Just Splendid

Have you seen the new Splenda commercial on tv lately? I worked on the ad a couple of months ago with the talented team Reelgood and Bonfire. It's always amusing to work with a hand model and check out how perfect their hands are and how well they look after their money makers. I most certainly wouldn't get the job, what with all that washing up I do. My dear hands did get to do all the very controlled Splenda sprinkles from out of shot though. I'm good at Splenda sprinkling me. Well, after rather a lot of takes.

Commercial story board

Director Aidan keeping tabs on the strawberries with body doubles lined up in the background ready to be sprinkled on.

Hand model doing her thing

THE FINISHED COMMERCIAL:

Denny, what makes a house a home?

Denny again! I worked on the animated TV ad that kicked off the Denny 'Home Is' campaign back at the end of last year. You can see the ad here on Denny's Facebook page. Here's a behind the scenes snap too...

Curb Appeal

We have finally managed to get a snap of a Dublin bus with the Denny sausage ad on. God knows they were everywhere recently but we just never had the camera out in time! Might sound boring to you, but very exciting to team Denny!

I can't take the credit for the find...thanks to Brendan from Denny for sending it on. And, nobody was killed in the process. To be honest, I think it was parked up in the bus garage when this was taken! Anyhow, Denny sausages...great curb appeal too...uuuummmm

Denny Breakfast Competition

When drifting through blogesphere and the 'book of faces', I keep coming across the Denny Ad below. It links you to Denny's 'Home Is' site which currently has a competition where you can win a free breakfast. Cliona, Aoife and I created the shot above as part of the Denny repackaging project posted about previously.

I hadn't mentioned before about the propping for the shots - nothing like a good excuse to trawl auction houses and second hand and charity shops *squeels of delight*. Parents cupboards were also raided looking for those perfectly mismatched and homely looking table settings. Loving those egg cups!

And see, real people....Richard from Denny, Nik from Wonderland and fab assistant Aoife tuck into a Denny home(see, not studio!)-cooked brekkie!

Have a great weekend! I'm looking forward to having Sunday off to hang out in the Hamptons ;)

Denny Mania!

Well, it's certainly Denny Mania out there as the new packaging hit the shelves a few weeks ago. Here are some snaps I managed to get, not without many raised eyebrows from fellow shoppers, quickly followed by sweeping of Denny products into their trolleys leaving nothing but bare shelves (ok, embellished a bit, but not much...this packaging is hot!). Sadly I didn't manage to get a snap of a bus advertising the Denny Gold Medal Sausages (even though I was willing to die for the cause!!) You can also see the sausage and bacon packs at the end of this TV ad.

behind the scenes of the Blueberry Pie business cards

When I announced my new business cards here I forgot to show you some behind the scenes snaps of the photography for the cards. By now, if you ventured onto my website to take a peek inside the cards you will see I came up with 6 recipes (so 6 different cards) and all in-keeping with the Blueberry theme of course! Photographer Cliona O'Flaherty took the fab shots to go with the recipes (and of course helped me eat my way through the goodies too!).

Funny Photo Shoot

I recently worked on a shoot with photographer Harry Weir so lots of giggles going on (especially as he loves tiggling me when I'm not expecting it!). Here are some photos from the day...

Harry tried his hand at some food styling when I wasn't looking!

Harry pretending to be hard at work

Someone's in trouble, she's got the hand on her hip!

Sausages Sausages

Here are some snaps from a shoot a few weeks ago for Hodgins sausages. We shot some sausage recipes for their soon to be revealed updated website as well as product shots of their complete range.

The hodgin's sausage family portrait

I won't be getting a packing job at Hodgin's the length of time it took me to get the pack on the right looking up to scratch for it's portrait!

Photographer Ciona and assistant Aoife hard at work

Me, multi-tasking, zhushing some food while catchin up on the gossip with Cliona (with Maureen from Estuary Marketing in the background)

Jewellery Shoot

This is the day when fruit met fashion! Jewellery designer Alice Moyon from Aliquo Boutique has a gorgeous new range of vintage beaded jewellery all set for next summer in bright poppy colours. She had the idea of complimenting the jewellery by shooting it on and with fruit for her promotional shots. The shoot was really fun as a gaggle of girls and came up with some really fun and colourful shots. I'll show you those once the range is launched but in the meantime here are some (very poor phone) snaps from the day...

Getting started on the brainstorming of ideas

choosing the clothes

Caoimhe looking gorgeous doing her thing

just had to show you the amazing shoes Caoimhe brought along!

Photographer: Cliona O'Flaherty
Jewellery Designer: Alice Moyon
Model: Caoimhe
Fashion Stylist: Jemma Connolly
Food Stylist: Me!
Make-up: Rachel Matthews

Gotta Get a Gateaux

I spotted these bright images on a truck on one of our grim days earlier this week. I styled these shots as part of Gateaux cakes repackaging sometime last year (or the year before even?) with photographer Peter Clayton. It's always exciting to see your work driving down the road!

Finger Lickin' Chicken

Here are some snaps from a recent shoot with photographer Peter Clayton. The clients brief was basically to make a roast chicken look as good as possible...plump & delicious and crisp & golden. Now this is always a mean feat with a chicken who doesn't want to co-operate and would rather cook really unevenly, become soggy in places and generally wrinkle all over. Anyhow, between my last minute emergency chicken skin grafts and Peters fab lighting I think we managed to pull it off.

Peter doing his magic on the old bird

Dolly bird herself

some old photos

I have just come across these photos which I forgot to post from a shoot a few months back. Phelim Byrne, a wexford chef with his own successful cookery school worked on recipes for Supervalu and photographer Harry Weir and I headed to the school to shoot the food.

very strange artists palette!

we turned Phelims school into a movie set by the looks of things!

obviously becoming delirious with tiredness at this stage

phelim hard at work

Phelims cookery school....good job team (me, Phelim & Harry)

who's for cheese on toast?

Here's the finished art work from this shoot with photographer Trevor Hart as promised (thanks Trevor for sending it on!). I think it looks great and have popped it on my website now too. Off to make some cheese on toast, my favourite!...

say cheese

Cheese on toast has to be a favourite of mine, so what better to style for a shoot during the week?! I worked with photographer Trevor Hart and we did eat a bit of cheese on toast along the way. It took several hours for me to come up with the perfect cheese on toast for the shot - I definitely wouldn't get a job in a busy caffe! I'll post the finished ad here once I get hold of it.

A murderous day of work!

Here are some snaps from a recent shoot for some Uncle Ben's recipe leaflets. The things I have to put up with eh?...

working away like a busy little bee, minding my own business

while, photographer Harry decides he's had enough of me

no, we're good buddies really...thankfully a happy ending!

Quigley's Bakery

Here are a couple of shots from the Quigley's Bakery job I posted about previously here. Designworks sent them onto me - it's always nice to see how the images got used in the end and the fruits of your labour.

am-a-zing sting

I'm just in the door from a quick trip to Dungarvan where I was working on some stings for Neven Maguire's upcoming cookery programme (more about that later). 'Inproduction' produced so the old team was back together (from working on Neven's programme). Here's producer / director David (middle), soundman Ray (left, as usual telling everyone to shush), and camera man Billy (right).

We filmed at Paul Flynn's new cookery school at the Tannery - AM-A-ZING! What a totally fabulous space - ever as stylish and state of the art as you would expect from the Flynns. They have seven new bedrooms also (additional to their townhouse rooms) so no excuse for not treating yourself to a glamorous getaway! Obviously, from the photos we trashed the school a little with all of our gear (but of course put it back together perfectly, promise!)

Watch out for 'Neven's Food From the Sun' series (transmitting for 13 weeks from Wed 18th Feb on RTE1) to see what the stings were for...and watch out for my hands!

Team Topaz

The other day on my travels I came across some shots I worked on for the 'Topaz' in store menu board. Kieran Hartnett was the photographer...

belleek shoot

Here are some photos from a shoot I did for Belleek before Christmas - Chef Neven Maguire is the new face of Belleek so we shot in Neven's gorgeous kitchen at home in Cavan. Marie McGrellis from Belleek and I had a yummy meal at Neven's restaurant the night before the shoot (I'm sure we ordered one course and ended up eating for about four hours, naughty Neven!).

Me trying to look busy while Neven chats to John, Belleek's MD.

Food stylist, make-up artist, whatever.
That's hilarious photographer Khara, doing her thing in the background.

John & Marie checking out the finished Belleek '09 catalogue
at a recent showcase in the RDS.

Neven the cover guy!