Revelations at a Food Shoot

Decadent Hot Chocolate

A few weeks ago I was asked to do a food shoot at a local (and my usual) restaurant and coffee shop. There were a number of requirements, including speciality menu items. There were also a number of challenges so I thought I'd post a blog about some of them and how I worked around the challenges.

The foremost challenge was that the shoot needed to be done on location and during normal working hours. This meant working around customers, the kitchen and the staff. Like most restaurants space is at a premium so there was no back section to occupy or set up out of the way. Personally I would have liked the seclusion, preferring to work out of the public eye but not having that option didn't necessarily have to be viewed as a bad thing. For one it meant that a systematic approach (a preferred method for most of my commercial shoots) was required and would need to be clear cut.


I wanted to, in a sense, brand some of the images by incorporating the restaurants colours (black and red). Doing this too often would have taken the images back towards being visually repetitious so I chose to only photograph the hot drinks in this way, incorporating a red wall in the back ground.

Lasagne. The orange of the peri-peri bottle picks up on the roasted cheese of the lasagne and the plate's dominant colours (reds and yellows) is echoed in the plate at the back.

Guacomole BLT and The Works Salad. The green bottle of the salad dressing both matches the food type as well as connects with both plates through the colour of the cucumber/parsley and the avocado.

One of the problems of adopting a studio layout and setting it up for something like this where a variety of dishes and drinks are to be photographed, is that just a few dishes in everything starts to look the same, formulaic. Sure the light can be adjusted a little here and there, perhaps the 'props' can be altered but the danger remains. By shooting with what I call "assisted ambient light", meaning that the ambient light is prioritised first and foremost with external flash being used to accent or punctuate, not populate or pollute, it means that some level of variation is automatically achieved. In fact the majority of these images were achieved almost entirely with ambient light, at times reflected. When flash was used it was handheld, adjusted manually and diffused using a variety of accessories.

Chicken and Blue Cheese Salad. By simply pulling up a wickerwork chair towards the back of this plate I was able to create a different background to compliment the meal and could also disguise some distracting highlights in the background.

So as to further add variety 'table-turning' was adopted. This meant that careful background selection was needed for particular dishes without loosing the overall aesthetic thread of the shoot. By simply switching tables or turning round and shooting from the opposite direction with a new dish, different lighting could be utilised and backgrounds subtly incorporated. At times this involved matching colour with ambient light or colour of the food, or simply incorporating textures that compliment what is plated.

Beef Curry. This was taken facing in the opposite direction to the Chicken and Blue Cheese  Salad above. Strong backlighting meant that fairly direct flash was diffused and de-powered to 1/16th, and flashed twice from slightly above and left and then the same from the right. This shot was stifled earlier by a dark car the pulled up in the background. Reserving the table then waiting for a white car to park, about an hour later, meant I could get on with other shots.

A location of this sort also requires a good measure of humility and professionalism since the last thing you want to do is impinge on the experience of the diners. Careful angles and perspective selection meant that people could be subtly left out without the need to interrupt and ask them to move, shift position or look somewhere else.

Breakfast Special

Bacon and Banana Breakfast Waffle. Warm hues in the background brickwork complimented this breakfast shot, bringing in the warmth of the honey, cinnamon and banana.

If you are ever in Grahamstown swing by Revelations. Its where it all comes together, especially food, photographs and tummies!

What I learnt from a Turtle Tour: Part 2 “I don’t hate non DSLR photographic devices”

Recently I travelled to Kosi Bay on the very north eastern border of South Africa just before it gives way to Mozambique. Kosi is well known for its turtles that arrive each year to lay their eggs on their rapidly dwindling protected beaches. Witnessing this cycle is an extreme experience like no other. In my last post I wrote about my disappointment with, largely, my own engagement with the experience. In this post I want to write about the epiphany I had shortly thereafter.

As a professional photographer I have been a long time trying to establish an appropriate response to the deluge of digital photography that has shaped and fixated our present times. Accessibility to digital resources means that there are, well, more digital resources. This includes of course the images themselves. There are many more photographers taking/making many more photographs which have many more audiences. Just working with ratios, more cameras means more photographers, which means more images which means more, lets not deny it, good images (there are of course many more bad images too, but the bad images tend to have abrupt lifespans (like the many hatching turtles that I’ve not forgotten about and will return to in a moment). I’ve always resented the fact that ‘we’re all photographers now’. But it is true (that we are all photographers, and that I begrudge it). We are. I’ve resented the inability to separate (or worse, defend) my position as a professional photographer: “Wow. Your camera takes really nice pictures. It’s a fancy one right?”

And so there we were, the six of us, huddled round the back end of an exhausted female leatherback turtle as she diligently laid her eggs. There were rules of course: No torches unless they were red, no flashes unless the guide said it was permissible, no loud noises or talking (there might be a third post in this series in which I’ll talk more about rules and reality), keep together and keep away from the head. So it goes without saying (read my previous post) that trying to be successful and ethical photographer in company of others is a challenge to say the least – mostly a challenge to my sanity. As a professional photographer I know how best to work the light, little as it might be. As an understanding and ethical viewer in nature, I want to. Flash is disruptive, even to animals accustomed to it (don’t let anyone tell you it’s like lightening and animals don’t know the difference. You think animals, even as prehistoric as turtles don’t know when it is about to rain? Seriously!!). So I want to use flash, as little as possible (few flashes the better) and as unobtrusively as possible (de-powered, balanced and subtle). I do this because I am a professional, I know how to, and I am intelligent and respectful.

So what do the non-DSLR users do? They take pictures. Lots of them. And repeatedly. Do they depower the flash output on their iPad, mobile phone or point-and-shoot? Do they gently take a picture or two, then step back, not just to get out of the way, but more importantly to respectfully give the turtle space? No! They crowd and they snap and they flash away like every egg being laid needs its own picture. The people have got to be in it too, “Don’t forget about me. Here I am, smiling and crouched while the eggs arrive”. Now, with fabricated fascination I place my mouth into an ‘O’ then shovel it away again to ask, “Did you get that…? Take another one, just in case”. And then, like this is some kind of two-rand kiddies ride “Do you want a turn?” And that was when it hit me: I realised that I don’t hate iPads, mobile phones or point-and-shoot cameras. I hate their users. 

*It is with a degree of jest and tongue in cheek that I mask the identities of my fellow turtlers. They are not hated.

Its not an art exhibition, it is a phenomenological site-specific series of intermedia interventions and installations.

I have written before about trying to synthesis the artistic creative endeavor wrapped up with everything that is photography, with maintaining the 'authenticity' of photographing a fine art exhibition. This was driven home once again, or the difficulty of the achieving this, when I was tasked with photographing Simone Heymans' MFA submission, titled "via" a few weeks ago.

via was a phenomenological site-specific series of intermedia interventions and installations that centered upon our relationships to place primarily, but also space. What this means is that the location, in this case the many corridors and passageways of the 1820 Settler's Monument in Grahamstown, is significant and threaded into the meaning and comprehension of the experience. These sorts of exhibitions cannot simply be called viewings but are experiential and multifaceted in ways that traditional gallery spaces cannot begin to compete.

Entrance to via. Canon EOS 7D, Tamron SP 70-200mm at 70mm. ISO 200.  f/11@8sec. Light painted with a handheld torch.

Somehow, along the journey that is via, the offering begins to open up and question our understandings of place and consumerism in a contemporary context of globalisation. It is not at all concerned with consumerism of goods like food and possessions, but is rather more concerned with media, conformity and management. Central to the interventions that form the backbone of via are
theories of place and non-place, especially Marc Augѐ (1995). According to him, “If a place can be defined as relational, historical and concerned with identity, then a space which cannot be defined as relational, historical, or concerned with identity will be a non-place”. As Simone Heymans' supervisor says, "Non-places are therefore those habitually transient, paradoxically fast-paced yet motionless, waiting spaces that one frequents daily. They are spaces of consumerism, circulation and consumption. They are simultaneously a symptom of globalisation and the three excesses of Supermodernity, namely, excess of the ego, space and time.

via begins with a queue to register and complete documentation. Canon EOS 7D, Sigma 18-50mm at 31mm. ISO 200.  f/2.8@1/20th. Fill flash.

Canon EOS 7D, Sigma 18-50mm at 18mm. ISO 200.  f/2.8 @ 1/20th. Fill flash, bounced at 1/2th power.

Registeration consists of fingerprinting, legal documentation and identification documents. Canon EOS 7D, Sigma 18-50mm at 31mm. ISO 200.  f/2.8@1/20th. Fill flash.

Canon EOS 7D, Sigma 18-50mm at 18mm. ISO 200.  f/2.8@1/20th. Fill flash.

So how does one even attempt to try and capture some of this in the images that will be used as documents of  evidence for the exhibition? How does one record these elements when photographing/recording/capturing the event/experience? This is the conceptual concern and has little to do with the technical aspect. Yet.

The short answer is: with difficulty. via explores and disrupts the superficially tight definition of a non place by means of an organised walkabout where participants are invited to consider their own perceptions and ingrained social codes that evolve within these spaces. The experience was strictly controlled (by hired security guards) who managed queues, ordered and organised people into groups and escorted them to the various sections at specific times and intervals. Carefully placed interventions (the equivalent of 'artworks' I suppose, though they don't pretend to be) are blended into existing signage and indicators, or 'modes of management and organisation'. So it is tour-like but with an ominous and constant presence of authority and surveylance and control.

Canon EOS 7D, Sigma 18-50mm at 40mm. ISO 1600.  f/2.8@1/8th.

Canon EOS 7D, Sigma 18-50mm at 23mm. ISO 800.  f/2.8@1/30th. Fill flash at 1/8th power.

Canon EOS 7D, Sigma 18-50mm at 18mm. ISO 400.  f/2.8@1/6th. Fill flash at 1/8th power.

Canon EOS 7D, Sigma 18-50mm at 23mm. ISO 800.  f/3.5 @ 1/30th. Fill flash at 1/16th power.

Canon EOS 7D, Sigma 18-50mm at 24mm. ISO 800.  f/2.8 @ 1/30th. Fill flash at 1/16th power.

Canon EOS 7D, Sigma 18-50mm at 23mm. ISO 400.  f/3.5 @ 1/45th. Fill flash, bounced at 1/16th power.

Canon EOS 7D, Sigma 18-50mm at 18mm. ISO 200.  f/2.8 @ 1/8th. Fill flash, bounced at 1/8th power.

Canon EOS 7D, Sigma 18-50mm at 35mm. ISO 400.  f/3.5 @ 1/90th. Fill flash, bounced at 1/4th power.

Canon EOS 7D, Sigma 18-50mm at 26mm. ISO 200.  f/2.8 @ 30sec. Bounced flash, handheld with 2x firings at 1/2 power.

Back to the photographing.... So couple the conceptual problem as outlined above with the very real limitations of  space (or non space :)  ), this time in a photographic sense and then add ... yep, you guessed it, bad light (again photographically speaking) and there is thus presented a very real challenge. What a pleasure! 

Canon EOS 7D, Sigma 18-50mm at 21mm. ISO 800.  f/2.8 @ 1/30th. Fill flash at 1/4 power.

Photographic stitch using PS of three images. Canon EOS 7D, Sigma 18-50mm at 32mm. ISO 400.  f/8 @ 30sec. Light painted with hand held torch

Photographing Monks at Midday

Last week I was urgently contacted by South Africa's Mail&Guardian newspaper to supply some images for an article they were running. It seemed like they were in a bit of a pickle as they were casting a big net by wanting a bunch of images, ten to fifteen they were asking, for a single article. Nobody, much less a leading weekly newspaper has space like that on offer, but besides, I was a little tied up marking some student portfolios so I declined.

The next day my phone rang and they said they were desperately needing images as an advert had been pulled. I decided to dump the day and gallop off to fill space for the national. This is not a post about wasting an entire day and evening supplying images that bore no resemblance to the published written article, but it is a post about trying to make things work in less than ideal circumstances.

 A long held mantra of mine, if you can call it that, is that a good photographer should be able to conceptualize and execute a decent usable image no matter the circumstances and limitations of the situation. Not having "the right lens" and "the light was bad" are two default excuses for bad images that my students seem to never grow tired of offering.

So it was that I had half a day to source and schedule a string of photo shoots as per the scantest of briefs that photojournalists always seem to receive. One of the shoots was at a Monastery with the alarmingly rural name of Mariya uMama weThemba Monastry and Guesthouse. Due to scheduling and deadlines I managed to arrange to meet the brothers, at about 14.30 when they would be happy to don their habits too. Knowing full well the light was going to be bad I at least consoled my self with the knowledge that they would be wearing nice rustic brown robes the same as in the days of old and that this would surely be graphically pleasing.

Under a burning, bright, cloudless, African sky I arrived for the shoot ... only to see the brothers wearing their white robes. It must have been brown robe wash day!

Anyway, as most photographers know white in bright light does not lend itself to simple exposures. The obvious thing was to take them indoors but the brief demanded "location and vista". I took them indoors anyway as there was a great window looking down into the valley. I bit of off camera fill flash took care of balancing and matching the outdoor light. Despite this, I was only successful in keeping detail in the valley, but lost it in the sky.

Canon EOS 7D. Sigma 18-50mm at 23mm. ISO 100. f/8@1/60th. External remote fired bounce flash at half power.

Working along the same principle I asked the two brothers to chat under the deep shade of a tree and hid the off camera flash behind the tree's trunk. Under powering the flash by about 1/2 meant I was able to maintain detail in the back as well as foreground.

Canon EOS 7D. Sigma 18-50mm at 18mm. ISO 100. f/9@1/45th. External remote fired flash at half power.

In the next photo I wanted them walking through the gardens and couldn't avoid the fact that they would be in bright mid-day sun. I under exposed by 2 stops so as to maintain detail in their robes, knowing that I'd maintain and deepen the blue sky but would maybe lose detail in the shadows. A little post production meant that I had a little to work with and could fractionally burn in some detail in each Brother's habit.

Canon EOS 7D. Sigma 18-50mm at 18mm. ISO 100. f/16@1/60th.

The final image just had to be taken. White robes and white peach blossom in a gorgeous garden. I took an aerial (ad)vantage by scrambling past the resident beehives and into the koppie/rock hillock. This time unfortunately I just didn't manage to under expose enough, only 1 stop, and you will see that some detail is lost and the sky is not quite as rich.

Canon EOS 7D. Tamron SP70-200mm f/2.8 Di VC. ISO 100. f/8@1/60th.

So although not perfect, some usable shots at least came out of the 50mins spent with the brothers. And it goes without saying (as I so often seem to end up saying) a little pre planning, even if it is a list of four or five spots to begin working from goes a long way, especially when it comes to pandering to silly deadlines.
(Thanks to Brothers Timothy and Julian for allowing me their time and their hospitality whilst roaming the monastery gardens)