The chef concentrating on his work at bin 4 burger lounge. Fuji X10 at 22mm f/2.8 1/18 ISO 800

I sit down at the bar and opposite me the serving window opens up to the kitchen. The kitchen is small, but the staff slide past each other and into their work with a studied efficiency. It is a tightly packed Swiss watch with the parts moving in chorus, each meeting the other where the hand, the plate, the food is expected. I sit and just watch, it is a joy to watch professionals work hard to produce something beautiful and so delicious.

My wife and I were in Victoria and we stopped at the bin 4 Burger Lounge for lunch. I had my X10 in my purse and when we were seated at the bar opposite the kitchen I was hoping to catch a decent portrait of the staff at work. There was not a lot of light so once again I was very happy for the fast 2.8 on the Fuji. Even so it was a difficult shot to take. It was a very busy restaurant so there were often people moving back and forth in front of me. The light was so low that it necessitated a very slow shutter speed so I had to time the shot for a moment when movement was minimal. I had a lot of wasted frames to get this image but I am quite happy with it. I really like the way that the light falls on the chef’s face from his right creating some interesting shadows. His look of concentration is also quite compelling. The slow shutter speed gave just the right amount of blur to his hand and the burger producing the feeling of motion. I cropped the photo to include the line of receipts hanging down from above, this line is echoed in the line of food below it. I was also very happy that there were the two small bowls of sauce on the far right to act as an accent to pull your eye across the image. They make amazing sauces and dips at bin 4. All their food is amazing, check it out if you are in Victoria.

-Russell Berg