"Chef Wil Kocol, of Cary, poses for a portrait at the Northwest Herald studio in Crystal Lake, Friday, Jan. 23, 2009. Kocol is one of 16 chefs competing in the fifth season of Fox's Hell's Kitchen which premiers Thursday, Jan. 29 at 8 p.m."
Here is a quick update from a portrait I shot last week in the studio. It didn't run until today so I had to wait to post it.
It seems as though we (photojournalists) shoot a lot of portraits of chefs for restaurant reviews and such. Most of the time it's a very cliche photo of them sitting at the table or a bar with a tasty looking dish and a glass of wine. I was glad I had free reign with this one and immediately had the idea in mind when Valerie asked me if I wanted to shoot it.
Wil was great to work with and didn't think twice when I told him I wanted to tape two of his knives to light stands. It's a fairly straightforward set up with three lights. Two gridded lights on either side of him and from slightly behind and a large softbox camera right to give the specular highlights to the knives. The softbox also provided a little bit of fill on his face.
I left a little bit of extra room on the right for the designers to play with since it was a centerpiece for our Sidetracks (entertainment) section. The photo ran 6 columns on the front of the section which doesn't happen very often here so I was pleased with their decision to run it that big.
-JCE
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