Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Bobby


This is the second time that we "shot" Bobby Simmons. The last time we were in a conference room full of people at the Javits Center. We shot there because he had been upstairs signing autographs for the food company that he helps out. This time we set up in a tiny locker room at the Nets home offices. 1/2 a white seamless gave me a head start for stripping him off the background. Bobby is amazing! He actually remembered me (sports stars usually don't pay attention to the photographer), the date we last worked together and remained patient and kind for this second shoot. We covered every possible pose and now we can match Bobby to Ahmad and Leon (the foot-ball players) in a series of ads and billboards. By the way, Bobby is actually palming the basketball. No Photoshop needed there!

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

New Clients

I have a new favorite client.
His name is Nick and the company is Baker's Perfection. They are well named. I haven't eaten anything of theirs that I haven't loved!
Not a bad job when you can shoot and eat. We even "had" to test some yummy products during the shoot. I use the photo gurney and we shoot on location at their facility, bringing all of the equipment in. It's a fun day. The real work begins the next day as we strip and retouch all of the cakes. You always need new clients to add to your base of established clients. It's awesome when their personalities fit so well within the whole group. I just love all of my clients. They keep me busy and help keep the kids in college. La vita loca! I wouldn't have it any other way.


Friday, August 28, 2009

I couldn't do it if it weren't for food...

These guys are Ahmad Bradshaw and Leon Washington, players for the Giants & Jets . I met them while shooting (photographing) them for a food client. They were both very professional and worked hard to get the work done quickly even though it was late. We shot about 140 images, got done by 11PM and had a web site up for the client by early the next day using Adobe Lightroom. No word on picks yet, but there were more than enough to meet the clients' wishes. I have turned my raw files into DNG's using Adobes' DNG converter, so all of my raw edit metadata is now included in each single DNG file. When the client makes the final picks, these images will be made into a billboard and header cards. See? Food photographers have to know how to shoot everything well.

Friday, August 14, 2009

This is only a test...

This is a test for a new client. They make desserts that are sold all over the place. Nick (the new client) is related in some way to the owners of one of my other food clients. This is how my business works. I work hard to keep my current clients happy and feeling safe so that they will bring me new work and new clients that they know. Nick has no idea what my dessert photography looks like so we agreed and he dropped off one dessert for me to use for a test. I shot the yummy cake with lots of detail, stripped it off the background and then put it on 4 different backgrounds so he could see what is possible.
This is how we survive in this crazy business. We go beyond to impress and win over new clients and work just as hard to keep our current clients happy. You need them both: happy current clients and happy new clients. It's the only way to stay in business this long.
When I say work hard, realize that it's not like digging ditches (I've done that too). No, it's staying focused on perfection while enjoying the people involved.

Friday, June 5, 2009

Too busy...

I often say that photographers are crazy when they are not busy and then crazy when they are busy. Therefore, we're always crazy!
I have a dungeon full of product for my friend John and World Gourmet Marketing. I have three different bowls and maybe 4 or 5 different products. I'm not sure exactly what to do with it all. I would be picking on John for direction, but Revlon has kept me pretty busy so I just kind of look over to the boxes of product over there. Since Revlon takes the weekends off, I was able to get 4 shots done for 4 packages for one of the products. John is in Dallas for work so I don't actually know if these are perfect or not. At this point, I don't think I'll have to reshoot, maybe just do some Photoshop work to make them fit perfectly. In this economy, I guess it's just good to be busy.

Sunday, April 26, 2009

The Cheese goes on

This job began over a week ago. This day we shot in the Split Image studios in Fairfield NJ. And now, it is slowly drawing to an end. I think there is one more day left and it will be the least fun (but still fun). Least fun because the final day will be alone in the dungeon. Fun because hey - photography is fun! Not as much fun because a lot of the fun comes from shooting with friends. I am grateful for the work and when the job is done I can bill it. Thanks Melissa!

Sunday, April 5, 2009

It's not all glamour


What I mean by the title is: shooting 170 different sku's (stock keeping units) of cheese wouldn't be considered glamorous by any means, but spending 2 days with a great client/friend in an office set up as a "studio" was nothing but fun. The people in the cheese warehouse were all very nice or at least very interesting. So far we've done 86 images so there is one day left for the Split Image studios, and I'll finish up the balance in the dungeon. It all good.

Saturday, March 21, 2009

People shots are food shots too!


This is John. John is my client for World Gourmet Marketing. I spent 2 days shooting pictures of real people with John at The Split Image Studios in New Jersey. The days were long but I had a great time. We all had a lot of fun, the shots (20GB) all got done and when it was all over everybody was very happy. I am including this in the food blog because John is holding a cookie. Every person we shot was holding a cookie. So you see, in the wide world of food photography, sometimes you have to photograph people, or animals or even food.

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Food Packaging

For this job, (done for my friend and client John at World Gourmet Marketing), I was given a jpg image (the little one). and asked to duplicate it with my own special light (the bigger one). The product is Apple Cinnamon flavor, so my color is correct. I was given a case of product and sorted through to find the best crackers. I then shot images of 81 different crackers at different angles in raw. I balanced the color and exported each image to tif and then stripped them out and saved them as 81 psd files. We shoot raw because it is a camera's un-tampered pure file and allows us to use programs like Photoshop's Camera Raw processor to make little corrections to reach perfection for our clients. After I had the final psd files I blew up John's original jpg file to 300dpi (I didn't care what it looked like) and used that as a background layer. It was relatively easy then to just pick my files and move them in layers over the original in the background until my crackers replaced all of the originals. Finally, I made shadows below the crackers that needed them and I ended up with a final file that made John happy. I'm going to drop the job off today and pick up another one. It's cookies next! This job is still fun.