Chef Tyson Grant of Parkshore Grill - Nikon D300 Nikkor AF ED 80-200mm f/2.8D @ f/5.6 ISO 400 1/250th Strobist: Nikon SB-800 Speedlight @ 1/4 power on light stand to frame right & SB-600 @ 1/8 power behind subjectThis afternoon I met Chef Tyson Grant of Parkshore Grill on 300 Beach Drive in downtown St. Petersburg for a commercial photography shoot. As he was changing into a clean white chef's coat I scouted the restaurant for the best spot to make his portrait. I thought the area behind the bar was the most distinctive background, but I ended up blurring most of it anyway as you can see in the final shot which was tighter than I first envisioned as well.
Parkshore Grill at 300 Beach Drive St. Petersburg Florida - outdoor cafe style dining is available all along Beach DriveBeach Drive has many restaurants running along its wide sidewalks, most all of which offer outside eating options. On a pleasant sunny March afternoon like this one, most of the umbrella covered tables were occupied. The area in front of the Parkshore Grill was very busy and I could not frame a shot to my liking, so I had to cross the street and include some of the surroundings to get a shot I liked of the exterior of the restaurant.
Chef Tyson Grant of Parkshore Grill 300 Beach Drive St. PetersburgAnother central feature of the interior of Parkshore Grill was a winding staircase leading to a raised dining area in front of the kitchen. Chef Grant said he liked this staircase so I setup the above shot having to carefully position both of my strobes so that they were close enough to him to light him up, but not so close that they got into the shot. Using portrait orientation solved most of that dilemma and allowed the staircase to flow nicely into the foreground.
Thank you to Chef Tyson Grant for his time this afternoon. It was a fast, but fun and interesting commercial photography shoot for me. Visit the Parkshore Grill website.