Let's Get Cooking!

I enjoy cooking on my Viking stove at home, (see recipe below),  but in September we shot for Vulcan.  They are even better than Vikings.

Vulcan stoves are only used for commercial applications. They are not suitable for a house because of the heat generated from their pilot lights, even when the stove is off.

Since the stove was reflective stainless, each side was essentially a mirror.

Each surface had to reflect a white surface.  And not an evenly lit one.  I wanted a shiny gradation across each flat surface of the stove so you could tell it was metal.

 I need knee pads.

I make the best Cream of Crab soup you'll ever taste.  Here's a link to the recipe if you want to try it: Cream of Crab

Photographer's Anecdote

A photographer was invited over to dinner at a friends house. He brought some of his images to show because he was asked to. Everybody raved about his work and the lady of the house made a comment.. "these photos are lovely, you must have a really nice camera"... at the end of the night he was saying his goodbyes on their doorstep, when he replied "dinner was really wonderful, you must have nice pots and pans".  -- Unknown

Duragear Seat Covers

I would rather cut the roof off of a car to shoot it's interior, but Kevin of Duragear won't let me do that to his.  So, we had to put translume over most of the windows as a scrim and light through them.

We could composite in a scenic view out the windows but in this case plain white keeps the viewer's eye inside the car.

A pretty involved setup.

Testing the lighting before the talent arrives on set.

We are now ready for Ella, the talent.

A little last minute coaching.

My dog would never sit still like that!  My kids either, now that I think about it...

We have found that dogs look happier when they are panting a bit.  In the dead of winter Kevin has had to run around with Ella to get her to pant for the shot.  That mostly just made Kevin pant.

A final shot showing the seat down.

Medifast Testimonial Shots

Shannon Cushion, Brian Gleason, and Michelle Wise of Medifast had us shoot testimonial shots of dieters.  Some of the people had lost over 100 pounds!

Hair and makeup by Gindy Martin.

We shared the studio with Jeff Atkinson of Freedom Digital Media.  He used a green screen to shoot video.

The supervision was intense.

Pete Redel shooting.  He is great with people.

Anybody Care About Quality Anymore?

 
Is there anybody out there who still cares about quality photography?  If I have to talk to another company who ultimately decides to shoot it themselves on their conference table, I think I'll go nuts.  It didn't used to be like this.  Previously, the professional Graphic Designer/Art Director acted as a gatekeeper of quality. They made sure that the images used in their designs were high quality, beautiful things.  It made their designs look good.  It made the company look good.

With the advent of easy to use design programs and web page creators, a lot of companies are doing their own design-layout for print and web page creation.  Often the results are horrendous. If you are creating marketing material without the help of a real Graphic Designer or Art Director, (web site coders don't count), see below.

Facts:

- Your nephew with the great new camera is not equivalent to a trained professional photographer with 30 years experience in shooting products in the studio. Sorry.

- Buying  design software does not make you or any of your employees a Graphic Designer!

- Customers do notice the difference.  Quality images denote quality product.

Leave some comments about this rant.  Anybody have any clients who don't care about quality?

Chesapeake Bay Crabcakes

 

 We recently spent several days shooting crab cakes for Chesapeake Bay Crabcake Co.  Stephanie Rose styled the food.

 Stephanie in the studio kitchen.  Does she really need all this to style crabcakes?
 

Stephanie on set with some friends.

At the end of the shoot, we got to take home a bunch of frozen crabcakes and even some lobster tails.  Thanks Alex & Doug. They were great!

Interns & Violin

I hosted two high school interns, Lauren Walters & Ike Pappas, here at the studio for a couple of weeks.  We were kinda slow during that period but they did get to help with a couple of studio set ups. They also learned to vacuum!

This is one of the final images.

Lauren & Ike help build the set.  Now they know all about C-Stands and sandbags.

Here you can see the set up.  The violin is hung up by fishing line and the block beneath will be removed in Photoshop.  The scrim on the left provides a soft gradating light and foamcore on right and below is used as a reflector to keep the shadows from becoming too dark.

At one point the 100 year old violin slipped off the block and swung wildly from the fishing line.  Lauren saved it!

Of course, Ike helped too.

 

 This is another version with a more rustic background.  More of a Bluegrass feeling.

Port Wine

Tom Sadowski art directed a Port wine bottle setup that turned out nicely.  The ultimate client was The Center for Wine Origins.

The set up looked like this, except by the time I shot this the glasses had already been removed.

This was one of the first test images.  The red background is rather bland and we needed to add some sparkle.

I added some shiny reflective pieces of fabric on the red material to get some "random" looking highlights.  You can see them on the left.

Can you can see the highlights created by adding the shiny patches?

Now we add some English Ivy and pink Babies Breath to achieve a layered effect.

Here is the final image.  Note the extensive retouching done to the label, the two bubbles in the glass, and the selective focus which gives it a soft romantic feeling.

Video of Max Factor Shoot

Pete Redel shot this video with his 5D during a photo shoot for Proctor & Gamble's Max Factor. Although I'm not sure about his music choice.  Seems kinda violent.  Thanks Pete.


Max Factor Photo Shoot from Larry Sherer on Vimeo.