Portraits....

I’m often asked to do portraits of people, however, typically I decline since I don’t feel I have all the equipment I’d like in order to do what I envision portraits to be. This morning however, I was asked by a friend in need to take a few head shots as his restaurant is being featured in an online article where they require a photo of the chef of Lardon Restaurant(him).

Luckily I was able to borrow his 2nd flash, and although I’d prefer to have 3 flashes to have a more variety of shots, I went ahead with 2 canon 530exII’s and a large reflector to achieve what I was hoping would be decent head shots that would please him. I had one flash (with a diffuser) on body pointing towards the subject along with a flash behind the subject pointing at the wall, also being diffused. I used a large circular white reflector to help reflect light from the flashes to eliminate as much shadow as possible. The result wasn't so shabby. I was able to at least able to achieve what my friend wanted. This was a set of black and white and colour head shots he could submit to be used and also have on file. Given this was my first attempt at doing this type of photography (I’m more of a candid/landscape shooter); I feel I did an adequate job given the situation. I of course would like to try some more flash and light techniques that are floating around in the back of my mind. Perhaps it’s time to buy a few extra flashes? I guess we’ll see ;)

Here are a few shots from the results of the shoot. I’ve touched them up, removing some blemishes however no air brushing was performed as my friend preferred not to have that done.

Food Shooting...

This past Thursday I was asked to take some photo’s of an upcoming menu for the new ‘Lardon Restaurant’.  I’ve never really done anything in terms of food product shots before, other than the normal being at dinner and taking photos in poorly lit dining rooms.   Given this opportunity to create my own ‘set’ of sorts, I was able to do a bit of research in terms of food photography and spent a lot of time just looking at photos of food.  In the end, I decided to go with the setup of 2 flashes with shoot through umbrella’s, one at 2 o’clock and one at 8 o’clock.  I was originally doing some test shots with a reflector but I found that the 2^nd flash helped neutralize some of the harsher aspects of a reflector.   The flash was at a ratio of 1:4 (2oclock:8oclock) to get the light that I wanted and went from there.  I also decided to bring my laptop and hook that up to the camera so the client could see the shots and make any suggestions or adjustments to his food.  Given I don’t have a food stylist I could use all the chef input I could get.  This is definitely something I’d like to try again, after all as with most photography practice makes perfect, if there is any such thing as perfect.  In the end the client was happy with his shots, as was I.  Lardon Restaurant opens officially March 26^th, 2010.  From the samples I had during the shoot, everything tastes delicious! You can also check out some shots of Roncesvalles that I took hanging in the restaurant too!