Nustef Bakery

 

This job was for a past client but a new company. Lonnie was the client I have known for quite a while. The company is Nustef Bakery out of Canada. Lonnie works for the company here in the USA. We worked for a full day down in the Split Image Studios in Fairfield NJ. Nicole from Canada was the food stylist and Lonnie was the art director. I just took care of lighting and focus and stuff like that. It was a delightful day, the work is beautiful and everyone went to their respective homes happy.

 

What is this?

This is a plate getting ready to accept food for a Hungryman package shot. The problem is: when you have a deep dish, the food falls into the well and everything starts to look messy. I have shot these images with the dish well filled with wax as it is here and even mashed potatoes. The wax works well because it is solid and acts like a part of the real plate. Most of the food we shoot is cool anyway (we use vegetable oil to make cold food look hot). The grey square in the center is used to balance the color of light and is removed before the food comes. 

So that is how an art director can pick any plate they wish and we can make it work for the shot.

Still a Spoiled Brat

 

 

There were a lot of rules concerning behavior at the Nabisco Food Company. One rule was actually no photographs on your walls or cube. This was my client corner. The images on the wall were from both Nabisco and my life in New York before. 

So why was I allowed to have prints all over everything? The answer might be in the next story: 

A Nabisco lawyer who was a friend came into my studio and said that he was not allowed to wear cowboy boots at work. He asked why when Bill does every day? The answer? Bill is a photographer. 

I guess we photographers were just allowed to get away with everything. 

Nabisco was a wonderful place to work. I was concerned about working there after 15 years in NYC. At age 35 it was the only actual full time job I ever held. It turned out to be an answer from God as I learned all about digital photography very early on. I miss Nabisco and all it was and no, Mondelez  is not the same.

What happens when you tell a wise guy "the prints don't really matter".

I worked for Nabisco from 1989-2002 (Kraft for 2002-2004). I have to admit that I behaved like a spoiled brat through most of those years. Nabisco was a great place for an undiagnosed ADD wacko to work. 

I was asked to shoot some images for a huge food show in Chicago. The client said "they're going way up on the top so it doesn't really matter what you do". 

I thought for a minute and decided to see if I could do a shot where the only sharp part of the image would be the product name. 

This is the result. I did 6 shots of 6 different products and if you look closely, only the product name is sharp.

I still shoot a lot of my food images almost wide open but this one was the craziest I've ever been.

P.S. They looked great way up at the show.

 

On location with Panos... again

These images are a few of the many that we shot on location at the Panos Brands offices. The images will be used for their website and packaging. Panos Brands does more than cheese but when we shoot cheese for them they become our fourth cheese client.

Strangely enough, I have only done 2 location jobs during this covid period and both were for Panos Brands. Most of my clients send me the product to shoot and I send them back jpgs for approval. 

We shot this job with our trusty Nikon D850 tethered to Lightroom. The AD Kevin was able to see the images as we shot them and quickly approve (or disapprove) the shots. I don't do any work in Lightroom (except to rename the images) but changed the .NEF files into .DNG once we got back to the home studio, retouched each image, saved them as 300dpi .jpgs and sent them all to the designer and Kevin via WeTransfer. 

The most important point is that we all had fun. We worked hard, had a nice lunch and did a great job... but it was nothing but fun with nice people.