Blog

A food blog dedicated to the Kansas City commercial photography studio - Alistair Tutton Photography

Fun with Booze. I love my job.

We got these cool glasses from Boulevard brewery and came up with the idea of trying some really stark product shots with strong reflections. Then we added some cocktails and wrapped up with some coffee. It’s just another play-day at the studio…with booze.








Credits:
Food Stylist - Trina Kahl
Assistant - Adam Caselman

Tempting Treats from Blue Stem

While we enjoy shooting a variety of subjects, food has a special place in our hearts..or is it our stomachs? We recently had the pleasure of working with Megan and Colby Garrelts of Blue Stem restaurant. We were looking for an opportunity to capture not only final shots of finished desserts but images of the stages of preparation. Maybe it’s my architect’s brain that enjoys the building of things, the process of getting to the final result but taking photos of the stages of a dish really intrigues me…and let’s be honest…makes me hungry.

Enjoy the images below, I guarantee you’ll be ordering dessert with your lunch after this.








Credits:
Blue Stem

We Love A Good Tear Sheet. Makes Us Proud.

We are always proud to work with Houlihan’s. We have spent time photographing not only their flagship Houlihan’s restaurants but also their J. Gilbert’s and Bristol restaurants. We actually just returned from a week long road trip with one of our favorite guys, Dean Woods from Houlihan’s. We were capturing the beauty of the private dining rooms in both the Glastonbury, Connecticut and Columbus, Ohio J. Gilbert’s. Our most recent tear sheet shows one of the images we captured at the local Overland Park location of J. Gilbert’s. The ad ran in KC Weddings Magazine and we couldn’t be more jazzed.

It’s always fun to see the final product of our photography and when it involves food photography it just makes our mouth water. Be sure to keep on a lookout here for the most recent images from J. Gilbert’s but in the meantime enjoy the ad below, we sure do!





Credits:
KC Weddings

Fruit Flies

A few months ago we were inspired by some work we saw in PDN and wanted to shoot some food photography using a fish tank and some fruit. The post processing on this shoot was pretty complicated and worth revisiting.

When you know you will have a complicated retouch ahead of you, its important to simply keep this in mind while you are shooting. This might sound obvious, but there are some things you can do during the shoot that will help on the back end. In this shoot we tried to get as many different shots of clean water lines as possible to use for composites, generally the more you have the better. We also tried to keep the water as clean as possible. Changing out the water to get rid of orange pulp is generally easier and less time consuming than taking it out in post. As much as I like pulp in my orange juice, lets face it, floaters aren’t attractive.




Once we selected the most interesting splashes, opening them in Photoshop and fitting them all together to form the composition we wanted was a somewhat subjective group effort. Several variations were made before we came to the final image. Doing things like converting the layers to smart objects to avoid data loss, masking out everything but the focus of each layer, and lowering the opacity of each layer until you have everything in place can help keep from spinning wheels. Otherwise it can be difficult to visualize exactly where to place things.



The next step in the retouching process was definitely the most time consuming. Taking out all the dust specks and orange pulp looked pretty daunting at first, but I saved a bunch of time by just making a solid black layer rather than trying to use Photoshop’s clone stamp to take out every speck. By making a black layer as the top layer and using a mask to cover the dust specks you don’t have to flip between different layers or tools. I find that simplifies things. You could also flatten the entire image and use the brush or clone stamp, but I like to keep the layer separate as long as possible just in case I need to go back and make another edit to the layout.
The only thing left to do then was cleaning everything up and making sure all the lines connect properly when moving from one composite image to the next. In the end the composited image took approximately four hours from start to finish. All said and done, we had a few new images for the portfolio so needless to say, we were excited about the results.

Congratulations SHS and Shatto Milk!

So the AAF-KC ADDY Awards and the AAF Regional ADDYs have wrapped up and we just wanted to wish a massive congratulations to SHS and Shatto Milk. We are proud of our long relationship with both SHS and Shatto Milk. Alistair Tutton Photography had a great night locally with wins for imagery we shot for Liquid 9, Houlihan’s and the Vox Theatre. But the big win was for Shatto Milk - a whole bunch of Gold locally and of course the big Best of Show at the District Nationals.

The images we shot appear on the Shatto social media feed and we also shoot the competition entries. It’s wonderful to work with such a great product and such a wonderful agency.

Congratulations, good luck at nationals and we’re looking forward to the next big win!








Credits:
Shatto Milk
Sullivan Higdon & Sink
Creative Direction - John January
Art Director - Seth Gunderson
Copywriting - Jonathan Vigliaturo
Copywriting - Garrett Street
Talent - Shawn Howard

The holidays are a time for doing what we want

The week between Christmas and New Years is normally a time for relaxing and recovering from the over stimulation of presents, comfort food and celebrating. Not here, that week is set aside for shooting test shots we’ve been dreaming about all year long. This year we were inspired by a few shots we had seen in PDN and other places and wanted to see what our creative minds could get up to when given a week of free time to play in the studio. Our friend, Layne Haley was up for the challenge to work with us to test techniques and lighting scenarios to shoot raw ingredients in a clinical way. We took 4-5 days to shoot individual items like fruits, eggs and other raw foods. We had a great time and thought we’d share the best shots with everyone. Enjoy and next time you are recovering from your holiday hangover just think we’ll be playing in the studio and creating magic on our own terms. We love what we do.









Credits:
Retoucher - Andrew Hoxey
Assistants - Natasha Frederick
Special thanks to - Layne Haley

Houlihan's + Road Trip = Success

We have been working with Houlihan’s restaurant for years and were invited recently to shoot their private dining rooms around the country. We thought what better idea than that to take a road trip. Late nights, open road and beautiful restaurants welcoming us in…we call that heaven. We were challenged by Houlihan’s to produce images that represented the architectural feel of their private dining rooms. By blending the room lighting with subtle additional lighting we captured that intimacy. Late night photo shoots are always good for interesting stories to tell and some that shouldn’t be told. Let’s just say we are proud of the work we did and enjoyed ourselves immensely. The final shots shown here are from the Devon Seafood Grill in Chicago and in the end they even won us all an Addy Award.







Credits:
Client - Houlihan’s
Art Director - Dean Woods
Assistants - Ryan Yoakum and John DePrisco
Retoucher - Andrew Hoxey

We Christened the New Studio with Pasta and AIPC

We got to break in the new studio in the Fall of 2009 by shooting some work for the American Italian Pasta Company. We believe in carbo-loading to prepare for hibernating during the winter months so this came at the perfect time.

We worked for a month and a half creating pasta dishes that would make your mouth water just looking at them. Thanks to Anne Fisher for making all the pasta dishes look so amazing. We worked with the client, who was off-site, to get an entire library of images approved to use in their product packaging, advertising and in-store promotions. We are excited about the final shots and we celebrated with a bowl of spaghetti.







Credits:
Client - AIPC
Agency - Global Prairie
Creative Director - Asher Johnson
Art Director - Sarah Huerter
Food Stylist - Anne Fisher
Assistants - Ryan Yoakum, Nichole Evans, Layne Haley

Ted's Montana Grill - Urban Times

I had a chance to swing by Ted’s Montana Grill last week for Urban Times and it was a ton of fun. I got some interior shots, complete with large buffalo head and then got to really have some fun with the food. Mixing a little natural light and strobe and getting some really cool, quick results. A big part of the story was the enormous sustainability effort undergone by Ted’s in picking out their materials.

Oh yeah, and the food is fantastic.



Credits:
Ted’s Montana Grill
Urban Times

Houlihan's - Chain Leader Magazine

I just finished up a fantastic food shoot for the folk at Chain Leader Magazine of Houlihan’s spring menu. There’s some fabulous new items on the menu and we had a great experience working with their executive chefs in their corporate kitchen. The toughest part on the shoot was that we had to set the backdrop and capture the food in about 200 square feet!



Credits:
Houlihan’s
Chain Leader Magazine
Reed Business
Art Director - Ala Ennes
Assistant - Ryan Yoakum

Houlihan's - Chain Leader Magazine

I just finished up a fantastic food shoot for the folk at Chain Leader Magazine of Houlihan’s spring menu. There’s some fabulous new items on the menu and we had a great experience working with their executive chefs in their corporate kitchen. The toughest part on the shoot was that we had to set the backdrop and capture the food in about 200 square feet!



Credits:
Houlihan’s
Chain Leader Magazine
Reed Business
Art Director - Ala Ennes
Assistant - Ryan Yoakum

The Peanut - Urban Times

I’ve got to say that this one was great fun; I’ve always liked the wings and who doesn’t love bacon? I had a superb time hanging out with the crew at the original peanut location on Main. If you haven’t been there you’re REALLY missing something that is unique and special in Kansas City. It’s the oldest bar in Kansas City and has a ton of character and personality. Oh yeah and if you like soup forget it. Apparently they only have one soup; it’s coffee flavored, only comes in a cup and tastes great with creamer…it made me giggle.



Credits:
Urban Times
Assistant - Bryce Napier

The Peanut - Urban Times

I’ve got to say that this one was great fun; I’ve always liked the wings and who doesn’t love bacon? I had a superb time hanging out with the crew at the original peanut location on Main. If you haven’t been there you’re REALLY missing something that is unique and special in Kansas City. It’s the oldest bar in Kansas City and has a ton of character and personality. Oh yeah and if you like soup forget it. Apparently they only have one soup; it’s coffee flavored, only comes in a cup and tastes great with creamer…it made me giggle.



Credits:
Urban Times
Assistant - Bryce Napier