Chefs are stepping away from the heat of their ovens and into the bright lights of the studio for My Table’s new ad campaign called Chef’s Day Off – coming out of the kitchen and into your world.

If you have read through the current issue of My Table, you may have noticed an image of a familiar chef holding utensils not normally found in his kitchen repertoire.

My Table and photographer Tom Callins have joined efforts to create a new ad campaign called Chef’s Day Off. In the June-July issue currently on newsstands, chef Ronnie Killen of Killen’s Steakhouse set down his butcher knife and picked up his driver and ball. “When I’m not in the kitchen, you’ll find me on the golf course,” Killen likes to say.

The Chef’s Day Off ad campaign brings chefs out of the kitchen. A favorite dish of yours may be so texturally complex and surprising in flavor that you imagine the chef spends all of his or her waking hours devising such concoctions. So you might be surprised what other interests evoke the same sort of passion within Houston’s chefs: extreme skiing, animal rescue, woodworking, music, fly-fishing.

The ad campaign attempts to bridge the gap between the table and the kitchen by introducing a more complete picture of the chef who wrote the menu. To support this crossover attempt, My Table and Callins chose to shoot the ads in black and white, going for an old-school Hollywood look. “It has a realistic look that is not realistic at all,” Callins explains. “We knew from the start these ads would be black and white.”

Approaching the photo assignment, Callins goes into each shoot with an idea of what the image will look like. “Reality has a way of modifying your vision, though,” Callins says. “I like to let the shoots flow and take on a life of their own.”

Callins is especially receptive to the creative input of the chef being featured. “Brainstorming with me is the best way to visually share a chef’s passion for his or her hobbies,” Callins explains.

The team is in the middle of shooting the first year’s ads and will finish up the first series of the campaign this summer. As for what readers can expect from Chef’s Day Off ads in the future, that is still in the works.

However it seems the artistic mind of Callins is already envisioning a push into reality. “I love shooting on location, so I’m sure I’ll be lobbying to take it out of the studio and into the real world.”

For now, chefs are stepping into an unfamiliar spotlight and are happily offering readers a visual glimpse into their lives outside of the kitchen.

“To date, none of the chefs have been nervous at all, and everyone has been happy to participate,” Callins says. “I think it’s a fun idea, and the chefs are reacting as such.”