Prop Styling with Malina Lopez
Lesson 3 from: FAST CLASS: Getting Started in Professional Food PhotographySteve Hansen
Prop Styling with Malina Lopez
Lesson 3 from: FAST CLASS: Getting Started in Professional Food PhotographySteve Hansen
Lessons
Class Introduction: Getting Started in Professional Food Photography
05:57 2Tour of a Modern Food Photography Studio
04:37 3Prop Styling with Malina Lopez
06:03 4Food Styling with Steve & Malina
03:28 5Working with a Digital Technician
05:19 6Food Photography Gear
24:29 7Why Use Natural Light?
08:01 8Natural Light Food Shoot Prep
30:23Food Photo Tools & Tricks
02:30 10Capturing Food in Natural Light
06:54 11Natural Light Shoot Final Touches
19:50 12Shooting For a Client
07:24 13LED Lighting Overview
08:51 14Prep for Oven Shoot with LED Lights
10:36 15Food Photography Print Marketing
04:49 16Food Photography Portfolio Tips
09:14 17Pricing and Negotiating for Food Photography
12:13 18Final Food Photo Career Advice
03:01Lesson Info
Prop Styling with Malina Lopez
This is our proper as it stands right now. This changes all the time. In fact, because we just moved in, it's almost half storage unit half propo. I have a lot of kind of cookbooks that I reference I just enjoy looking at. I have a safe for absolutely no reason. There's nothing in there. So don't, you don't need to take it. But it's important to have, if you're gonna have props on hand. I mean, Malina has her own she has a home in Seattle that's just filled with props. So when we get a, if you want to come over, cause I'm sure there are a few questions to you. But we, you have a house in Seattle that's just got the entire basement just full of plates, kind of the larger surface. Yeah, yeah. How many props do you think you have in your...? If you had to count? Oh my gosh, 1000's? 100's. I mean, it's I mean, I have dishes linens. In her house is a lot of fun to shoot in. She is, I mean, so if I need a kind of a lifestyle shoot, which I'm not known for, Having a place that rea...
lly bright and airy and has a lot of Windows. I mean, you do a lot of photo shoots in your home. Yeah, I do a lot. Because she has really cool tables, and we did the pics head photo, the floating, was the picture? Was the pics head. Was the floating. But yeah, it was the floating. The pics that shot was done in her home, and it was just a great environment to shoot in. And the pics had ended up in the garbage can at the studio and was there in the middle of summer for like a week. And somebody found a picnic anyway. All the stuff that we've Yeah, I'll go into disposing of food properly later on. But we have this is a big key and I was on Facebook yesterday. But I saw there was a linen store that was on sale because I get all questions. How do you find props that are inexpensive? And sometimes you don't, they're just expensive. A lot of these wood surfaces that you see over here, are a couple hundred a piece, few hundred a piece. It adds up in a hurry, but they're worth it. And they're dual sided. They're very textured. It's hard to fake, people kind of they're seen when you kind of fake a surface, like a wooden surface. They know when you painted it and they when it's naturally age, there's nothing quite like it. I do paint my own surfaces but I'll leave them outside for like a week. I'll hit them with hammers, I'll do what I can. I'll paint in layers, so that they genuinely look like they've been around. And some examples are much better than others, but they all translate pretty well to camera. So, this I have a lot of silverware. This is just a little bit of it. I have some sliding drawers over there that just have tray after tray of every kind of spoon you could possibly imagine. That's where I keep the drawers setup is where I keep a lot of my papers, I collect paper. I collect everything that will you can use on a set. But here, there was a linen, there was a fabric store that was going out of business. And they have all these samples up and there's no price. So, it's like how are you gonna sell the samples? And they kind of looked at me funny because I mean they're not seemed. But they sold to me for less than a $1 piece. So I just cleared them out. And I just filled up my, I kind of replaced the linens, so we're getting kind of 70s looking and not very modern, and with some really current looking stuff. I have a lot of white plates. A lot of these are in storage. I keep I bring them out per project. So when somebody asked me, we have a mood board, we'll get it we'll look at it, we'll see what can be brought in, and especially from your house because you have so much, what can be purchased and what can be purchased and then returned because we're jerks. That happens all the time. People that circle time and Portland, we know you're doing. So, and a lot of silver just a lot of just a variety of things. And we also have fake I'll kind of go into the fake stuff versus the real stuff. I'm not afraid to use fake styling, fake food, when it's absolutely called for. We did a packaging shoot, where we needed a pumpkin, in the opposite season. I mean, I luckily found a one pumpkin and it was at my market and it was the last one. I couldn't believe I found it. But I was almost ready to make a model of a pumpkin, which I can do. And it looks with a pumpkin it looks correct. But you can't do I can't do a cantaloupe, I can't do cherries are out of season a lot of the year. And in commercial photography, there's no hiding. You can't just say, well, I it's not season, I'm not feeling it today. There's none of that. You have to get it. So you have to find a way, vanilla flowers are important to have around. And I'll kind of give you the sources of where I purchased those things later on. But I will give you I mean, people use Trango Studios, you've heard that name before probably where you get the fake ice. I actually went to, I don't know if I have the fake ice or not. I'll go through that when we do a set but I actually went there in person to select ice because I want. There's something I look for. And so I just don't let him deliver me any kind of ice. I went there in person while I was in New York. And he just pulled out all the ice cubes. It was a really bizarre. He just lives an apartment in New York and he just laid out a bunch of ice cubes I like that. But it worked really well and I got what I Wanted. And they're expensive. So you have to be there $50 a piece usually. And even for shards or $40 for a shard, I'm not sure. I don't know. So this is this is a wall of props, but everyone's gonna be different. You collect stuff over time you purge it, and then you renew it as styles change. And especially once you start working, the one thing I do want to get across is with props and gear. Once you start getting into that Semi Pro and pro level, the acquisition of gear, doesn't become this insurmountable mountain to climb. It's not overly expensive. Once you're actually working on a regular basis, some of these projects or they pay really they pay properly based on what they're asking for, as far as copyright and all that and licensing, but it it sort of snowballs and you get the gear that you need to make the job happen. And all of a sudden you realize, hey, I have all the gear I need and then you kind of lose I don't have gear loss as much as I used to. But I'll go into the whole gear thing as a separate can of worms, shall we say. But I will I will address that and there'll be a big fun part of this.
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