Shooting Produce

You know, I have never shot any produce images before. In fact, I am not much of a food shooter as it is such an exacting art, I've never chosen to try and tackle such a demanding discipline.

However, on a recent magazine photo shoot, produce was part of what I had to shoot. The day I shot these images was overcast and the sun was filtered through a cloud bank that acted as a hug soft box.

That light was filtered indirectly through the openings in the produce stand which made it soft and turned the colors super-saturated.

Curiously, all of the food was shot how I found it. No artificial lighting or reflectors - just glorious filtered, indirect light.

Case Study - Andrews Rodeo Company

Last Saturday I did a magazine shoot of the Andrew Rodeo Company at Addielou, Texas. While it was rainy and nasty, that didn't set me back too bad. In fact, the overcast day made for some great saturated colors.

The tough part was taking the portrait of the Andrews. Since Bodacious was an integral part of the Andrews Rodeo Company's identity, I felt like it was important to feature a small shrine they had to the bull in their back room.

While space was tight, that wasn't the biggest problem as I kept getting a "hot spot" on the cut out of the bull. To mitigate the spot, I used a dual flash set up. the main light was at camera right and shot through an umbrella and the second light was bounced off a silver reflector to add soft, even lighting - thus eliminating the "hot spot."

The September 2009 russellgraves.com Newsletter

Check out http://www.russellgraves.com/sept09.html