Paul Williams

This shot encompasses all that is fresh, rustic, social, natural, healthy and trendy in Australia's cafe scene right now.
It's a shot that really does speak for itself!
Food Styling: The always amazing Peter May.

The Goodmix is an Australian health food brand that was created by a Naturopath. Lots of great paleo/keto solutions for the health-conscious and the image suite that we created was a fun mix in itself - of styled shots like the above, as well as raw ingredients 'explosion' shots for the packaging.
Shot in studio with 2x Bowens 500W Esprits.

A simple hero shot of a green smoothie mix that leaves plenty of negative space for the designer to work their magic.
As an ex-designer, I know how important it is to leave some breathing room in my shots for cropping options, as well as negative space to reverse text against, for instance.
As photographers, it's so important that we give consideration to not just our shot, but how that shot will be applied to the marketing collateral and how we can give our client/creative agency some latitude to work with our shots.

Shot for Janice Wong in Singapore. Janice was named Asia's Best Dessert Chef (twice), her creations are unlike anything I had seen before or since.
She is a force of nature when it comes to dessert creations, was a pleasure to work with and quickly learned that I am as obsessive with crafting light as she is with her own craft. Which was a beautiful synergy!

This was shot for clients who initially needed to be convinced about the value of food pro photography. Nonetheless, they gave my Stylist and I their full trust - I was pleasantly surprised when we suggested a low key shoot to stand out against their competitors, who were all using light & bright high key images.
It paid off. Very shortly after their new website launched with new suite of marketing images, their online bookings grew 40-fold and their business is now in the position that they wanted to get to; turning a profit with healthy numbers and ready for sale so they can retire! Feels great, as they were really nice people... :-)

The client's brief called for a summery, share feel to this shot. It required more spacing than I would usually have placed between objects, as the client asked that the table layout be allowed to 'breathe' a little.
Client was happy, which is all that matters! :-)

I love the graphic simplicity of this shot and the muted colour palette that keeps the attention on the hero.
I'm particularly happy with the amount of texture that I managed to capture when lighting a humble, flat soup dish!
* Lit with 2x Bowens 500W strobes. ;-)

This exquisite dish was created by Chef James Fiske, on Australia's Gold Coast.
His plating is as masterful and considered as his flavours. Though possibly what I like most about Jim is his inability to throw away food (unlike many chefs). He will literally stand-over you and ensure that you eat his dishes once you've shot them. A huge bonus for a skinny photographer!
For this shot, I wanted to include a nod to the fabric divider curtains that are a prominent feature of the restaurant. This anchors the shot with ownable art direction for the establishment and meshes beautifully with the colour palette of the dish.
LIGHTING GEAR USED: 2x 500W Bowens Esprit studio lights with softboxes, plus bounce-card.

The client's brief for this job was to create a scene that attracts customers to the hotel's winter high tea/coffee offering.
While most of the shots were more high-key and high-brow, we found a cosy corner of the restaurant to shoot this more rustic, somehow earthy image.
To me, this is a great image to market a winter season offering. The condensation on the Chemex that eludes to warmth, the scatter of beans that illustrates unprocessed freshness, the subtly-lit chair that invites an occupant and the steam drifting lazily out of the far mug just says to me "Cancel my plans for the next hour and take my money, waitress"! :-)
LIGHTING INSIGHTS: Lit with 1x 500W Bowens studio flash (+ bounce card). Focus spot with snoot attachment cast the faux bay window shadow across the table.

I crafted the light in this shot to mimmick shafts of sunlight penetrating the ocean.
This was a hero shot for a well-established seafood restaurant, which was in desperate need of refreshing their marketing content.
We settled on a low-key art direction, to really make them stand-out from their competitors in the seafood space.
The result? A 40-fold increase in their online bookings within 4 weeks!