Short Listed In The World Food Photography Awards
Short Listed In The World Food Photography Awards
One of my images from Waxlight Bar à Vin was just shortlisted for the James Beard Foundation Photography Prize at the World Food Photography Awards. The year after winning it for my portrait of Tom Moriarty.
This is a portrait of Jess Railey-Forster. Certified Sommelier, Advanced Candidate through the Court of Master Sommeliers, co-owner of Waxlight, one of the most seriously considered wine programs in the country, and a three-time James Beard finalist. I had never met her before the day I made this photograph. I had never been to Waxlight either.
I can't fully explain why some portraits work and others don't. You tune into it. The energy shifts. You know when it's happening, and you can't always say why. That happened here.
I photograph Buffalo obsessively. Not because I have to. I travel constantly for work. But this city keeps producing people worth photographing. People who came back here, or stayed here, or arrived and chose to build something serious in a place the rest of the country tends to overlook.
The finalists will be announced in London in June.