setting up a charcoal grill in the courtyard for good measure.
This building features a beautiful light filled courtyard, with an adjacent function room which was the perfect setting for this prestigious event. The original plan was to place tables outside in the central courtyard (just because you can do that sort of thing in Brisbane), but the weather wasn’t conducive to that approach, so the entire event was held indoors with canapes and cocktails served in the courtyard.
The lifestyle of a corporate event photographer can be tough with late nights and gruelling assignments. But it was made even tougher by having to walk past all of these incredible canapes and cocktails!
At one point I caught a whiff in the air of the delectable oysters which were hand shucked just before service (the only way it should be done - no washing the brine out here) and so beautifully presented that they photographed like a work of art without any staging whatsoever. I literally just popped off a few photos using my on camera flash and Canon 100MM Macro Lens.
The cocktails photographed equally as impressively, looking like they had been prepared at a six star hotel. Hats off to the entire team at Gauge for pulling off this incredible feat of producing food of this quality outside your regular kitchen.
