How to Train Your Dragon…….Fruit

The answer is simple!

You buy a fish tank, fill it full of carbonated water, setup your camera and lights, cut the fruit in half and drop it into the water several times before you get a decent shot !

Easy. You’ve trained your dragon fruit.

All of these shenanigans were for my food assignment as part of a studio task. But I didn’t stop at dragon fruit – oh no my cyber chums. I went all exotic and dropped figs, chilis and even lychees into my fish tank! Look at me going all Heston Blumenthal ! What next?  Cheesy Peas? And who knew that chilies were so buoyant? That was money well spent….NOT !

I must admit, high-speed photography is very frustrating and 1 hour in, it seemed as if I had more images for my blooper reel than useable pictures. Timing is everything and my advice to those thinking of giving this a try? I just have two words for you – remote trigger! It will be your best friend when it comes to high-speed photography. I also suggest you have another person to help you. Let me tell you, it is really difficult to hold the fruit above the water, hold your remote trigger and position the flash gun so you get that perfect capture.

Once you have all of this in place, you can start shooting. I would also think it over about what to dunk in your tank. Like I said, chilis were a total failure and every time I dropped the limes and lemons, they seemed to have minds of their own and would only splash skin side up. The tomatoes? Well, the less said about the tomatoes, the better….

The dragon fruit were the best choice and given their colour and appearance, they have created quite vivid images. The figs also worked well as did the lychees and strawberries.

The result of this photographic fruit salad? Well, if you’re a newbie to this blog, I guess I’ll have to take your hand and guide you to the Image Gallery so when you’ve finished reading this, scroll back up to the top, click on Image Gallery and scroll to the bottom and you will find them. You may want to add a comment or two if the mood takes you and so I’ll thank you in advance should you do.

Right so here is your to-do list –

1. Finish reading this post

2. Scroll back to the top

3. Click on Image Gallery

4. Scroll down the bottom of said Image Gallery

5. Stay a while and take a stroll through the colourful fruit and vegetable vistas

6. Leave a comment

7 Feel good about yourself for the rest of the day.

Thank you my cyber chums. Till the next time!

Put Food In Me….

 

…Or rather take pictures of food, and then put food in me…

That’s what I’ve been up to this week chums. Food photography. And it’s quite a challenge.

Firstly, let me tell you that when shooting food photography, you have to know that your models won’t take direction very well, some of them may smell and worst of all, some of them may even melt before your very eyes.

I was shooting some pics for an “Italian” food theme and before all of my Italian chums start shouting “Mamma Mia!!” and playing the stereotype card, (Oops..double whammy there..) I’ll apologise in advance and say we had a limited budget. But hey, I think we made a pretty good job.

Food photography is big business. How many fancy cookbooks and idiot guides to cookery would Jamie Oliver, Heston Blumenthal & Dame Delia Smith sell without it? Not many let me tell you. Rather than running successful restaurants, you’d more likely find them working in burger vans or greasy spoon cafe’s I shouldn’t wonder. I very much doubt your average truck driver would want a deconstructed bacon & egg sandwich served on a slate tile with tomato ketchup foam or a brown sauce jus….looking at you Heston….

I must tell you though, I quite liked shooting a few food pics. At first, it makes you quite hungry but after arranging and re-arranging and then someone else arranging it and re-arranging it, then spraying it with water and glycerin to give it that “just picked from the field” look and then arranging it some more, it was about as tempting to eat as vacuum cleaner dust.

Anyways, I’ve uploaded a couple of the images into the Image Gallery so you know the drill – when you’re done reading this, scroll back up to the top, click on Image Gallery and scroll down to the bottom and Hey Presto! The food photography images!

Isn’t technology marvellous?

I thank you….