THE ARGENTINA SHOOT!
Well…the shoot I did earlier this year in Buenos Aires is finally published and I’m delighted to announce that the new website for the AMAZING Faena Hotel + Universe is now up and running!
I had a great shoot with a fantastic team over there and particular thanks once again to my lovely client Mariana Pariani, and my fantastic assistant Fran DeVedia.
Check out the wesite here. All the photography is mine and I must say, it looks rather nice!
The only thing that bothers me is that I really didn’t have much time ‘off duty’, and have a huge desire to return to Buenos Aires and Argentina. I’d love to travel and see a lot more, it sounds fascinating (any clients reading this please note!)
These pictures are in the amazing Phillipe Starck designed restaurant ‘El Mercado’
And these are in one of the many suites
FOXES
It’s that time of year again…
Kate just told me that once again, all the fears of anyone who’s ever kept chickens have come true and she’s lost all but two of her’s to a fox.
This is Snowy, who I watched hatch a couple of years back and, sadly, one of the departed. Looks like it’s time for that electric fence…
“Shake paws, count your claws,
You steal mine, I’ll borrow yours.
Watch my whiskers, check both ears.
Robber foxes have no fears.”
Brian Jacques
FELIX’S CHEESE
Latest creation from ‘The Ballymaloe Boy’ (see post from a couple of weeks back). This is Felix’s cheese, made of milk from the Ballymaloe herd and sitting, maturing in the bottom drawer of the fridge since he got back.
We opened it today in honour of my friend Kate’s arrival. It was delicious. Rich, creamy and buttery. Felix is off to Camont for the summer and Kate is, effectively, going to be his boss for six months or so, and she was duly impressed! Get the good impressions in early young man!
PINK LADY FOOD PHOTOGRAPHER OF THE YEAR AWARDS 2012
Well…at the risk of boring everyone to death (especially anyone who follows me on Twitter and Facebook!)…I WON AN AWARD! In fact, I came 1st in one category, and second in two others. I was the ONLY photographer to have been in the top three in more than one category and, basically, I’m chuffed to bits!
A great night was had at the Mall Galleries in London, far too much delicious champagne was drunk, all the people who organised the event were absoloutely lovely, and my friend Araceli Paz from Chile, who I met last year when we were both exhibitors at the Food Photo Festival in Tarragona, not only came over from Santiago to the awards ceremony but won an award as well! Really pleased for her!
Thank you very much to everyone involved in organising the whole event!
This is the image that won in the ‘Food and it’s place’ award. It was taken in the wonderful Eiffel (of tower fame) designed fish market in Jerez de la Frontera in Spain.
Now, work starts on turning the award into some decent comissions!
This is the picture that came second in the ‘Cream of the crop’ category. Its been on this blog before and was taken at my great friend Kate Hill’s house ‘Camont’ in Gascony. They are a selection of locally produced gluten-free flours (and the reflector was beautifully held by the mighty Felix, whose wonderful cooking I photographed a few weeks back)
This is the picture that came second in the ‘Apple a day’ category…again it’s been on the blog before and, again it was taken at ‘Camont’!
And this is us at the awards ceremony…L-R, my award, me with my reflector-holder in chief, Felix, me (plastered!) in front of the winning picture, and me and the lovely Araceli celebrating!
The evening went on a bit afterwards. It was decided by someone that Araceli and her sister needed to go to a traditional London pub and…well, let’s just say that it’s going to be a very long time until I want another Bloody Mary!
Here’s to next year!
BLOWING MY OWN TRUMPET
Well…what’s the point in having a blog if you can’t use it for some shameless self-promotion once in a while?
Ready?
MY NEW WEBSITE IS NOW PUBLISHED! and, although I say so myself, it’s looking rather dandy, so, pop along to www.timclinchphotography.com and have a look around. There’s loads of new stuff. Travel, Food, Hotels and interiors all updated, and lots of new galleries such as the project I’ve been working on for ages with my chum Kate Hill, Food stories from Gascony, the Finca Buenvino Cookbook, some fab pictures of Chefs, some iPhone photography (just shut up, take a look and stop being so cynical!) and some dedicated travel galleries on Oman, Malta and, possibly my favourite, the wonderful country of Ukraine.
The picture above, of one of my favourite bars in Jerez de la Frontera in Southern Spain, didn’t make it onto the website, despite being one of my favourites. There isn’t room for everything. But I’ll be doing regular updates, so maybe next time.
Hope you like it!
BALLYMALOE BOY
The boy Felix (who is nineteen next week, so maybe should be called ‘the young man’) has just returned from a three month course at the Ballymaloe Cookery School in Ireland. By all accounts he had a fantastic time and is now swanning around full of words like ‘velouté’, ‘ballotine’, and ‘emulsion’.
Fee and I went down to the fishermen in Hastings the other day and bought a beautiful wild bass, and a perfect, fresh monkfish tail, staight off the boats and took them all back home so he could cook us all lunch. The monkfish was gently poached and served as a starter with a red pepper vinaigrette, and the bass was filleted (expertly) and cooked two ways. One fillet was served on a bed of braised fennel, and the other with new seasons asparagus and a perfect hollandaise sauce. Delicious…AND all the washing up was done and the kitchen left all spick and span!
Yesterday we went into town to shop for our Easter lunch, and when we came back there was a wonderful looking plaited loaf all freshly baked and crusty and steaming out of the oven!
Bloody wonderful, were it not for the fact that I’m on a pretty strict diet at the moment (two and a half stone so far, since you ask!) and all this white bread and things fried in butter lark cannot go on. He’s off to France for the summer to work at my great friend Kate Hill’s Gascon paradise ‘Camont’ to cook, learn and run the vegetable garden. That’ll be good fun too, I wager! After that he’ll need a job, so anyone out there with ‘foodie’ connections who wants to get in before he wins Masterchef, let me know.
Now young man…slope off to France and stop making me fat!
WHY IS THIS SO DIFFICULT?
I’m preparing to move abroad again in the summer. It’s something I’m really looking forward to.
The house we’re going to is small. Very small, and I’m having to face up to the fact that thirty five years of a career in photography can not accompany me. I have box after box after box of old prints, transparencies and negatives to sort through and get rid of. I know for a fact that I have not looked at most of them for many years, and will almost certainly never want, or need to look at them ever again, so why is this so difficult?
There are old advertising shoots that I never enjoyed in the first place. Old interiors shoots of houses whose location is now forgotten. Studios and assistants long gone. Pictures of people I don’t even remember. Pictures of people I don’t WANT to remember! Cars, friends, dogs, holidays and picture after picture of a strange, slim young man with the whole world in front of him.
I can’t possibly take them with me and I don’t need a single one of them…SO WHY IS THIS SO DIFFICULT? I even found myself this afternoon feeling a little weepy…
It’s powerful stuff sometimes photography.
“The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.”
L.P. Hartley - The Go Between
PERFECT!
A perfect brunch, on a perfect sunny Sunday. A perfectly smoked kipper from Rock-a-Nore fisheries in Hastings.
And, yes, since you ask…I AM enjoying playing with the camera on my new iPhone!
MEETING A HERO
I’ve been lucky enough, in my career, to have met and photographed a few of my heroes. One of the many benifits of being a photographer I suppose.
Last Friday was one of those moments. I’d been comissioned to photograph Claudia Roden at her home in North London, and what a day we had. Her books have been absoloute standards ever since I started my interest in cooking. We had a delightful time with her, and the generosity, warmth and kindness she showed towards us (my girlfriend accompanied me as she is a massive fan as well!) was wonderful. We were even invited to stay for lunch, and we were held fascinated with stories of her childhood and upbringing in Cairo. An amazing woman, and a real honour to have met her.
Take a look inside her latest book ‘The Food of Spain’ here.
