The Cover Story: Shooting our October issue


Like most food happenings in PDX, shooting our Generation Diner cover was a collaborative effort. 

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The soup and exotic herring cake came from Russian restaurant Kachka. Pacific Pie contributed the marionberry dessert, and cover model Jon Shadel is getting down on the Korean pork shoulder sandwich and dirty fries from Lardo.
 
 
Our goal was to not only to showcase the abundance of dining options in PDX — but to take that idea to its playful and logical extreme by featuring an archetypal Portland diner feasting on a variety of delicacies served up by local restaurants.
 
About Shadel: We selected Jon, a travel editor here in the MEDIAmerica office, because he was a perfect fit for the article theme. A millennial foodie, Shadel eats about 60% of his meals in restaurants.
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He was also a real pro, sitting under burning studio lights as photographer Jason Kaplan shot hundreds of images. Kaplan was searching for the right combination of sass, character and mystery conveyed by our dek:  “Why everyone you know is eating out.”
 
READ THE  STORY:  GENERATION DINER: WHY EVERYONE YOU KNOW IS EATING OUT
 
The editorial team had a grand time selecting the cover image. At one point, we were planning to go with the photo to the right.
 
But after staring at the picture, pinned to the office bulletin board for a week or so, we all decided it was a bit too, well, smarmy.  And smarmy was not what we were aiming for. 
 
By the way: having to look at the delicious food for hours while we styled the dishes as props was no easy task. Not saying we didn’t snack a little along the way. 
 
“It’s a strange method of torture,” Shadel observed. “Sitting at a table spread with Portland delicacies and being repeatedly told you’re not allowed to eat any of it. My favorite moment of the shoot came when Wes allowed me, just for a moment, to sink my teeth in a juicy Lardo sandwich. I only got a bit of that deliciousness before I had to try a different pose.”

Here are a few other behind-the-scenes images from the October shoot:

 

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