The Aroma of Steak...

The power of smell is amazing.  We shoot a lot of food in our studio, but nothing has the ability to gravitate people to a set more than a fresh steak.  The smell fills the studio, and everyone wants to try it.

A savory mushroom crust surrounds tender beef filets in this recipe, aside from the red wine reduction.

This Shot is just one from a 2 week shoot with this client.  The shoot was for a cookbook for the client, and should be ready to purchase in the next few months.  I shot this with our Sinar Digital back mounted on a 4x5 view camera.  I wanted to get low and really close on the subject, to really show the   "meat" of the shot. (pun intended)  I used a 150mm lens, wide open. 

For lighting, the client and art director wanted to portray a more natural light.  In my mind, I envisioned the window coming from the right.  So to create that light source I used an 11'' Speedotron bare reflector and aimed it at a bank of white cards.  This gave me a very large soft light source, which gave me the beautiful highlight on the right portion of the filet.  I then brought a small white card close and on the left, to reflect that light and fill in the left side.  That card is giving a small highlight on the front left side of the filet.  The shot also needed some directional light, so I brought in a few point sources. 

One was from the back left, which gave some nice spectral highlights, and really made crust separate.  Another was directly behind; this was a small point source with very low power, and it is providing the rim lights for the green beans.  At this point the overall contrast of the shot was too much, and the Red Wine Reduction on the plate wasn't getting any light, so I put a softbox on a boom overhead.  This filled in some of the shadows and reduced the overall contrast.

For this shoot, we did 3 images like this an 8 hour day.

Randall Cropp...

Actor / Writer/ Director - Randall Cropp came by to get some new head shots.

Randall was given my information from a past client of mine.  It's always one of the best feelings when a past client returns to do more work, or they give out my name their friends.  Randall and I talked about what he wanted, and he showed me a few examples of things that he really liked. He mentioned he wanted to do a commercial and a theatrical headshot.  Based of some of the examples he showed me, it gave me a place to start with how to build my sets. Since it was late February and there was about a foot of snow outside, we had to do these shots in studio.

As with any shoot I do, I always do extensive testing prior to the talent coming onto set.  I set up 3 different sets in the studio, each set had its lighting in place, so all Randall and I had to do is just walk into each set after a wardrobe change.  With little down time between each set, Randall was able to keep his groove going.  My time with Randall lasted about 2.5 hours from him walking in, to leaving.  We were able to get 3 different sets with at least 1 wardrobe change per set.

Other shots from Randall's photo shoot.
Randall was a great guy, very down to earth and just some one you like to have around. He made my job very easy, and that is always appreciated.  Here are links to get in touch with him if you wish.  Facebook & Blog

Photography wise, I shot these images with a Canon Mark III body and a 24-105 2.4 lens.  Most of the time I kept the aperture around f4.  Prior to the shoot, I took color meter readings for each set, along with all my other camera settings.  I used a lot of soft light, either from a large flat, soft box or white cards to give a controlled natural light look.