My favorite shoot on the third Professional Imaging Excursion was definitely our stop at the Lift restaurant in Jackson, Wyoming. The restaurant had a rustic ski-lift theme, but the food was elegant and gorgeously plated. To top it all off, we were blessed with stunning natural lighting on the upper deck. If you’d like to see shots from the restaurant itself, look here! Appetizers Entrees: Dessert: ...
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In addition to making food look delicious, Sis. Esplin instructed us to practice HDR. Apparently HDR is very trendy right now even in food photography. I think it’s pretty odd looking, but the technique certainly brings out interesting textures, especially in bread. I used Photomatix for my HDR composite shots. ...
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Destiny and I had to hurry to photograph as many products as fast as we could to the best of our abilities at the latest shootout. Our product options ranged from perfumes to pepper shakers to party favors. Once again, I found lighting makes or breaks a shoot. I had the opportunity to experiment with lots of different lighting set ups. For the shootout each participant had to bring a product. I brought these adorable salt and pepper shakers. My roommate has a set just like this, and I thought they were so cute that I had to get my own. The little owls also have a matching spoon rest, but I couldn’t figure out how to work it into this shot. Apparently this stuff is a Bostonian favorite. I was introduced to Fluff on our last excursion, but this was the first time I’d seen it in strawberry flavor. Tacky shiny stuff. In retrospect I should have been more careful to put better lighting on the logo and I would have loved to make the can look dewy with condensation, but I kinda like this shot anyway. This is my favorite photo from the shoot-out. I like to think it would look like a real ad with the right text and logos on it. The lighting on this shot was particularly tricky. I think we had too many flashes, because most of the photos were drastically overexposed even though they were in such a dark container. This is what the set-up looked like....
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You’d think product and food photography would be easy because your subject isn’t moving, but it can still be tricky depending on your lighting setup. I greatly prefer working with natural lighting so I had to stretch myself when it came to this indoor shootout, ESPECIALLY since I don’t find most of the following foods delicious. In fact, I’d never even heard of an Italian soda before. You learn new things everyday! ...
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During my excursion to Island Park I had the opportunity to experiment with macro extension tubes. With macro extension tubes, my camera lost the ability to focus automatically so I had a lot of practice with manual focus. The tubes also darkened my images so I had to use slow shutter speeds, a tripod, and an assortment of continuous LED lights and flashes. Gems make great subjects for macro photography because the close up view reveals amazing colors and hidden textures. I did some minor edits on all of these photos to up the contrast and really draw out the vibrant hues. I also had the opportunity to shoot these colorful fly hooks! I dusted them with glitter for extra interest. I like the contrast between the sharp hooks and the soft fluffy...
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Light painting is tricky, because it’s hard to know how your image will turn out. Though I was initially disappointed with this piece, I realized that it looked like the scene was sitting near a window, illuminated by moonlight filtering through tree leaves. Still, it was pretty dark and blurry, so in Camera Raw I increased the clarity, exposure, vibrancy and saturation. These little vials were the first thing I wanted to shoot when I saw them arranged with the other light painting scenes. I have a thing for bottles and colored liquids. The snoot on my flashlight was sloppy so I had a really hard time controlling the light. I had to do quite a bit of editing in Camera Raw to reign in the focus. I had way too much light, so I reduced the exposure, whites, and highlights, and boosted the shadows, contrast, vibrancy, and saturation. Finally, I reduced the clarity and added a vignette to soften the whole image. This was a difficult scene to arrange and paint. I didn’t really know what to do with all of the elements, particularly the strange tiles, but I’m satisfied with the somewhat pell-mell result. I love journals, and if I’d had time, I’m sure I’d have loved to look through these old books. I didn’t do any edits. Remember what I said about that “thing” I have for bottles and colored liquids? That doesn’t quite extend to sodas. Still, I loved the colors of these classic pops and the way they lit up when I shined my light through them. I wasn’t very careful about the angle of my tripod so I had to tilt the image in Photoshop and then crop it down. I used content-aware fill to eliminate a distracting reflection from my flashlight on the red soda. My last tabletop light painting for the excursion had to be a macro shot, so I borrowed a classmate’s Canon EOS 60D and his macro lens and dialed in on this tiny scene of opulent jewelry. I had to really squish down the snoot on my flashlight to keep from flooding the whole scene, and I only dared keep the light on for about 10 seconds. My resulting photo was way too dark, so I had to take it into Camera Raw and boost the vibrance and saturation significantly. With an adjustment brush I increased the saturation, exposure, and sharpness on the facets of the jewels to bring them out even...
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