Studio Lighting Wrap-Up Video February 22, 2010
Posted by Nicole : Behind-the-Scenes, Photography, Photowalk, Video , 3 commentsJeremy Hall put together this awesome video on our recent “Studio Lighting Photowalk”. It’s one of the largest Photowalking Utah events of the year and he really did a good job of portraying the spirit of our photography community.
Thanks to everyone who helped out and participated … the event was an overall success and I was glad I could be a part of it. The photography community here is why I am making Utah my new home and it’s the people at events like the one in the video that makes me realize I made the right choice. :)
Behind-the-Scenes: Medical Facility Portraits February 18, 2010
Posted by Nicole : Behind-the-Scenes, Photography , 1 comment so far
Last week I went to a local medical facility with Rich Legg to photograph portraits of health professionals. The setup was fairly simple – we had two lights, each with softboxes, on either side at approximately a 45-degree angle. The images were for their profiles on the medical facility’s website, but instead of shooting traditional head-shots of we went with more of a “stocky, lifestyle” setup and one of the other staff members was kind enough to pose as the patient.
I’m very happy with the final products and look forward to returning in a few weeks with Rich to do some more photography. (BTW … thanks, Rich, for the behind-the-scenes photo!)
Behind-the-Scenes: “Bruschetta” January 13, 2010
Posted by Nicole : Behind-the-Scenes, Food, Photography , 12 comments
I’ve had this photo idea in my head for a few weeks now, and last night I decided to put it all together and photograph it. It took longer than a “normal” food shoot, since I was using a strobe as my light instead of natural window-light, but the part that took the longest was trying to arrange all of the lights in the background (my “bokeh” lights) so they fit well into the background.
The neatest thing about this is that it turned out exactly as I pre-visualized, which is always a treat. :)
The equipment used was an Alien Bee B1600 at the lowest power setting for the main light with a medium-size octabox, reflector on the left clamped to a tripod (gold-ish side facing the subject), a Canon 7D with a 70-200 f/4L IS (zoomed in to 200mm for all images), exposure set at 1/250th second at ƒ/5.6. I found the bokeh-lights at Hobby Lobby and strung them across a boom-stand. The background is a pop-up black/white reversible backdrop … I don’t use it too often but it worked perfectly for this setup.
Canon 7D, Canon 70-200 ƒ/4L IS, 1/250th sec at ƒ/5.6
Help Portrait December 14, 2009
Posted by Nicole : Behind-the-Scenes, Photography , 8 comments
Image courtesy Rich Legg
This past weekend I had the opportunity to help out the local community by being involved with “Help-Portrait“, a world-wide photography event where photographers and volunteers got together to provide portraits to families and individuals that are in need. Several of the families that came to the YWCA in Salt Lake City had never had a family portrait taken … it was so wonderful to see their faces after receiving their printed photograph for the first time.
I’m really encouraged after doing this event, and also seeing other photographers organizing similar events in the area (here is a video about a local photographer, Dale Welcome, who put together a portrait event last month). It’s such a wonderful feeling that I can use my gifts of photography to help others, even if it’s just to put a smile on their face.
A big thanks to Mavourneen Strozewski for organizing this event, and also to the other local photographers who took part in this and other Help-Portraits in the area. It was an awesome experience and I was so glad to be a part of it. :)
Food Styling: Pasta December 3, 2009
Posted by Nicole : Behind-the-Scenes, Food, Photography, Tips & Tricks, Tutorials , 7 comments
When you are photographing food you need to make the image look so good you want to eat it. Having a plate of food in front of you is different … it can look sloppy and have no color, but our other senses kick in, such as smell and taste, so it looks appetizing at the time. However, with photography we lose most of those senses and can only rely on our sense of sight, so what the food looks like is extremely important.
This is where styling your food comes into play. The first photo only has pasta in the dish … well, that’s all you see, right? What you don’t see is that hidden below all those carefully placed mounds of linguine is a half-dome of styrofoam. The bulk of the styrofoam gives height to a bowl of pasta that would normally be flattened and caving in. After placing the styrofoam I took five strands of linguine and wrapped them around my fingers, then placed them down carefully so that none of the ends of the pasta strands were showing. I continued until the pasta was covering the styrofoam and looked balanced.
Next I took a pan of pearl onions and tomatoes that had been lightly sauteed and added each element to the dish separately. I used the live-view feature on my camera to help see the bowl of food as it will look when I take the photo – I found this feature to be very useful, btw. The last element I placed was the basil, and I tried to find the best looking leaves in the bunch.
I also added a few items that would typically be in a dining scene – the water glass and fork. The ice in the glass is actually fake – I got the ones in this scene from eBay, but you can find them all over the place (here’s a link to some simple acrylic ice cubes I found on Amazon.com). The ice and splashes you see on high-end commercial photographs are most likely custom-made acrylic – they are quite pricey but worth if if you have the budget. When you are adding these additional elements you want to remember to keep it simple and relevant to the scene, and if you want to add color then remember to either repeat your colors or keep them complementary to your food dish.
