Photography
Photo and photo commentary from the award-winning photography studio of Boston food and product photographer Jim Scherer
How many people does it take to …. ?
Sep 29
Earlier this week we did some exploratory shooting for our friends at Dunkin’ Donuts, trying out some new things for future campaigns. Art director Darren Bult took this amusing shot with his camera phone. Please excuse my grimace!
Contact improv, meditation, and games in Maine
Aug 8
Last week I finished taking part in a week-long workshop with Sean Kernan up at the Maine Media Workshops. No, the class wasn’t about learning some new photoshop technique or lighting style. It was about finding new ways to access your internal creative juices. You might wonder what our activities had to do with photography… maybe nothing, on the face of it. But everything turned out to be relevant, and we spent most afternoons shooting. Here’s Sean in our “class.”
Cooling down at Angelato in Belmont
Jul 18
Last weekend we stopped in at Angelato and sampled their gelato flavors. Mmmm!
Fall’s coming: shooting in our apple orchard for Dunkin’
Jul 13
We’re doing a few days of shooting for Fall here in the studio. Can’t show you the finished shots yet, but with the help of our stylists Verne Cordova and George Simons, the shots are looking fantastic.
The apples and tree branches are real. And it’s amazing what you can do with fake grass when it’s out of focus!
Polygrip?
Mar 14
Finally, I’m back with the next post on the subject of food photography. I thought it’d be interesting to talk about what happens in the kitchen, some of the more unusual pieces of equipment, and odd things I’ve seen used by food stylists, including Poligrip. What’s in a food stylist’s kit? Here’s a look at one stylist’s set of tools:
And here is a different stylist, and how they get set up in the kitchen:
You can see that both of these people are very neat and organized! When you realize that unlike us photographers, the stylist is always working on location and likely to work in a different studio from one day to the next, it’s good to be ready to go with whatever you need.
Each stylist has their own way to do things, but there are a few tools we keep here in the studio for them which I like. First is this hand-held steamer. We cover the nozzle to reduce the steam flow and hold back any sputtering. It’s great for gently softening a slice of cheese on a burger, for example, because it gives a warm and moist heat, without blowing or scorching. You can get this from Amazon or places like Target, in the cleaning department. They tell me this is for cleaning bathtubs.
Here’s another gadget, this time from Williams Sonoma and similar suppliers. It’s a tiny chef’s torch, super useful for adding bits of browning to edges of things like toast, bacon, and tops of crème brûlée of course. This is a much different effect than the steam above.
So finally I’ll mention some of the odd things I’ve seen used. Can you guess what they’re used for? Polygrip, Corn Husker’s Lotion, Bag Balm, Armor All, Wildroot Cream Oil, Vaseline. Then there’s an amazing product called Zap-a-Gap (made by the Super Glue people). It can stick greasy or wet things together, and fill gaps at the same time. And finally, for now, there are stylist’s staples like Kitchen Bouquet and Karo Syrup.
For those of you who want the real encyclopedic “last word” Bible of food styling, you’ll want to take a look at Delores Custer’s book called Food Styling. She’s the master, and having this book is a must for those who are emerging food stylists, as well as for a lot of us photographers!
Visual language
Jan 22
We’re continuing my little series on food photography, begun several posts ago. What is visual language, or visual literacy? Many people have the vocabulary to talk about events, things, emotions, even tastes and smells. But they don’t have the vocabulary to talk intelligently about visual matters. I fault our education system for this. We just aren’t able to articulate what works or doesn’t work in 2-dimensional art, photography in particular. Notice I said “works” — not “like.” We’ll get back to that later.
I’ve had many shoots where the client can say they like or dislike the shot we’re doing for them, but they’re not able to say anything helpful as to why. Let’s see if we can help.
Qualities we can use to discuss composition: static; dynamic; focused; scattered; heroic; aerial; monochromatic; colorful; saturated; clear; obscure; repetitive; patterned; spacious; crowded. We could go on and on.
Qualities we can use to discuss lighting: bright; dark; contrasty; flat; over-lit; soft; harsh; shadowy; spooky; sunny; hazy. Again, we can go on and on.
Qualities we can use to discuss mood: cheery; gloomy; mysterious; dull; intriguing; boring; exciting; sparkly; exaggerated; etc.
I have tried not to use photography jargon here, words like “high key,” “wide angle” etc. Just regular everyday words will do. So OK, you say, we already know all those words — you’re not telling us anything new. The point is how we use all those descriptive words together, to talk about a photograph in a way that is helpful to someone else.
Take this example at left.
Regardless of our likes, we need that vocabulary in order to critique this image in a way that’s helpful. This shot could be described as overhead, composed of related organic elements, lit from one side with soft shadows, showing a lot of roundness, having a certain off-balance feel because of the positioning of the white radishes, showing smooth against textured, and light against dark. It’s quiet in mood. Two elements are entwined, almost like a human element, which is amusing or intriguing. Taken together, all of these things could lead you to say whether the image works or not as a complete composition. Whether we “like” it is a more subjective judgement, based on an emotional reaction to all this.
Here’s something different:
We could say this picture has a playful carefree mood, in particular because of the gesture of the hand, the tipped horizon, and the movement you see in the legs. The light is sunny, making the white shirt crisp against the contrasting black slacks. The shadow side of the shirt is not very dark, and shows blue from the sea and the sky. We’re obviously on a beach, and we can even see that the model has taken off her sandals — more relaxing! Not seeing her face leaves more to the imagination — we fill in the blanks for ourselves. Even though the picture is less studied than the first one, there is still a lot to talk about.
So if you’re beginning your visual education, or even if you’re a pro and want some extra stimulation, pick a picture, ANY picture, and analyze it this way. You may be surprised at how much you come up with!
All words and pictures on this blog are copyright © Jim Scherer, 2011. Reproduction without permission is a no-no, but linking to this page is nice!
Getting to YUM, part 2
Dec 1
So now that we’ve figured out some of the things that give us that appetite appeal, take a look at these two very different pictures from separate stories in the current issue of Saveur, just a few pages apart.
… 
The left image is admittedly tame, possibly a bit “old school” in its approach because of its subject, use of a human element, vantage point and color palette. The right hand image is an example of a new trend: overhead angle, unusual colors, smears on the surface. Um, what is it?
I think the first image is pretty, but conventional. In the second image I think the photographer is trying to create art by using food as the medium. There’s a certain shock value in the image – the blue highlights, and the very clear showing of what appears to be fat, or gristle. Fashion photography uses shock in a similar way.
Hmmm … what do you think?