Druckwasserwerk Winter Menü
Food photography at the Druckwasserwerk in Frankfurt: the house’s winter menu. A winter menu at the Druckwasserwerk in Frankfurt. And inside the session…
A winter menu at the Druckwasserwerk in Frankfurt. The courses were photographed on changing surfaces — tartare on white porcelain, an amuse-bouche on blue stoneware over backlit yellow onyx, beef fillet with croquettes in a dark jus, salmon on black stoneware, a chocolate dessert with mango sorbet on a white plate — plus the laid table with several plates at once, and the bar with its chalkboard.
A seasonal menu comes with a hard window: the pictures have to be finished before the list changes. And inside the session there is a second, much shorter one. A plate from a working kitchen holds for about three minutes before the sauce spreads, the sorbet loses its edge and the herbs drop. So the set-up is finished before the first course, only adjusted between courses, and the chef plates up once the camera is focused.
The surface is decided per course, not per series. The onyx under the blue plate is lit from below and supplies a yellow no lamp can rebuild — there the surface leads, and the dish sits in it as a dark island. With the chocolate dessert it is the other way round: white plate, dark background, one narrow highlight along the glaze. The quenelle of sorbet is lit from the side, or it becomes a yellow shape with no form in it.
Height is shown through the angle. A flat, laid-out dish needs the overhead; a stacked one like the dessert needs the camera low, almost at plate level. A menu photographed entirely from above loses exactly those courses where the chef worked with height.
The laid table with several settings comes last and serves a different purpose: it shows not a dish but an evening. The menu needs the single plates; everything else needs this one frame.
- Location
- Druckwasserwerk FFM
