Photographer Greg Rannells used to ride on his family’s hogs with friends after school. These days, he’s still pretty enthusiastic about his pork.
Several weeks ago, Kevin Nashan, chef and owner of Sidney Street Cafe, asked Greg to document a charcuterie workshop he was hosting for chefs around St. Louis with master charcutier Fritz Sonnenschmidt. Luckily, he did. Because when we decided Charcuterie’s New Age would be our main feature in this month’s issue, I knew I would have an arsenal of photographs to choose from already.
For the cover, though, Greg and I thought a photo of the charcuterie itself would be a clear introduction to the story. He borrowed a vintage scale from downtown’s Hess Meat Machines and some salame calabrese from Salume Beddu. In the end, he created a meat portrait with muted colors that evoked an old-world technique, which made choosing the cover very easy.
This article appears in Nov 1-30, 2010.
