Outstanding in the Field

I spent Sunday even photographing the Outstanding in the Field dinner at the North Arm Farm for Insight Photography. It was a fun job, despite the harsh sun and bugs at the farm.

Outstanding in the Field is a company that travels around North America and Europe staging dinners at farms, working with a local restaurant to cater the dinner, and using ingredients from the farm and surrounding area for the meal. The North Arm Farm in Pemberton is a premiere location on the tour.

The famous Whistler restaurant Araxi handled the catering and did a superb job.


Farmer Jordan Sturdy takes the guests for a tour around the farm before dinner.


The first course dinner menu.


An Araxi cook stirs a pot of beets and carrots.


Beef tenderloin on the grill.


Araxi Executive Chef James Walt plates the main course. Despite the stereotypical image of the volcanic Gordon Ramsay-ish chef, I never heard Chef Walt even raise his voice, although he kept complete control of his kitchen and cooks, despite the whole thing being moved into a farmer's field. The kitchen and wait staff also showed great patience with the big photographer generally getting in the way of everything. A really classy show all the way around.


Pemberton raised beef tenderloin with horseradish, beets, and carrots from the farm.


A waiter tops up the wine


A toast between courses


Fruit dessert.

Tech Stuff
It was a fairly straight forward shoot. The big issues where colour correction, especially as I was moving from the shaded kitchen area, where the light has a strong bluish cast, so the full sun of the dinning area. Rather than do custom colour balances, I have preset balances programmed into my copy of Apple Aperture that I can easily apply in post production.

I tried to avoid using flash, as it generally ruins the really nice evening light you get in Pemberton.

Camera: Nikon D700
Lenses: Nikon AF-S 17-35mm f/2.8 (Scenics), Nikon AF-S 28-70mm f/2.8 (Food and Kitchen), Nikon AF-S 70-200mm f/2.8 (Waiter)