Johnny Autry Showcases Punch’s Pastrami for Garden & Gun Magazine

Asheville photographer Johnny Autry and his wife, Charlotte, have been working with Garden & Gun Magazine for over a decade. The latest result of this longtime collaboration? Two exquisitely styled features, both luscious with color and sparkling with stately Southern charm. 

What did planning entail? 

Loads of work goes into larger features, from concept to final images. We do almost everything in house now. My wife Charlotte (also known as “Superwoman”) manages the food and prop styling, along with producing a lot of our shoots. 

The drinks feature started from a test shoot we did some months ago, involving Aperol spritzes and the like, spread out party-style on a big table. We leveraged that idea when G&G approached us for the shoot and ended up gettting more pages in the magazine for the feature. 

Were there any particular techniques you employed to get the shots you envisioned? 

We build (often weird) lighting rigs in the studio, and always try to have fun or experiment with the lighting. Also, for the drinks feature I used some old school star flare filters and portrait filters to try and get a dreamy look.

There’s stylistic symmetry between these two features even though they’re quite different in terms of subject, staging, palette, and so on. Can you describe how you envisioned them fitting together?

I think the similarities come from our workflow mostly. It made more sense to have related lighting and composition. I think it would have been jarring to shoot dramatically different for both of those pieces. 

Any major takeaways from this project? 

The duck recipe is amazing, possibly my favorite in recent years. Also, cocktails!

Credits
Photography and Visuals Director: Maggie Kennedy
Design Director: Marshall MicKinney
Photo Editor: Margaret Houston
Food and Prop Stylist: Charlotte Autry
Photography Assistant: Nick Iway
Styling Assistant: Mackenzie Tamriel
Son/Distractor: Wyatt Autry

See more of Johnny at johnnyautry.com!

Check out our other great photographers on our Find Photographers page.