Wonderful pasta dish shot for a magazine.
Jan 02
Sorry for the long hiatus – can’t believe December completely slipped away. We did some shooting for a new client in December – Nokia – which kept us busy. Looking forward to shooting more projects for them this year.
As we wrap up the holidays, I thought I’d try and squeeze in one more fancy meal – a delicious egg dessert with fruit and a latté – delicious.
As with most of my shots involving food, this was shot using natural light – a long stretch of windows along the left side of the setup. The biggest problem when shooting something like this is to control the highlights on the shiny edge of the egg dessert facing the windows. Here is how the dessert looked before editing.
See how shiny and bright the left side of the egg is looking – not good. It’s gone specular – meaning it’s basically white with no details. There are a number of ways to solve this problem, but the simplest is to take another shot, but under-expose it enough to retain detail on the left side of the egg, like this.
Of course, this shot is too dark to use – the food looks dull and tired. We load the original shot above and this shot into Photoshop, and use the under-exposed shot to “paint in” the shiny parts of the egg with this under-exposed shot. We just paint over the shiny areas until we get a well-exposed egg, removing the blown out white areas.
The result – the first shot above. Scroll up and you’ll see how well this works to control over-exposures on shiny surfaces.
Oct 07
This weekend in Canada, we are celebrating Thanksgiving. I guess we’re a little keener than our American friends to the south when it comes to celebrating holidays – can’t wait till November.
Every year, the family gets together for a great meal – but hopefully not turkey! Maybe it’s just me, but turkey doesn’t get me excited.
So this year, I think I’m going to try a roasted pork rack – recently shot on a project. Looked delicious – food styled by Ruth Gangbar and prop styling by Laura Branson.
Enjoy the holiday weekend – and try something other than turkey, for me!
Sep 28
It’s Fall, and that means a wonderful opportunity to shoot apples for clients!
Yum yum… here’s an apple dessert we shot recently.
Once again, we used all natural light coming in through the windows to achieve this look. Some art buyers are surprised when I tell them how it was shot. Natural light is an amazing thing, and we use it for probably 80% of our work.
Ruth Gangbar did her thing once again styling the food, with Laura Branson working her magic with the props. Breanne did her thing with the computer, and I pretty much hung out, ate, and sipped lattés all day.
Client was pleased, and Laura commented that this looked very Gourmet magazine once the shot was done. Great shot team – thanks again!
Sep 25
I got to shoot another magazine cover – this one for The County Grapevine magazine. I’ve had the pleasure of shooting covers for them in the past, and it’s always a great day of shooting for everyone.
The team was composed of Ruth Gangbar styling food, and Laura Branson on props. Breanne Sinibaldi assisted me with the shooting.
We were asked to shoot a number of cheeses from Fifth Town Artisan Cheese for the cover. With wonderful cheeses, we had lots of options to work with.
Thanks County Grapevine – till next issue!
Aug 04
There is something about shooting bread that I find really appealing – the texture, the gorgeous colours, the randomness of its shape – just makes for a very interesting subject to shoot.
Today, I spent the day shooting breads. Simple propping, so the bread could do all the talking in the photos, and just added parchment paper with the odd knife and glass. Very graphic images resulted – here’s one from the shoot.
Baguette
The side lighting used in this shot helped to bring out the texture in the crust, and gave a nice shading to the right side of the baguette in the photo. The blue glass gave the shot closure. The glass is from Crate & Barrel, a new favorite spot for sourcing props.
We are continuing to enjoy our latest lens – well, more of a lens adapter than a true lens – the HTS 1.5 from Hasselblad. It provides all the shifting and tilting you could want in food photography. Allows the camera to stay above the subject, but lowered down so you can see more of the food while keeping a straight composition. Think of it this way – for the shot shown, if the camera is tilted, the blue glass in the background would be leaning out of the photograph. In this shot, we were able to keep the camera pretty level, but used the HTS to lower the lens so we’d see more of the bread as the focal point of the composition. Glass stays straight, and with the tilting on the lens, we have even more control over the point of focus. It’s a fantastic tool.
Aug 01
I love summer – there are so many beautiful fruits available to shoot for clients. Yesterday, we shot a number of local organic fruits and were absolutely amazed at the colours. Our favorite shot was the yellow plums, shown here. We love the rustic feel of them shot on the old weathered barn door.
Enjoy the holiday weekend!
Yellow plums
Jul 24
Earlier this week, we had the pleasure of shooting for PUR(e). We shot four prepared foods – beet salad, rabbit, dessert, and vegetables. Thank you Tony for hiring us to shoot your creative for you. Your creative direction was perfect and helped us get the most out of the shots.
Here’s a quick look at one of the shots – the rabbit.
Rabbit
We also put together a behind-the-scenes video of us shooting the beet salad. Enjoy!
Jul 13
Just booked some more cover shots – should be great fun! Gotta love covers. Mostly a mix of seasonal prepared foods – hopefully a season or two early! Check back for the results shortly.
Lemon flan
Jul 02
The County Grapevine cover shot
I recently shot the cover and a number of inside images for the inaugural issue of The County Grapevine magazine – now on newsstands. Ruth Gangbar was her typical amazing self at food styling, with prop styling provided by Laura Branson. With a great team like that, how could I not take great photos?
I’ve been traveling this week, and haven’t had a chance to see it myself, but I hear a copy is waiting for me back at the studio. Looking forward to seeing it!
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