I was standing in the office of the burger lounge HQ when the marketing guy asked me to look at his computer. He had just received an email from some local business requesting information about their photographer.
By 2013 we knew the architecture thing was kinda done, but we still had great hope for restaurant photography. It seemed obvious that we were heading back to food photography and bought the studio backdrop system on the deposit from this job. Turns out that food photography was just about to start its permanent decline to zero, but to us, this dead cat bounce looked like a genuine upturn. It most certainly, in fact, was not. But we still own the studio. So there's that.
We built covers for over our strobes so as to turn them way down, and also to allow for really directional control. The light has a parabolic dish behind the bulb, and we used really heavy gauge aluminum foil and some black colored heavy duty masking tape. Then added a half paper towel roll in the middle of the rig. We could turn the tube and light housing independently. If you look at the previous photograph, you can see two the spot lights behind the boxes. We had a third strobe on the face of the boxes, we could have also used a ring flash.
Once the lights are figured out, there are still two critical variables. First is depth of field. This is easily controlled on any SLR, normally we shoot between f4 and f18, despite the lenses going beyond. Not one to push the parameters of the gear and expect top shelf results. Much better to put the camera in its comfort zone and push the lights and location elements instead.
I'd just like to take a moment to say that cellophane is a nightmare. It actually is. Its the worst thing that was ever invented. And wine bottles. Wine bottles and cars. Those are the worst things ever.
So far I've uploaded only the last couple shots we took. We billed these people hard. We did. And then we earned every single penny. I'd forgotten about this folder until that fudge post, and I must say, it is such a mess. At the time we had a mac book on the road and a mac tower with a thunderbolt monitor. Still have the tower and monitor, the macbook is buried somewhere near the olympic peninsula. But the folders were so jumbled because half was processed on the macbook. Through this folder, if I continue in ways I know I can, you will be able to see very clearly why we piled this all in a corner and swore at California's modern model of emotional management.
We have so many photographs of these things in different locations that I didn't even remember half of them until just now. I bet we tried things in what turned out to be five or six different county/jurisdictions. The final accepted result was these studio shots. I forget if we bought the rig as a last resort or just tried it last. I think we did way better without it, but I don't sign the check first.
The real value of a real studio is this: There is no corner in the background. the flow is made consistent by hanging a roll of paper about six feet in the air, then unrolling it like TP gone awry. Shallow depth of field or deep, both work fine because from here, graphic arts can do anything. Protect that roll, and do not let anyone crunch it. A repetitive fold is the death of the system.
For computer animations, the studio photograph is ground zero.
I really liked the plate.
Oh - and the second critical variable to studio photograph (after lighting) is staging, or product placement. Good luck with that. It is just pure art. Creative zones, safe spaces, yin and sometimes federally banned substances best known as the smell of creativity. My job in life is to put artists on a platform where they can perform. Then see if I can ride along.