Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Peppers and Garlic

Time for a little more food photography! Yet another of those self promotion projects that always gets bumpped by other things.

Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Hot Espresso

Ahhh more food! (or more specifically drink) It was all I could do to finish this before I go get some coffee myself! (Another of the wonderful things my wife introduced me to.)

Well, these were two of the first experimentations with this style for a series of ads and a website. Generally, I'm pretty happy with it. It's nice to be the designer as well as the photographer. It helps get the exact image you're looking for.

Sunday, September 16, 2007
Fresh from the Garden

This was taken a couple hours before yesterday's photo of the day. This was the scene in the middle of the table that inspired the three hour photo shoot.

The cool purple garlic bulb is from a recent trip to Gilroy for their Garlic Festival, but most of the others are fresh from the garden.

Saturday, September 15, 2007
Habanero Reflection

I noticed this pepper as I was sitting at the dining room table this morning with my wife and bird. (His cage is in the corner of the dining room. He likes to be right in the middle of the action.)

We have a huge pile of peppers and tomatoes on the table from our plants in the back yard. My wife has been pointing out the cool ones to me for a couple of weeks, and I finally couldn't wait any longer it was time for a photo shoot!

About three hours later this was one of my favorite shots. But I can't take all the credit, I have a great Art Director & food stylist! The cool black tray was my wife's idea.

Friday, December 15, 2006
Ignition

Today I needed some steam for an image in an ad that was due at 5pm. Fortunately, I remembered my match lighting experiments. A little adjustment in Photoshop and this shot made some great steam.

This brings up an interesting point though. One of the most important things you realize quickly when working as a photographer is the need for organization. If you can't find the image you know you have somewhere you can't sell it very easily. I figure I have taken 10,000 photos in the last year. 8,700 of them on my new digital camera. Other than that I have enough slides to fill up quite a few file boxes and drawers. The ones I have scanned take up 110 DVDs. I do OK in the digital world with my strange little organizational systems, but it's time for some better tools.

Personally, I am still looking for the right software to do the job. I've tried a couple demos that were not inspiring enough to make me part with my money. Perhaps a new Mac with Apple's interesting tools would do the trick! I wonder if Santa is feeling particularly generous this year? :-D

Tuesday, March 21, 2006
Match Smoke

Had to put the new camera through it's paces. I started trying to get the match lighting, but the best part of this turned out to be the swirling smoke. Which in itself was a challenge. The best shots were backlit from the right side shooting against a dark corner of the room.

Saturday, July 23, 2005
One from the Pepper Patch

This is one of my little pepper plants living in a hanging basket in my back yard. One of my favorite restaurants (Los Arroyos, on Figueroa in Santa Barbara) makes, among other things, some incredible salsas. One of which is made from Habaneros, one of the hottest peppers. After getting used to eating their blazing salsa I decided I loved the flavor of this little pepper as well as the kick it gives things. So I had to start a little pepper patch in my back yard. Trouble was, I did not want my muse to get into the plants on one of her evening perimeter checks of the back yard. So they are safely tucked away well out of her reach in a hanging basket.