Oregon’s Bounty – Food Photographs by Susan Seubert

Yesterday I received a stock request for some local food. As I was digging around in my archives, I was reminded about yet another reason I love Oregon – the food. For restaurant variety, quality and price, Portland is hard to beat. Of course it’s upstaged by the major cities like New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles, but we still are regularly celebrated in the national press for some of the greatest restaurants in America. However, this may not be possible without the amazing behind-the-scene scene: the farmers and fishermen that harvest and grow the bounty of Oregon. The slow food movement abounds here, and sustainability is practiced like a religion. My favorite thing to do is to visit the farmers’ market in downtown Portland on a Saturday in the summer – to marvel at the outstanding quality and peruse the amazing variety of produce, meats, cheeses and treats, then stock up for meals for the week. Here are some images from the Portland Farmers’ Market to enjoy while we wait for summer to arrive.

Oregon Blackberries

Hood Strawberries – the sweetest!

Farmers’ Market display and sentiment

Dungeness Crab at the Portland Farmers’ Market

Wild harvested Chanterelle Mushrooms

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Justin Woodward named finalist for James Beard Award Rising Star Chef of the Year

Castagna Restaurant in Portland, Oregon not only happens to be in my hometown, it is also one of the finest restaurants at which I’ve had the pleasure of dining.  One of many things in life I’m grateful for is the fact that my husband loves to cook and has quite a talent for making everything – from dashi to demi-glace, simple pastas or seared duck breast with peppercorn infused, poached pears.  Because of this, it’s very difficult to find a restaurant that can out-do what my amazing partner in life creates in our humble home kitchen.  Castagna is the only restaurant we’ve been to together where when we sit down, we prepare for the question that always arises, “how did he do THAT?”  The food at Castagna is art and is often celebrated, (and criticized), for the same reasons.  However, there is one undeniable fact – you can’t eat like this anywhere else West of the Mississippi and most definitely nowhere else in Portland.  The food at Castagna has amazing attention given to not only the quality of the ingredients, but also the beauty of them.  The service is absolutely world class.  The desserts, like this chocolate dish, are some of the best I’ve ever encountered, thanks to the pastry chef,  Eve Kuttman. Although I love the food scene in Portland, I’ve always felt that Castagna is in a class of its own.  This year, the chef Justin Woodward is receiving the recognition from the James Beard Foundation in the form of a nomination for Rising Star Chef of the Year.  Congratulations Justin!  Thank you for all of your creativity, hard work and the delicious, incredible food.

Executive Chef Justin Woodward of Castagna Restaurant. Nominated for Rising Star Chef of the Year by the James Beard Foundation

The dining room of Castagna Restaurant in Portland, Oregon

cherries, almond ice cream and birch

Cucumbers, salmon cured in cypress and yogurt

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Bon Appétit Names Pok Pok and Swan’s Oyster Depot in their top 20 Most Important Restaurants in America

One of my favorite photographic subjects to cover is food.  I have found food to be one of the best ways to learn about a culture, explore a city, or use as an avenue to common ground with just about anyone.  Food unites us in so many ways, so I’m always interested in making sure that some aspect of food is included in most of the feature travel stories that I am assigned.  I’ve been extremely fortunate to have photographed two of the 20 Most Important Restaurants in America that appear in this month’s Bon Appetit Magazine.  You can read the story online here.  I like the way they laid out this story on their web site.  Most locations have a lead image, then there are details of the food or interiors in a smaller slideshow – images that give a sense of place – in a gallery under the main photograph.  For our home town pride of Portland, Andy Ricker represents, founder of Pok Pok, the Whiskey Soda Lounge and Ping, and is featured in the article.  When I was working on a story about San Francisco, I was excited to cover Swan’s Oyster Depot – a classic San Francisco eatery where locals dine on some of the freshest seafood available in the city.  Bon Appetit used my image to illustrate the restaurant in the story.

A nice summer’s evening at Pok Pok, Andy Ricker’s famous Thai restaurant in Southeast Portland, OR

Restauranteur, Andy Ricker with freshly pressed sugar cane juice at his Portland, Oregon restaurant, Pok Pok

Swan’s Oyster Depot in San Francisco has been open since 1912. Fresh oysters on the half shell.

The interior of Swan’s Oyster Depot in San Francisco, which often has a line out the door.

All images on this site are copyright © 2013 Susan Seubert and may not be used for any reason without express permission from Susan Seubert

Thank you!!!

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Editorial photographer Susan Seubert shoots for San Francisco Magazine

Yet more foodie love for Portland!  This author tells San Francisco to step aside, food wise.  For the May 2011 issue of San Francisco Magazine, I had the great pleasure of shooting a feature about some of the food scene happening here in my hometown of Portland, Oregon.  I love the color and size of the spread – San Francisco Magazine is a larger than normal book, so the images get great play.  The story features the barrel aged cocktails at Clyde Common, the yummy food of Gruner, the sour beers at Cascade Brewing Barrel House and the delightfully crisp shakerato at Spella Caffe.  If you haven’t already, check the story out by scrolling down online here.

Double truck about Portland, Oregon restaurants

All of these images were shot with a Canon 5D Mark II and processed in Adobe’s Lightroom Software.

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More foodie love for Portland, Oregon from Cooking Light Magazine

Last year I had the pleasure of working on a feature story for Cooking Light Magazine about food in my beloved hometown, Portland, Oregon.  I met many people over the course of the assignment and was once again amazed by the passion these individuals demonstrated in regards to the sustainability of food production.  I met people who were (are!) sincerely working to make life on this planet better – from Camas Davis‘ Portland Meat Collective to Friday and Kerry Purington who tend to ultra-local, food-producing urban garden plots.  I finally made it to Voodoo Doughnuts Too, where you can easily satisfy your sweet tooth with one of their zany doughnuts.  One of many impressive discoveries on this assignment was meeting up with the Portland Fruit Tree project, which harvests fruit from trees around the city that produce too much fruit for the owners to handle.  The fruit is harvested, sorted and divided between the volunteer pickers and a certain amount is distributed to the Portland Food Bank.  It’s a glowing, positive article and I highly recommend picking up the magazine which is widely available.  The May 2011 issue is on newsstands now and has much more information (and pictures) than the online version, which you can find here.

The opening spread for a story about Portland for Cooking Light Magazine's May 2011 issue

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Editorial Photographer Susan Seubert shoots Grüner for Elle Magazine

I recently had the opportunity to photograph Chris Israel, chef and owner of one of Portland, Oregon’s hottest new restaurants, Grüner, for Elle Magazine.  The images and article are in the current newsstand issue, May 2010.  The story is about a new movement in fine dining which focuses on fermenting and features Chef Israel’s sauerkraut and pickled vegetables.

Chris Israel for Elle Magazine

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Travel and Food Photogapher Susan Seubert has stock images of James Beard Award Nominees

I have had the great pleasure of photographing some incredibly talented chefs in Portland over the years.  This year, three of my subjects are up for James Beard Best Chef Northwest Awards.  Naomi Pomeroy of Beast Restaurant and Andy Ricker, of Pok Pok, The Whiskey Soda Lounge and Ping are both up for the first time.  Also, Gabrial Rucker of Le Pigeon is up for a national James Beard nomination for Rising Star Chef of the Year.  I wish all of these talented food professionals the best.  Bonne chance!!!

Naomi Pomeroy, owner of Beast, a six-course, prix fixe restaurant in NE Portland, Oregon whose menu changes every Wednesday.

Andy Ricker holding freshly pressed sugar cane juice at Pok Pok, one of his restaurants in Portland, OR

Chef Gabriel Rucker holding two pigs' heads in his Portland, Oregon Restaurant, Le Pigeon

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Editorial Photographer Susan Seubert shoots Food Travel in Portland, Oregon

My favorite assignments revolve around travel because so much of a destination can be defined by the food of its culture and, of course, I love to eat.  With my latest assignment for Cooking Light magazine, I discovered that my own home town of Portland, Oregon is no exception.   The story is in the April 2010 issue, hot off the presses.  Although I didn’t have to travel far for this story, it was amazing to meet all of the individuals who are blazing culinary trails through the city.  One of my favorites was a food cart called Nong’s Khao Man Gai: Nong serves up one dish – authentic lemongrass chicken – and it’s wonderful.  I also visited Beaker and Flask, Ned Ludd, Laurelhurst Market, Koi Fusion, Simpatica and House Spirits, among others.  I got to sample everything from sandwiches to whiskey.  If you live in Portland, head out to eat!  There’s something for everyone.

The love for Portland food continues in the April 2010 issue of Cooking Light

Go see Nong and enjoy the lemongrass chicken!

All the images in this article were made with a Canon 5D Mark II and either a 24-105mm IS USM lens or a 50mm 2.5 compact macro lens, shot in RAW and processed in Adobe’s Lightroom.

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Portland Photographer Susan Seubert shoots for The New York Times

The love for Portland from New York continues to flow in the latest article in today’s New York Times dining section. I had the pleasure to photograph Andy Ricker’s latest venture, The Whiskey Soda Lounge, located kitty-corner from the beloved Pok Pok. It’s a marvelous place to wait for your table at Pok Pok, or just hang out and eat from their menu of aahaan kap klaem, the drinking food of Thailand.  You can read the full article here.

Click on the image to be taken to the page with more photos from the shoot.

Looking for stock photography of this shoot?  Click here to be taken to a web gallery of the Whiskey Soda Lounge where you can purchase stock photography from seubertstock.com

All the images were shot with a Canon 5D Mark II and a 24-105 IS USM lens, shot in RAW and processed using Adobe’s Lightroom software.

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Susan Seubert Food Photographer

Although the majority of what I photograph is travel, when I look back through the majority of my assignments, I discovered that food photography is a huge component of travel photography.  As I think back on some of the most memorable moments of my travels over the years, food stands out as one of the most defining aspects of the places I’ve been.  This year my husband and I will be celebrating our ten year wedding anniversary.  For our honeymoon, we blew all of our frequent flyer miles and went on a dream trip to Italy.  Of course, all of the usual architectural and art suspects stand out, but the most memorable part of the trip was an amazing lunch in Tuscany at a private villa.  Details to follow, but I thought it would be a good thing to start my year’s blog posts with a few images relating to food from assignments over the years.  As Julia Child would say, toujours bon appétit!

Chocolates from Cacao in Portland, Salt from the Meadow in Portland

The Sydney Opera House and Kylie Kwong's famous crispy duck

Truffled Egg Pasta and a Fish Monger in Sydney

Casa Cruz in Buenos Aires and Oregon Wine Country

Sardines at a fish market, Chinese dim sum

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