Photos, French Food and Fun at Rosemary Bistro and Cafe

Focus Skills: Composition, F-stops and shutter speeds, Lighting, White Balance

For those of us who love to take pictures, it is VERY hard to be confronted with a visual culinary delight in a restaurant and not take a picture! You’ve been there, right? Food presentation has now become an art form. That gorgeous dessert dripping with sauce and calories just HAS to be photographed before it is eaten, right?

But it is not easy to do. The picture does not do justice to the dish: it comes out too bright, or too dark, or too blurry, or the wrong color. Or you have committed an even worse sin by leaving your camera at home!

Help is now on the way from professional food and restaurant photographer E. David Luria, Director of the Washington Photo Safari, working in cooperation with the popular French restaurant: Rosemary Bistro and Café located in the Forest Hills neighborhood of northwest Washington, D.C.

We’ll meet in the outdoor patio of the new Rosemary Bistro and Café at 5010 Connecticut Avenue NW, in Washington DC. Like many other small restaurants in the area, it is still recovering from the economic downtown caused by COVID-19, so this photo safari is designed to expand the restaurant’s customer base, (After a similar safari was held here in 2020, several participants returned as private customers because they liked the food!)

Mr. Luria will introduce the restaurant owner Fred Darricarrere who will then serve the first of 5 plates, but before you dive in to taste the samples served by the restaurant, Mr. Luria, who has photographed over 300 restaurants for the Entertainment Book, will provide tips on camera settings such as white balance, ISO, depth of field, composition and camera stability so that memories of your experience in the restaurant will exist not just in your stomach but in your camera as well, a VERY valuable skill to have on your next vacation! He will also show you how to photograph the lovely interior of the restaurant.

Here is what is on the menu (Subject to change):

Plate 1 : Salmon tartare with seaweed & green apple balsamic and olive oil

Plate 2 : Japanese dumplings in sesame oil with pork

Plate 3 : Black seabass with vegetable ratatouille, basil infused olive oil

Plate 4 : Dry age hanger steak, French fries, shallots confit

Plate 5 : Classical floating island

Here is how the restaurant is described on its website:

“Building upon French-based cuisine, Rosemary is a multicultural restaurant representative of the dynamism and fluidity of D.C. Our food is both vibrant and delicate, with fresh ingredients combined for a robust sensory experience.”

For this safari any camera will do, even cellphone cameras, but cameras with adjustable apertures, shutter speeds and the ability to shoot on Manual are highly recommended to give you the maximum benefit from the safari. Lenses such as 18-55mm are fine, wide angle lenses (i.e. 10-20 mm or 11-16 mm) give broader coverage for interior shots, macro lens capability is also desirable for food close-ups that blur the background. We also suggest a table-top tripod or a handy Gorillapod for stability, but we will also show you what to do if you DON’T have one.

Meet outside door at Rosemary Bistro and Café at 5010 Connecticut Avenue NW, across the street from the Politics and Prose Bookstore. Plenty of on-street free parking is available on Saturdays. Closest METRO is Van Ness/UDC, about ¾ miles south.

This event will be rescheduled in the event of rain. 

What to Bring

• Camera
• Lenses
• Extra memory cards
• Extra charged battery
• Accessories such as filters, table top tripod if you have one