July 2010

Photographs for Business

This week, I had the pleasure of taking some photographs for the celebrity chef, Nigel Brown at the Nigel Brown Cookery Academy in Barton-upon-Humber. Going on location is always a real treat for me as I love being out and about, the only possible downside is having to carry all the kit! I've put a few examples from the shoot in this post.

So what did this shoot involve? Well, for me lighting is always key to making a great shot, whether its natural light or flash light. A lot of the images that you see on the web have very flat lighting, in other words, there are no areas of highlight or shadow, the light level is pretty much even across the scene, which is what lets them down. There are situations where flat lighting maybe ideal, but in a lot of cases, directional lighting is necessary to create depth within an image and to highlight certain key elements. For the shot of Nigel in the kitchen, I used three studio flash lights, one on Nigel coming in from a 45 degree angle, one to light the background and also create some specular highlights on the glass bottles in the background, and a third one bouncing off the ceiling to fill in the shadows. There were no windows in the kitchen, just skylights, but I wanted to make it look as if the light was coming from a window. I could probably have got some fairly acceptable images by putting a flash on camera and bouncing it of the ceiling, but I don't feel I would have achieved the same crispness or sense of depth, which makes these images appealing.

For the outdoor images, this time I used a portable flash on a light stand coming in from a 45 degree angle. The reason for using the flash was to fill in the shadows. The photographs were taken in the open with all the light coming from overhead. Overhead lighting can result in heavy shadows around the eyes, so it was necessary to introduce flash to fill in the shadows, but without overpowering the natural light. The flash had the added bonus of introducing a sparkle in the eyes.

The food shot was taken again with light coming in from the side and with a light aimed at the worktop in the background and the glass bottles to simulate window light. A bounce light was also used to fill in the shadows. The accessories were chosen for their colour to reflect the colours in the cheesecakes.

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