Tasting Time

Tasting Time is one of my favourite stories in our Issue 15. It's simple but elegant and not too girly for me. I'm really happy with the invitation idea – it came to me in the middle of the night as often they do. I remembered we had some fabulous illustrations on file from Melanie Terrett who supplies the images for our Guide section. I wanted to design something interesting that would suit the theme and I think these piccolos, wrapped in an illustrated invitation really hit the mark. You can download the artwork for free from here.


The opening spread to our Tasting Time story showing the nifty bottle invitations.

Oh, and see that little pencil in the foreground...don't tell anyone, but that's from Ikea! I put my ever-growing collection to good use by painting them in a pretty colour to match the story and it worked a treat.

Our always-happy photographer Claudio Raschella shot this story in my husband, John's, restaurant – it meant everything we needed for the food and drink shots was right at hand. We took over half of the restaurant floor and had lunch customers looking on, critiquing our work and asking lots of questions. It was a fun way to hold a shoot actually, very different to shooting in the studio.


Emma filling the glasses with wine and Claude showing off his glow-in-the-dark cat t-shirt.


Emma holding the reflector and a close up of one of the beautiful dahlias Annabelle sourced for the setting. That bendy grissini stick made me laugh.


Claude shooting from over the model's shoulder and Annabelle reviewing the shots as Claude loads them.


Annabelle keeping a close eye on the images as they are loaded and a shot of a pic as it comes up on screen.

As with every shoot, it's a lot of planning, preparation, and work on the day. But we enjoy every second. I know the models did - they got to eat and drink til their hearts were content!

Posted by Jane Cameron