Shoot the Chef
Winners have been announced!
The Sydney Morning Herald Shoot the Chef! 2009 winners have been announced. The criteria was simple, as we asked photographers to 'shoot a chef'. It could have been a three hat chef, the local take-away cook around the corner, or perhaps their favourite or most interesting home cook.
Entries were open in two categories, professional and student. In each category, the first prize includes two return Coral Economy Class flights travelling in comfort and style with Etihad Airways, the National Airline of the United Arab Emirates. The winners can chose to travel from Sydney to their choice from over 15 European culinary capitals including London, Paris, Milan, Moscow and Dublin*.
View photogallery of 2009 Shoot the Chef images
Professional category winner - Dinner for two with Manu
Jonathan May
Manu Feildel was always destined for great things! At 13, Manu was training to be a performing circus clown and planed to join the Carnie life. However at 15, inspired by his father's restaurant he decided to turn direct his passion to food. Now he has 3 chefs hats under his belt, a slew of celebrity TV appearances and a signature restaurant. When I met Manu and discovered he had been trained as a clown I was fascinated. Originally I thought that the two occupations were completely different, but delving deeper into what makes up the elements of each profession, many correlations became apparent. Cooking in essence is performing too! Whether Manu is cooking for two hundred people on a Saturday night in a packed restaurant, or for his family on a Sunday night, or developing instant recipes for the thousands of TV viewers at home, he is always entertaining. In my picture I wanted to demonstrate the similarities of performance within both occupations by combining the two, and focusing on the performance side of each.while trying to illustrate Manu's larger than life personality in a single frame.
Student category winner - Murder, My Sweet
Sophie Schirmer
When I first heard the title 'Shoot the Chef', although i knew it meant to Photograph, my imagination automatically started running with ideas of how i could literally 'Shoot' the Chef. Having been a big fan of film stills from film noir movies, I decided to create my own film noir scene. The Chef character is actually John Church, one of the chefs from 'Eat' restaurant at Romanos Hotel in Wagga Wagga N.S.W. Having known John for quite a few years and knowing his fun and outgoing personality, I knew he would be enthusiastic to create such a scene and i wasn't disappointed. The photo was taken out the back of his restuarant. The story behind this image involves a woman trapped in an abusive marriage to an underworld Gangland boss. She escapes by having a passionate affair with a childhood friend who also happens to be one of the cities top Chefs. The scene in the image takes place when her husband finds out about her affair and confronts the two lovers in the alley out the back of the Chef's workplace.
