Visit Fort Worth
I was DP on Unexpected Flavors for Visit Fort Worth with Nametag Films: three spots on Fort Worth's food scene, shot inside Lonesome Dove, Abe Fromage, and Birrieria y Taqueria Cortez.
The brief
Unexpected Flavors is Visit Fort Worth's series on the city's restaurants. I shot three of its spots in 2025 with Nametag Films: Lonesome Dove, Abe Fromage, and Birrieria y Taqueria Cortez. The series runs beyond these three, and the credit here is for the three I shot.
The spots feature the owners and chefs who run each kitchen. At Birrieria y Taqueria Cortez that is owner Rogelio Cortez Jr., and at Abe Fromage it is chef and owner Scotty Scott.
My role
I was the director of photography. Nametag Films created the series, and I worked with them as the person behind the camera.
How we shot it
We shot inside working restaurants. That is a different job from a stage, and the work is documentary coverage that still gets the plate. My notes for this kind of work are short: real restaurants, working staff, small footprints.
The frames show the range of the three kitchens: diners leaning in together by candlelight and a seared filet on asparagus with crispy shallots at Lonesome Dove, the chef in a cowboy hat stopping by a candlelit table, a grilled cheese on a metal tray at Abe Fromage, two diners in cowboy hats sharing a bite at an outdoor table, and birria tacos crisping on the griddle at Birrieria y Taqueria Cortez, followed by a loaded plate with limes, fresh onion, and cilantro.
Why it sits with my food work
This is the work I do for tourism and food clients in Fort Worth. I have written that when you read a cinematographer's credits, you should ask what the problem was, not only who the client was. Here the problem was three working restaurants, each with its own owner or chef. The three spots are embedded on the page, one after another.