Chef Sylvia Gould: Memory Maker // INFLUENCE Magazine
Chef Sylvia Gould: Memory Maker // INFLUENCE Magazine
INFLUENCE Magazine assigned us to photograph pastry chef Sylvia Gould for a feature in their Spring 2020 issue. The story, written by Gus Corbella, profiled Gould and her work at Kool Beanz Café in Midtown Tallahassee, which is where the photoshoot took place
We combined environmental portraits in the dining room at Kool Beanz with more controlled portrait work in our make-shift studio in the back room. For the environmental piece, the goal was to photograph Gould in her working happy place, the space where her desserts come to life. Restaurant kitchens are tight, busy, and full of competing light sources, from overhead fluorescents to the warm glow of equipment. You're working around prep surfaces, service flow, and the reality that the kitchen doesn't stop for a photoshoot. As Tallahassee photographers who have worked in a number of local restaurants for editorial assignments, we've learned to move quickly and stay out of the way while still getting the frames the magazine needs.
Thankfully we were operating during non-business hours, but we still needed to navigate the tight corners and shiny surfaces.
When it came to photographing the food, our make-shift studio gave us the opposite environment: full control. We set up Profoto lighting and tethered to our MacBook Pro running Capture One so we could build the photos with intention and review them in real time. Having both settings in a single assignment is ideal for a magazine layout because the art director gets the candid, in-context images from the restaurant alongside the clean studio images, and the two styles complement each other across the spread.
Gould's desserts are visually striking subjects. Her work is known for vivid color, intricate plating, and unexpected combinations, which means the images needed to do justice to the level of detail she puts into every plate. Photographing desserts requires attention to how light interacts with different textures and surfaces; a caramelized sugar element reflects light differently than a matte ganache or a fresh berry, and getting all of those elements to read well in the same frame takes careful positioning of both the light and the lens.
What makes editorial photography like this rewarding is that you're telling the story of someone's craft through two different visual languages: the environment they work in and the work itself. Kool Beanz is a Tallahassee staple in Midtown, and Gould's presence in that kitchen is a big part of what makes it special. Our job was to let both of those things come through in the photographs without getting in the way of either one.
This feature was photographed by The Workmans for INFLUENCE Magazine and appeared in the Spring 2020 issue and was written by Gus Corbella. The Workmans are a husband-and-wife photography team based in Tallahassee, Florida, and we work with publications across the state of Florida, in Washington D.C. and around the United States. You can explore more of our editorial photography in the archive, see more of our work across our website and connect with us on how we can best serve you!
