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!

Visual Branding Part 2

At David Morris Photography we continue to shoot for awesome clients who see the value in the consistent look and feel we provide them.

In 2011 I blogged about Visual Branding and the importance of continuity in your images. Whether it's stills or video, many clients want a consistent look in their marketing materials. Here's why – it makes them instantly recognizable and conveys quality and reliability.

To provide this consistency, we document every detail of our shoots. We also oversee all preparation, styling and lighting.

After post-production, we compare all imagery to ensure it has a harmonious look and feel.

Tiffany gives us the thumbs up that everything is looking good!

In the end, everyone is pleased. Even our equipment!

Lights, Camera, Action!

The storyboards are approved. The set is prepped and lit. The food is ready for its close-up. LIGHTS. CAMERA. ACTION! 

Easy, right? Well, what you may not know is it took two days, seven crew members, tons of video lighting and equipment, special effects rigging, specialty food equipment and then some to shoot two nine-second videos.

Oh, and I didn't mention all the footage editing and post production time.

We love shooting stills and video, but there's a lot of work that goes into it. If you're considering getting into shooting beautiful food and still life videos, remember, it can be way more complicated than you think!

Here is a link to the final video:  https://vimeo.com/102786415

Storyboards for our two-day video shoot.

Video set.

The food is smiling and ready for its close-up!

Getting the lighting just right.

The crew protecting the camera from flying fruit and water.

Dumping tray after tray of fruit to get just the right look.

Capturing fruit being blended.

Shooting pour after pour to get just the right look.

Inspecting our handy work.

Looking good. Let's try one more take to get it perfect!

Backing Up Your Images

This is a short but important post. Part of a photographer's "behind the scenes job" is to back-up, archive and catalog every image he shoots for his clients.

This is a great article (and video) describing how one photographer handles backing up his work. This process may seem a bit excessive, but it's a good, safe approach. At our shop, we charge between $75 – $350 per job.

Remember, none of your equipment, software or time is free, so charge for it!

https://fstoppers.com/business/bulletproof-backup-strategies-digital-photographers-23906

The rhubarb lady that lives in a rhubarb colored house who's never tried rhubarb pie

Recently our friend, food stylist, Sarah Hunt invited me up to her home to shoot some editorial shots. She lives in a marvelous old fire station in Omaha Nebraska.  We had no preconceived plan, just knew it was going to feature rhubarb.  I left KC around 5:00am so I could get to Omaha and shoot in some morning light.

Being primarily a studio photographer I work in very controlled environments with all kinds of lighting and equipment at arms length. The fun thing about editorial food photography is you never know what your environment will be and most of the time you travel light.  This time I traveled with my camera bag, my location computer, a light stand, and a fill card .  The other fun part about editorial food photography is, if something cool catches your eye you shoot it.  You are not trying to shoot images to fit within a packaging window or a specific layout, you are visually telling a story about someone or something.    

So where do you begin?  Well the obvious place to start was picking some fresh rhubarb out in the rhubarb patch.  Beautiful morning light allowed me to get some great shots under the rhubarb leaves and some nice shots of Sarah holding the picked rhubarb.  Neither of us were in any hurry so Sarah suggested she could make some fresh homemade biscuits for breakfast and shoot some shots of them with rhubarb preserves.  Who am I to argue!  After eating and shooting some biscuits it was time for lunch.  Sarah, Mark and I went to a great little burger place called Drinkers.  If you're in Omaha, check them out.

After lunch, Sarah made a rhubarb and strawberry pie.  While it was in the oven baking she decided to make a hipster drink called the "The Cracker Queen".  The ingredients included moonshine, Pabst Blue Ribbon beer, rhubarb juice, and who know what else.  Not my cup of tea but visually fun to shoot.  As the title of the post indicates, Sarah had never had rhubarb pie before.  Hot out of the oven I shot some of it's precious juices spilling out of the pan.  After shooting some fun shots of the pie we couldn't wait to cut a slice, put some vanilla ice cream on it and head to the back porch for a little slice of heaven.

Sarah, thanks for the invite, great food styling, fun hospitality, and awesome shoot.     

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.