Jack's of Melbourne

Fish Pie

Jack's of Melbourne are available for evening functions and one such weekly function involves cooking a two course meal.

I went along this week to take images of the process of preparing the main course for the evening.

Preparation is the key to any dish, a little like photography really, the kitchen is quite small so not much space to move around or place lights, therefore for these shots I used a Canon Flash, on camera and bounced the light off the ceiling. Normally with food photography the food will be prepared for the sole use of the photographer and so steps will be taken to ensure that it is visually appealing even if this means that the taste is compromised. Because this dish was for consumption after its preparation and cooking, it made the process of photographing it much more difficult.

I particularly like the composition of this image which i converted to black & white to reduce the distraction in the background, the steam rising from the pans helps to  create the effect of cooking.

Catching action shots of the process proved 

challenging as I it was not always possible to repeat the processes involved. For this shot I needed the pan and the sieve lifted higher than would normally occur so that I could photograph the action of the milk going into the pan.

I like the symmetry of the bowls, however the constraints of the work surfaces added challenges to the composition of the shot.

The action in this shot did not work as well as I had hoped, the fish did not have much colour and texture to it so photographing it was more difficult. If I were to recreate this dish, I would add some colour with perhaps prawns and smoked fish.

This shot held more interest with the vegetable in the background and the action of ladelling the sauce into the dishes. I think because it was steaming hot, the image is affected by the steam, if this were a commercial photo shoot the sauce would probably be cold.

I wanted to show the next stage of the process with some dishes awaiting the topping and some already complete. I think this works really well.
The image could be cropped to eliminate the spaces around the dishes.











These were the accompanying vegetables, prepared and plated up to be microwaved nearer the time.
I did not take images of the fish pie when it came out of the oven as the little peaks of potato were slightly burned on the top and it did not make a visually pleasing image.


There are lots of tips and tricks that commercial food photographers use to ensure the visual result is the most appetizing and appealing to the viewer. In most cases the food is not for consumption due to the processes involved in getting it to this point.

debrajayne & maisy xx