I’ve always enjoyed working with chefs. There’s a lot of synergy between cooking and photography. The first shoot I did at the Ritz restaurant was about 10 years ago and the relationship grew from there. Four years ago, they published their first cookbook, which I shot. My most successful work happens when I’ve spent a bit of time getting to know a place – and the Ritz is somewhere I’m now very familiar with.
There are many locations there I’d like to shoot, but it’s all to do with timing. You can’t use the public spaces while they’re full of diners. We had to do this in between lunch and dinner: we didn’t have a lot of time, maybe 20 minutes to set up, then another 20 to execute it. In these situations, I have to go in with a vision worked out ahead and nail it while I have the opportunity.
