Pixel Darkroom Photography

Food shot Thursday! Yeah, I know it looks yummy and you wished you tasted it. Oh well, one of the perks of a food photographer is that you get to consume what’s being prepared for you to shoot. Plus, you don’t even have to hunt for it. Drop me a line to ask for the recipe.

Strobist info: 580 EX CR at 1/2, 580 EX II CL at 1/32 or so, and 580 EX II contre-jour, lighting my backdrop. All via PW. Shot with a 50 mm prime + 1 dioptre filter at f7.1.

Today we went and visited some great friends where we had dinner. Jacob makes an amazing Caesar Salad and while he was preparing it, I was playing with the candles that Claudia arranged on the table and was working on getting today’s shot. When he was done, I put the salad on the table instead, bounced a flash on the ceiling and had this shot by the fourth frame. The “original” shot is somewhere else. It’s interesting how I like the non setup stuff better. I like the mix of colours here – candle light with bounced flash. I’ll talk about color temperature some other time. Suffice it to say that the candle light appears very very warm, while the flash, which is supposed to imitate daylight appears much cooler when combined with candle light in the same frame.
Here goes Caesar Salad à la Jacob. Day 87.

Strobist info: 580 EX bounced into ceiling.

Today I wasn’t planning to get this shot. I got called to do this on the spot and I kinda had to make it work with one light. Everything, besides the cake, was improvised. I’m glad it turned out the way it did. And the cake was good. Mmm, mmm,… Happy birthday, Timi!

Strobist info: 580 EX into umbrella, CR at 1/2 via PW. Slow shutter for small tungsten fill. That’s why you can see the little orange spot in the middle. I usually don’t tweak with the images, cause there’s just so dang many, so pretty much what you see is straight from camera. I’ll let you know when I tweak, that’s if it’s not obvious. Don’t forget to grab the RSS and share on Facebook, Twitter, and what have you,… right below.

This is some extra food I shot a couple of days ago. They are besides my 365 project. Today’s post is here.

Strobist info: 580 EX CL 1/128 zoomed to 28mm, CR bounced off umbrella 1/8 24mm zoom, ISO 100, 1/200. Setup shot here.

This is just another food shot that I tried today. I must say I don’t really believe in luck. But when your lovely wife cooks Thai food and arranges it so beautifully, then you must take out all the gear and set up to take a shot, and feel lucky at the same time. Not only does this look great it also tastes much much better than it looks. I’m still learning about food photography and styling. The first rule is this: eat before you setup.

Strobist info: 580 EX x2 + 580 EX in three groups. A into the closed umbrella at 1/1 CR, B through a diffuser at 1/2 CL and C at 1/128 CR, hand held by yours truly to fill under the plate. 50mm prime, 1/200, f7.1 Setup shot here.
Available for publication here.

Here’s a try at some salad. Nothing fancy, but I figured I’d take a few shots at food. I like doing these. I shot another one with a pumpkin pie but I said I’m gonna lay low with the pumpkins so I figured I’d drop in the salad here. I didn’t like the pumpkin pie shot as much anyway. No incredible set up here, just a flash with wizards. No setup shot either. I did use a 50 mm prime and a diopter filter (+4) to get closer.

Strobist info: f/6.3 580 EX CR shoot through flagged umbrella at 1/4 and a white paper CL to bounce some on the left hand side and on top of the salad. Available for publication here.