Washington DC-based food and drink photographer Scott Suchman has been working with Washingtonian Magazine since 2008. Seven years ago, he was officially made a contributing photographer. With that came the responsibility of shooting most of the magazine’s food and dining stories. Every February the magazine runs an in-depth spread on the “100 Very Best Restaurants” in the DMV area. In addition to his extensive work for Washingtonian Magazine, Scott photographed commissioned work for most of the major food and travel magazines as well as directly from the chefs at many local restaurants, making him one of the cities “go-to-guys” for food photography. Naturally, Scott was Washingtonians first choice for this piece.
Creative Director Jason Lancaster designed the issue, and Anna Savvidis was the director of photography. Local food stylist Lisa Cherkasky, with whom Scott has worked with for many years, styled some of the key shots. After a couple of pre-production meetings with the team in November, it was up to Scott to schedule the shoots at the various restaurants.
Obviously, we didn’t shoot at all 100 restaurants on the list- thank God!- but I did make it to 21 of them in the course of five weeks. There was one day of shooting with the food stylist and design team at three of the locations, other than that it was just me and a few cases of gear.
In the past ten years, Scott has gotten to know a lot of the major players in the Washington DC food scene pretty well. They’ve always been very welcoming and helpful when he shows up to shoot.
It’s always great to have these visits with the culinary professionals. They are similar to photographers in so many ways – we all have strong creative spirits, and I enjoy the cross-discipline interaction. They trust me, I trust them, it’s energizing and fosters good work.
On top of the great rapport he’s cultivated over the years with the chefs, bartenders, GMs, and owners in the Washington DC area; there’s another element to the assignment that makes it worthwhile for Scott:
…getting to see what the design team is going to come up with. It’s one thing to see a series of shots that you’ve created up on your screen, but after it’s gone through a tight edit by Anna and then planted in and around some amazing design by Jason, I can’t help but get pumped up. It’s something I look forward to year after year.
The reaction to Scott’s images has been outstanding! The “#foodporn” and “foodies” of the digital realm love this content, and Scott’s lush, gorgeous images continue to be shared, liked, and drooled over.
I’m happy to see them out in the world, and I enjoy that I’m even able to show the favorite pics of mine that didn’t make the cut on my own Instagram feed. People really respond well to that. Forgive me for the pun, but the appetite for fun food shots is insatiable!
See more of Scott’s work on his website.
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