In March 2013 Dave Siegel of Siegel Photographic was hired to create photo images for the Eldorado Hotel and Spa in Santa Fe New Mexico.
Because of my experience in architecture, life styles, and food photography, I was a perfect match for the hotels photographic needs.
We booked a flight to Albuquerque New Mexico on Southwest Airlines. After much research on baggage policies I picked Southwest because they allowed excess baggage weight up to 100 pounds for photographers and media.
The hotel was about 60 miles from Albuquerque, so I rented an SUV to transport my assistant, myself and equipment to the hotel. I used “Advantage” car rental. While signing all of the paper work they tried to sell me on insurance and pre paid gas. What a scam! The insurance was more than the car rental and the prepaid gas is a joke. They tried to scare me by telling me if I didn’t bring the car back full , it would cost over $9.00 per gallon in addition. FYI your car insurance usually covers rental cars and your credit card also has some coverage.
We met with the director of marketing the next day and went over the shot list. The first day shooting I had planned to shoot food. The food photographs were not thought out until we met with the chef. Once I knew what they need shot I started concepting the food shots. I talked to the DM and basically shot the food as environmental portraits. Once I had a concept the food fell into place. The only glitch was they also needed drink shots . I wasn’t planning to do drink photos so we sent an assistant to an art supply store to get certain types of sprays to make the drinks look cold and wet. In addition I needed silver cards to use to pump light through the glass of beer. Thank god I had 30 years experience shooting Liquors, beer, and food. Knowing how, made it go smooth and I achieved one of the best beer shots in my career.
Dave,
You are a true artist. I should ask you to photograph me…you are probably the only person who could make even me look good. Ha! Ha1