How we shot some of the best BBQ in the world

Well, if you're a fan of BBQ anywhere in the world, you've most likely heard of the" World Famous" Joe's Kansas City Bar-B-Que. They've gotten rave reviews from Presidents, sports stars, celebrities, foodies, and of course by yours truly.

We had the privilege of being asked to shoot their food for the new website.  Joe's Kansas City is now selling their world famous Bar-B-Que all over the USA from the website.  Now, if you're in Memphis or Seattle and need a great BBQ fix, all you need to do is order it.

This was an especially gratifying project since it's a locally owned company and we're big fans!

Joe's KC came to us and said we want some great photography,
but we don't want our photography to look like all the other companies selling BBQ on the web.  We want the photos to capture the authentic and real look and feel of our product. The shots should look as if the pit master just took it out of the hot smoker.   We don't want it to look perfect.  We want it to look authentic with some meat drippings on the surface, the utensils to be a little messy.  We were fortunate to find a hundred year old butcher block table for our background. It is 12"thick and three and a half foot in diameter and made out of one solid walnut log.  It set the tone for the whole shoot with it's authentic wear and cracked surface.  To finish out the authentic and real look, we shot with all natural light and let the shadows go a little dark.

Here are a few fun images from behind the scenes, along with a few of our favorite final shots.    

Food Stylist prepping the brisket for it's close-up.

David about to get slapped for moving the styled food.

Clients and crew taking a well deserved lunch break.

Final image

Yummy Ribs

My favorite burnt ends!

2016 Food Reel

We recently released our 2016 Food Reel.  It's a compilation of a number of projects I've directed and help produce. Food photography and motion are much the same, in that you are striving to get the attention of the viewer with mouth watering visuals to make them desire the product.  I've included a few behind the scenes photos of one of the shoots. 

To see more of our videos visit:  https://vimeo.com/channels/davidmorrisphoto

Food Stills:  http://www.davidmorrisphoto.com/portfolio/david-morris/food-album

It's turkey time!

We had some fun recently shooting for the Turkey division of a long time client. As always, behind the scenes and out of sight of the camera, everything tends to look a little different.

An interesting challenge with this project was we needed to find a way to photograph four farmers once and have the ability at a later date to change out the food they were holding. We decided the best solution was to choose one plate and one platter that we would use over and over again. We made a support device that would hold the empty plate and platter in a fixed position that allowed the models to hold them differently expressions and body positions. 

Whenever there's a chance we will shoot additional images that require the same look and feel (lighting, spacial relations, perspective, etc.), we craft drawings and take measurements of everything on set. This allows us to recreate the exact set-up and shoot more food that can be photoshopped onto the plate and platter we originally shot with the farmers. And an added bonus – by keeping the plate/platter supporting device thin, we have minimal retouching! 

Model and food set all in one.

Our hero turkey shot that will be placed on an empty platter our farmer is holding.

Stylist Sarah Thompson Lift getting our GQ farmer ready for his close-up.

Always fun to photobomb the food stylist.

It never looks the same from the back of the set.

I always have to have my hands involved in something, to the chagrin of the stylist.

How about a little left? No right. No left! It looks perfect just where you had it. (:-)

Putting the final paint stripper touches on the bird.

Wardrobe, please!

Farmer gear.

Any time there is a chance we will be shooting additional shots that need to have the same look and feel,
our assistant takes tons of measurements and photos so we can recreate the same look again. Thanks Ben!

I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream

For years we have photographed ice cream.  Lately, we have been shooting a lot of both stills and video ice cream projects.  Both fake and real ice cream photography have their challenges but by far some of the hardest photography you will ever do is real ice cream.

The obvious is that real ice cream melts.  But what may not be so obvious are all the other factors that effect real ice cream shots.  Here are just a few:

Studio humidity
Studio temperature
Freezer temperature
Ice cream temperature to get the right barking on the scoop
Types of nuggets, nuts, chocolate ribbons, carmel ribbons, etc that is in the ice cream.
Temperature of the ice cream bar coating
Fat content of the ice cream
etc., etc., etc.

Although ice cream photography isn't brain surgery, it's one of the closest think you'll come to it as a photographer.

Stills from a recent video shoot

Stills from a recent video shoot

Stills from a recent video shoot of a coke float on a spinning turn table

doing a final check of the glass and product

what you don't see is a clear tube inside the glass holding up the ice cream 

using my 10x glasses to make sure the chocolate coating is just right 

orange cream popcicle

A basket of dry ice hovering over the set to keep the ice cream from melting

lots of ice cream scoops

food stylist perfectly positioning ice cream in the bowl 

lighting test

Lot's of ice cream sandwich options 

dueling 10x glasses

Adding sauce and nuggets to the scoop

food stylist having fun

food stylist holding fake ice cream

the real thing

Thanks, Tiffany for all the great behind the scenes photos.

Holiday Fantasyland Foodscape

As a photographer I'm always looking for projects that will challenge me.

Although we specialize in product, people, and food photography, I find food projects some of the most fun.

Two years ago we shot our first all food Holiday Fantasy Foodscape project.  Well, we've shot another one this year.  I can't lie, London based photographer Carl Warner ( the Godfather of Foodscapes ) is a big influence on my images.  

This year I wanted to do a "Candy Fantasy" theme with a touch of Dr. Seuss for all us kids at heart. 

Here is the list of ingredients.  See how many you can identify.

Hammond's Classic Handmade lollipops

Idahoan Potato Flakes

Hand of Buddha

Large marshmallows

Small marshmallows

Pink and white marshmallows

White cotton candy

Ribbon candy

Old fashion rolled oats

Cocoa

Brownie mix

candy canes

Peppermint candy balls

Candy stars

White peppermint bark

White M&M's

Silver & White candy balls

White frosting

Toasted coconut

Red & White sprinkles

Cauliflower

Dark Chocolate

Peppermint chips

Rosemary

Hope you enjoy how this Candy Fantasy came together.

A big THANK YOU to food stylist Sarah Hunt and assistant Casey Dobbins for helping on this project! 

Extra food and candy were donated to http://www.sunflowerhouse.org/

These shots can get a little messy.  Some seamless paper helps with the clean-up.

The basic foundation.

The basic landscape shape.

Once we got the basic shape I started to add the snow.

A little cocoa adds a little different color to the landscape.

Starting to experiment with where to place everything. 

Food stylist Sarah Hunt working on the house.

Assistant Casey Dobbins putting the windows and door on the house.

Placing candy and white asparagus on the mountains.  I later decided they didn't work and replaced them.

Adding pink and white marshmallows to the front yard.

Decided to make this a sunset scene and started to add some color gels to the lights.

Final set.  I shot the cotton candy clouds and chimney smoke separately and added them in post. 

Some of the candy and food we used.

Sarah got tons of options for the shot.  Awesome job Sarah!

Final Image