Das Rebenhaus — Restaurant and food photography

Hotel photography and vineyard shots at the Rebenhaus. Restaurant and food photography: Rüdesheim on the Rhine. The terrace sits under a roof of vines…

Das Rebenhaus in Rüdesheim am Rhein, photographed as what it is: a restaurant, guest rooms and a vineyard on a slope. The terrace sits under a roof of vines with red-and-white checked cloths, and behind every plate stands the Rhine valley. Alongside it the aerial frame in which the rows of vines run up to the Niederwald monument, the bright rooms looking into the valley, and dishes served on slate.

A house in this position sells the view along with the room, so the view belongs in every second frame and not only in the panorama. That is also the technical difficulty of the whole set: the table and the valley are about three stops apart. Expose the laid table correctly and the Rhine is a white band; expose for the valley and the guest sits in the dark. The canopy of leaves helps more than any technique here, because it dims the foreground less than the sun brightens the valley — under the pergola both halves fit in one frame.

But the vine roof is also a filter. Everything beneath it picks up a green cast, and leaf shadows fall across the white checks of the cloths. You can wait for overcast and get a neutral picture — or take the green as the color of this place. The set chooses the sun, because that is the hour in which guests actually sit there.

The terrace is photographed laid and empty, before service. A guest should be able to sit down, and that only works if the seat is free; full tables show yesterday's visitors.

The rooms follow their own rule. Four grass-green leather chairs are the loudest thing in a white room, and photographed close they fill it entirely. So the frame stands in the corner, holding the kitchen units, the table and the bed together — which makes it readable as an apartment rather than a room with striking chairs.

And the aerial is the only frame that explains the geography: house, vine rows, monument, river. Without it, this is a nice terrace somewhere.