I was amongst the earliest adopters of high-end digital photography at the end of the 90s. My book ‘Patate’ was the very first produced from digital originals, by major French publisher Flammarion and I was amongst the very first professionals to begin shooting on location with what had until then been exclusively studio equipment. With my portable Mac blocked open in a backpack and the 10 metre fiber-optic cable allowing me to shoot with, what was until then, a completely unimagined freedom. The result was a radical change from the previous decades of constrained studio work. A transformation into a whole new way of working, where the chef’s creations could be shot without the destructive limits of time. Instead, I would find the light where I could (restaurants sometimes have no windows) and shoot without the notions of commercialisation, advertising or communication. We wanted to simply concentrate on the artistry of the chefs and the immediacy of their inspiration, which is so much a part of real food in real life, far from the carefully organised world of photographic studios and a production environment. This was a structural change for me, having spent my entire professional life up to this point, working in a studio with bellows cameras and studio lighting. The craziness of this new freedom led to, for example, on one occasion shooting the chef’s creation, on the ground, between two parked cars, in front of the restaurant. Another saw Pierre Gagnaire running along the pavement outside his restaurant, dish in hand, much to the amusement of passers by and once in New York, I even shot in a glass revolving door. Seriously! Thankfully the restaurant was only open at night. These books enabled me to work with some of the world’s greatest chefs and enjoy the privelege of co-authoring the first book ever produced by The Ritz Hotel in Paris. From the very beginning of these digital days, I have continually worked against the mainstream, striving to find something different and today I continue to do so. ‘It’s hard to be different’. If you can find a way, it may be worth the effort and will almost certainly be fun trying.