Dinner Party

by Morgan Kazanjian

For lifestyle and food photographer Erin Kunkel, getting invited to do a shoot that revolved around both of her specialities and was to be done on location was a perfect fit. The fact that the shoot was for Gwyneth Paltrow and her site goop was an added bonus. Erin was tasked with photographing a beautiful outdoor dinner at Gwyneth’s home for her upcoming cookbook club. The resulting images, all brightly colored, are perfectly infused with Erin’s fresh aesthetics.

Since this was an intimate shoot happening at Gwyneth’s house, Erin wasn’t able to bring her assistant and ended up working with just Val Alkman-Smith, the food stylist.

For me, this ended up being fine, but when the food stylist asked me for some help, we found my sous chef skills a bit lacking!

While Erin’s sous chef skills may not have been award-winning, working with Val was nothing new for her. They’ve worked together on shoots for years, and collaborate intuitively. The main challenge came from Gwyneth and her team’s very busy schedule.

This shoot was one of a tremendous number of projects they had going on, so more than anything we went into [it] knowing we needed to be super organized and adaptable, so that when Gwyneth had a free moment we were ready to roll.

Even though Erin wishes she had more time for the lifestyle shots, everything turned out beautifully and she’s been using the images on mood boards for jobs she’s bidding on. Additionally, she and Val are talking with goop about future collaborations.

To see more of Erin’s work, check out her website.

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