There’s an all new restaurant in Birmingham’s 5 Points. I had the pleasure of creating a Google Maps Business View virtual tour of Pho Pho Vietnamese and Sushi. Along with the virtual tour I photographed the inside and some of their dishes.

I will say that unlike some food photography, what you see is what you will actually get at Pho Pho. I did very little in the way of arranging what the chef prepared for me to photograph. Of course it doesn’t matter if the food looks good if it tastes bad. To that I can testify that it’s excellent! I was able to sample some the day of the shoot (I wish I could say I usually eat the food I photograph but this is rarely the case). Then later that week I took Kelly there for an evening out. We both love sushi and we hadn’t had any since she became pregnant with Pippa, some 18 months ago. So we were really excited when we tasted how amazingly fresh and wonderful the sushi and sashimi were! Seriously, it was excellent.

Pho Pho is open for both lunch and dinner, closed only on Sunday. If you are looking for some great Asian food with a great atmosphere, check out Pho Pho and be sure to tell them I sent you!

Check out the still photos and virtual tour below. You can also learn more about Pho Pho on their Google + page.

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Learn more about the Google Maps Business View Program here.

Do you have a business that you want to show off on Google? Contact me today to see if it's a good fit for you.

Spiral Staircase Product Photography in Downtown Birmingham Alabama / February 13, 2014 by nikonic1976@yahoo.com

One of the great things about being a commercial photographer is the uniqueness of each job. Unlike weddings or portraits which follow a pretty consistent formula, each commercial photography assignment presents unique challenges. Even if the basic subject is similar from one job to another, the vision of the client and the goal they are trying to accomplish will be different. As a commercial photographer I’ve created ad campaign images for a birdseed manufacturer. Photographed models posing as college students using a dorm installed washer and dryer for the company that made them. I’ve even photographed a concrete house for a magazine. So when I was contacted by a company in Indiana about photographing a spiral staircase installed in a downtown Birmingham office I was not at all surprised.

Now, you might think that shooting a staircase would be pretty boring. For some photographers I’m sure it is. For me though, it was a unique challenge. I needed to choose the right angles, depth of field, and lighting to best show the product as it was in the working environment. The office space itself was beautiful but poorly lit. Using only natural light would have made it look like it was in a cave. Clearly that would do the client no good. So I experimented with different strobes, with different light modifiers, in different positions, and at different powers until I had what I felt would show off the product and it’s environment without looking like it was unnatural.

I feel like the final product was successful in accomplishing that goal!

Birmingham Al Commercial Photography Product- Tommy Daspit-001