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Lesson Info

Shoot: Dessert with Multiple Dishes

then we're gonna do another layering with pie and desert. So we always like to move back and forth for sweetened savories and for the savories. We always like to challenge yourself and shoot harder things just because it's kind of fun to figure out how to make it work. So we're gonna shoot next a pie seen a little bit more involved, showing the ingredients that within the pie. So we have a beautiful strawberry pie here, and we have a great wood texture we're gonna shoot with again. We've shown on this wood texture before as an angle. This time we're gonna shoot it as a top down and we're going Teoh, um, be able to be able to create a different mood. So the last one was more outdoor picnic. You feel this one's gonna be a dark and broody feel with pie that would be able to mix it up. So this is like a story of pie texture, and I think we've already again established light. So are we going to shoot this? What kind of lighter we're gonna shoot this on? We're gonna go through the same proce...

ss. Let's talk about, like first. So Which one word in dark, dark and moody. Maybe from the single. Making me from six. No, outside. Yeah. Yeah. Which ones? A sidelight. So as he walks around, I'll move the pie and look and see too. So before we even establish anything, we're establishing where the best light is. This is what we do all day long we move food around the table. So what we want, like maybe a morning feel like it's kind of like fresh. Okay, different top down. Horizontal right top down. Sorry. Yes. Yeah. Horizontal. Okay. So while he's thinking about light and there's such great texture in this pie because you can see the bump the bubbly crust on that we can shoot as an angle to But at least we wanted just to get it at the top down for a different visual field. Yeah, let's do, uh we're gonna make it kind of rustic. So the theme is rustic, Not so modern, and so have chosen, like, a really pretty blue rest of plate because I'm gonna cut into the pie and know the pie is gonna be probably red and juicy, and I think to really bring it out I wanted to use a contrast in color, which is blue, and I love using contrast and colors. I'm not afraid of that. I'm always thinking about how I can bring out that read more using blues and color denim or whatever it is that I think is gonna pull it out. So have so many textures here. Can't decide. I'm gonna go with it's red one. So I think I want to choose something that could pull out a little bit of the red just so that it let's tie the frame in. And I feel like this piece right here shares that mood to kind of rustic feel. It goes perfectly well with the tabletop. So which way should we were doing? Top down from here. Okay. Great with this. I want to make sure I don't lose the table because top down, we haven't shot top down you, but this table has an amazing not right here. That's so beautiful. You know, it's just gets about so much character. So I want to make sure that I keep that within the frame, and Todd knows that too. So because of that, we want to make sure we skirt around just a little bit. This not this not has now become the hero aside from the pie in terms of texture. So we're looking here. I'm looking to see where the knot is, and I'm gonna make some adjustments here. I think I've still got the Not again. I chose this linen piece because I was a little bit of red. And when I cut into the pie, it's going to really pull the colors from that. Now, the next element because we're layering. I'm thinking about where I'm gonna put the cup. I So it's a horizontal. Think I'm gonna put it on this end? I'm not gonna put it all of the same line cause it feels very staged. Doesn't feel natural. I feel like after I've cut it, I'm gonna put it right down here on the lower side. But we can't keep playing with it. And I want to need forks because it's a shared pie. I'm gonna put multiple forks, Stone. And maybe actually, I can put actually brought another plate. It could be within the scene, but it can be cut off, maybe. Ready. How's that? So let's talk about this. So I'm gonna go ahead and put ah slice of pie on here and to show that this pie serves four or five that can do this. Another player? A couple of the night forks, just like that. I can grab another poor. I feel like it. Um, You see one if I want it too much, But let's go out and actually cut this pie. Okay, let's get started on it too. Doing a shot without it? Um, yeah. You want to see without it? Let's do that. I know. I am gonna want to start blocking light. You guys want to see it? I'm blocked first, so they kind of see where we're building off of. And that's all. He's good question. Was stylist? Yes. Are here was the pie or the slice? Oh, good question. Um, must make it the pie because it's gonna be cut through. Okay for this one, and then we'll shoot it again and making the hero. What do you want to see? You want us to make the pie, or is this slice okay? We'll make the slice. Came right. We'll do the slice. We're going to make the slice. I'm gonna add a side of strawberries to this to to bring out to let people know that it's a strawberry pie. So, um, how about I decided I'll just make it a strawberry blueberry pie? Because I think the blue is gonna pull the colors from which is really, really super Well, so do we make this up on set? Sometimes? No. It's all real food, but we always think about what's in there. If it was, this isn't actually this is actually a strawberry rhubarb pie. So for rhubarb pie and have a barbeque. So here's where we're at right now, so I'm envisioning where that pie slice is gonna be. It's gonna change Probably my angle a little bit after I see the pie Slights because I might want to see down around the edge of a little bit more. Me like hell. It just oozes out of the pie and you see the juices. So those are things right down. We're still doing a little bit of guest room because you don't have your hero in, but it's so we can start getting a general sense of framing how we like how the plates are feeling together, how we like other linens coming across. Remember when she talked about the table? That cool piece of the table I'm like, how sick is that? Awesome. But for me, it's like, OK, if I want to get Louis that Dr Moody. Or maybe it's just, like just early morning light for, uh, maybe a This is ah, late or early or late winner type feel. I want to start blocking a little bit. Can you Thank you. Start minimizing my light coming through. Let me see. It might do down. So I think we're good. Okay, So you're shooting this way now? No, I'm gonna shoot the same. Are you blocking up? But I'm just narrowing the light that's coming in through it. So I'm gonna start thinking of my edges. That my frame. So when I want to start a narrow win the light Look at the edges of my friend me and seeing like where I want to either add or take away, like so, like with this one, it's like if I wanna can start narrowing in their view, reside to particular point in this case is going to be the slice. Then let's darken out the edges just a little bit. So a little bit less attention is given to the plate. Appear with the forts. Um, at this point, because the pie itself is darker. I'm still gonna leave that. I'm not gonna quite fill it yet. You're still making the plate the hero, right? Players going to there are still the slice this like, actually, I should have given you something to focus on. Sorry. My bad there. Yeah, I just kind of threw some Berries there to kind of They were working in layers here. It feels a little tight to me. Choked in. Want to get a little bit more like going in there? I think it might open up exposure. So this point, you know, for him, it would be hard for him to grab focus, because essentially the here was gonna be here. I totally forgot. I should've put that on there. I slept. Sorry. That's OK. I still love you. Yeah, thanks. So now we have the strawberry, so that helps. So now also, the strawberries feel a little more relaxed too. So they're not tights working in layers. Everything's ready to go. Something will happen now with the lights following cross like this. The top plate with the forks gets a little bit shot. A little less attention drawn to it last year. I toe fall in more to the by, and you would might That makes other changes. Still, like, we'll get her heroin, But we're getting closer quickly. Let's just shoot another angle opposite Ingle real quick too. Just just illustrate, Like shoot. Just Yeah, just say yeah, while I said it for the next top down. So yeah, top down. Okay. And then you notice on the strawberry. Cut one open. I feel like that's enough. I don't want to cut two or three open because it would feel too busy because I still want to see the shape of the strawberries. Only got one, and you don't have to cut everything in half. So I'm I'm getting this set for the pie. Be fun just to show different angles, you know, because you maybe you some of you don't actually like this light and you're not telling me. So we're gonna move around and then you can choose, just gets a, gets a little bit of a different framing. I'm gonna lose her forks and plates, and you need to be more opinionated. It's a little bit different. Independent, like, won't get that slice up top. Yeah, I still kind of like the other one. Better cause I like the composition of the other better. Yeah, so we'll do that. So we're gonna re ready. Teoh plate the pie. Okay, so when I'm doing anything where I have to cut like a pie, I usually on set on us. I probably have 34 pies. Did you have your standing pie? And then you have your hero pie over here. What we're really working on to make it perfect. But in this case is for the blawg. So I don't want anything perfect. I want crumbs. I want that authenticity. I want really to show. Like you're sitting at our table eating a fresh pie. So if there's crumbs on it, that's great. There's not enough from that my throat on. And like some of our clients or love, they love that tooth that we have one kind for ST Tail's like we love dirt. Okay. You know, it's like they want to see that mess. They want to make it feel real and authentic. And so it's, uh, you know, sometimes there'll be a personal preference, and there's also, you know, commercial opportunities to which do that, too. It's awesome. Yeah. So for us generally onset if it were with the client, we would be so much more strategic and cutting up. I literally laying it out, making sure we get the right slice. But here, in terms of home or the blawg, this is how we would cut it. And a lot of people feel like Todd and day. And, like, Do you guys fake your food on your blog's? Because you guys air food stylist? So you have all the skills and is that what you do? And the answer is always No. What you see in our blawg is always riel. There's absolutely no tricks to it. There's absolutely no no cotton to it. I can tell you that we don't false bottom block food. I don't can't remember if ever false bottom to conduct our food on the block. It's totally riel, Um, and that's important to us. You know, I don't want to make it so tricked out to where someone at home made it. And it didn't come out the same way by Yeah, and, um, we're working with the refrigerated pie here so I could throw that into, But did you just get down? So at home, If we do this, this is how we're gonna serve it to friends and family. And this is how it's gonna lay on the plate. Are we gonna shoot at multiple pods times with different slices of pie? The answer is no. Never, ever do that. Are we gonna do it times on a plate with 10 different slices? For a client, the answer is yes. So you can decide if necessary. Usually we can get it on two at the most. How would you? Um, if you're doing like a Sara Lee pipe for for Sara Lee. I mean, how would you get it to come out where it's like everything is in that slice and not falling on you? Freeze it here for cases way. Totally freeze it. Totally freeze it. And sometimes cutting it with the really sharp, thin bladed knife helps. Sometimes what we'll do is he get fishing wire. That's one of the best ways to slice through A lot of things is to really pull it through because it's got such a thin surface area that it doesn't disrupt the sides of a cake. The times you stuffing things back into it. So after it falls out, it's like you're right back in. And also remember to a lot of the perfect food, particularly frozen packaging. Food you see has a ton of post production on it. There's a lot of photo shop on it, too, so it's not something that you see roll like this. There's a lot of post production, so they've already gone in photo shop and really align layers back to see the chocolate or the vanilla. Whatever it is, making sure they remove the Kremlin's making sure they add crumbs. So for a lot of like the pictures like this, maybe I don't want, you know, single necessarily. I don't know how they do it, but I know a lot of packaging shots have probably 70% voter shop. There's a lot of stuff, a lot of post it goes in their saturation to bring out the colors because sometimes when food that's refrigerated or comes frozen, it dies. So but you have to shoot it because it is frozen, but they'll bring out saturation, um, through post. So, yeah, there's a lot of edits that go on on on food, too. So what we're trying to do is to teach you and this is how we've already started. Always started is try to get the best image possible right off the bat in camera with the techniques that you have available to you before you spend time and post. Because Todd and I don't like to spend a lot of time and editing were photographing. So we want to make sure that we stay creative that way by photographing editing. Takes a lot of time. And honestly, I hate I don't want to spend 20 minutes edit a photo. I'd rather spend 20 minutes to make it look right on set. They try to fix it in photo shop or something like that. All right. So I mean, this looks awesome when the, um when the pie has just broken up and you see the pieces of strawberry and man and oozy Goodness, You know, and so what? I'm looking. I've always got a style camera fronts. I'm always looking this way to see Well, I break through it. Yeah, because I love this messy feel. I'm going to think about how I'm gonna lay my fork most naturally to make it feel like how I'm going to place it after I've eaten. So that would be something like that. I wouldn't like this way because the forks already lying in the same position and it would feel a little contrived, a little fake. It's always thinking about lines and how they can complement or contract contrast each other from the late like this a little bit here, actually. Use my tweezers for a couple things real quick. And then But actually, can you go in and give it me a show? Starting point, you And then as he gets that I'm already thinking about Should I put you know, this tool? You know, it's always those things. How much can I put in? You can feel like frame with so much you. You two decide how much you want to fill it, but I want to see it first, but I feel like you get the point already. You've got three forks in the frame. You got two plates. You got a pile. You've got a bunch of strawberries. Is this gonna add value? I don't know. We'll see. But I'll let you guys aside. So after gets the frame to put this in there and probably dirty a little bit to make sure that it looks like it came up off the pie. Well, that's looking good. Just doesn't look, I have to see what you guys see back here. Yeah. Now, that feel authentic. That feels really You know, we don't want a poor perfectly. We don't want to freeze it and get it perfectly cut. I like to show how flaky that pie crust is. You could tell that it's buttery. So and having that use out looks awesome. He's gonna get another in color. Yeah, I'm just, uh, reframing just a little bit, which I like better. Okay, so we're gonna still at it here. What do you not like about it? Do you want me to change? You're the client because this is your image. More glaze on top of the slice glaze. Meaning like it's shiny on the whole pie. But then on the broken pies, not that. Okay, right. That's good. Anything else? Maybe some fruit showing where the fork is like fresh fruit. So you want to serve like a side of fresh fruit or war? You know how you think that with those blind? Okay. Yeah. Great. Yeah. Tell me more. Tell me more. Yes. Yes. I see. One thing I don't like is this trip right here. And there's that thing now making you really picking. You see that spot? Probably brush it off. But you want more fruit? You want to see shine through on the pie. Okay, I can do that. I could do that. One thing I use a lot of sometimes Pam spray, um, or any type of non stick, um, coding spray. So in this case, I'm just gonna go ahead and spray a little bit on my brush. Here's things that Richard awesome changes just by before you even brush it. If you want, you can do a little bit less of a top down, which then you're going to catch light a little bit more. So if instead of going mawr up here, I'm just gonna drop a little bit. It's gonna change the perspective on the shot, but you also get a little bit more of a shimmery coming off your services. So in this case, the closer pie crust. You know that he's changed angle. See if that's enough for you and we have some Internet comments. Are you ready for their biggest? They love it. Like, for instance, the Russian translator says, I really like the crust, but it's broken and feeling like That's not, you know? Yeah, that's a totally a valid comment. Some people want it broken, some don't. I'm totally fine with it broken because it shows that it's cut through. But if you were my client and you said that you don't want it broken that we'd make sure that we had a whole piece O r I would just fix that. Which is important, in my opinion, an important discussion before you slice the way, have a couple of people Shea Wu, and let's see desert Babe Say they're not sure if the whose looks right for them. Okay. Okay. What's wrong with it? Tell me. Okay, But instead of the readiness from the strawberry So how would you do that if you grayling with frozen pie? If that is the spec, if it were spect giving you different scenarios and that was the color. We'd have to shoot it like that because if it came out like that and the photo that kept advertising was really red and you actually got that, would you not be disappointed? So if it respect, we would have to leave it like that. If it were your blog's recipe. Okay, then maybe you should have more strawberry. Then I would probably retest it integrity of the recipe. I would re text it to make it. Make sure that it came out more red, but let's say we're just shooting it for stock, Okay, where all variables are completely open. We can do whatever we want because there's no recipe involved, so nobody's gonna have to cook it. There is no marketing involved where they don't have to sell it to try to make sure it's consistent. So let's configured to make it one way I would make it more pink is use a little bit of food coloring to add a little bit more red to it, because I feel like, yeah, it is a little bit too pink, I kid because I don't have a here. I would work with that. I would take the strawberry. I would can mash it up into a bowl going to do it. You want it more pink? I'm all for it. And did we mention this was strawberry Rhubarb? Row is destroyed again. So this is strawberry rhubarb pie too. But let's say they didn't know they they wanted strawberry. They're just really picky. And they gave me a really bad pie. Okay, way. Never talk about clients with love clients. Love, huh? But we have great clients, all right? Our clients have become our best friends. Let me tell you, it's just like I mean, if we stop photographing today and stop food styling today, we have already communicated with some amazing people that will be friends for the rest of our life. So there's no reason why you can't like your clients. Just cause their client doesn't mean that you can't be friends. So I don't have my master here because you made a request to use my hands. Okay, so I'm just gonna go ahead gonna be I'm gonna smash my head, and I'm just gonna go ahead and work on set here, and I'm gonna totally make this happen. Right? Mash, Because you want it to be? You wanted to shred with a ruble, pry. Here, let's do this. I'm gonna make it more red. So what? I'm doing what I'm when I'm adding more strawberry. The center is white, so I'm cutting the outside. Okay, so it doesn't make sense for me to, but then the the center and so I'm gonna go ahead and cut it on the outside to get red. Oh, I have a raspberry here. I'm gonna pull off. Look what you made me dio. I just have killed her. So I'm gonna go ahead and mash this to make it more chunky strawberry. Because let's say you decided you want to change the let's say, the stock client. Does it work with stock? Let's give the the scenario that's most realistic to the situation. I don't want people say this is what food bloggers do because not what we dio. This is for stock photo on. The client said they just need a basic cherry strawberry pie. So you say OK, it's not strawberry enough because you actually bought a fake pie so already mashed it up. See how flexible you can be and it's red because I only caught the outside. I want my hands a bit. It's Kelsey here because it can you tell me a spoon, please. Through spoon. Thanks. No, I had a spoon here in this mess. So, actually, I have one already. I have one right here. Some go ahead. Mix this in. So, Internet people, Are you not liking the foods? Or is it the color that you don't like What she would have said? Um and coconut pie seconded. They just felt like the news was too watery. They really they really felt like they wanted a little more color to it and a little more density to it. Okay, so it's OK. Everyone's good. OK, That's OK. I want to make it So says that it's just too What? They okay? Totally valid. I'm gonna make it happen, You know, more color. So now it's too watery. Anything else before I continue, they were good over here. Don't ask for any pork belly to the side cause I don't have a pork belly stains on the cutting board. Red states. Okay. Like, just like I like it when cutting. I like a little bit of juice like from the cut. No problem. So let me do that first. That's easy. I'm gonna squeeze a little bit. Okay? You know, I'm living this. This is actually fought. See, this is where you see where a stylist makes photographer look good. It's not the other way around. It's like they do a lot of the work. Okay. Can you shoot that for this client to make sure she's happy? What's that? Before it live on? Okay, well, online I got your back and right here to jingle that we, like, better do, like, a little more top. Would you like this dropping down? Just a touch back over the top. So we'll go back to where we were. Yeah, somewhere in this vicinity. And also, I'm not taking any more critique. Three. Okay, Done. Let's save reports the next day. This is where Todd and I turned the back. We do this secret, I roll. Do you like that juice? Yeah. Juice. Okay, I fulfilled one. Now I've got two more to dio, so I've got a little more. So what I did was to add color for the stock shot again. Has to be in the right context. of what we're doing. I don't want anybody to say that. Yeah, this is what they did on their block. But no, it's not. It does smell delicious, though. Yeah, it's good. Mm. Okay, so I'm gonna actually add some color here. So what I did is I have just added color and with strawberry and then to satisfy color over here. And my other client, Shea Well, whomever this lovely person is, I bet it made it chunkier. Okay, so it's not so choosy, Messy, like baby food. And I think that's a valid point. Super valid points. I'm gonna do that. Let me clean up real quick. Take a look. Yeah, OK, it's looking good. It's looking good. I don't anybody say that? This blueberries I want to clean up. Do you have a little bit less? Maybe a little bit less of the feeling. I don't know. They didn't say it looking right there, my boss. Because now I gotta take it out. If you think it's too much, I'll do it. It's what we do every day and grab it. Grab another one, huh? Uh, okay. But if you think it's too much, I'll take it out to make it perfect for you. Does anybody disagree with them now, you know. Okay. Okay. So I understand what you mean, because it's losing out too much. So let me control it a bit more. Let me bring it in a little bit more because I think I know what we're seeing here. You're seeing this big, like, right? The official term. Now, this white chunk chunk, that was ugly. Good. So where should I clean up? Actually, I'm not gonna clean up you, because you might all say now it looks to control to my have spread it out. So I'm not gonna clean it up if I don't have to write it. So let's see, See where we go, and then I'll do the final cleaning after. That's always the last step of what we're doing. And I'm hoping that the color shows through much better. And I hope that you're satisfied with the volume. If not, I'll change it for you. Okay. Before I clean up, one last response that will take from the audience is Would you like to see less feeling losing out? Okay. I mean, I also like to see it sloppier than that seems to You like to see what less but more spring spread out like that. But just less volume, Right? OK, but you do like the amount of strawberries. Yeah, Okay. Color. Good, good, right. Much better. And she was loving it color. Totally better. Woo, I will do whatever you asked for within the plate job making me work out here. I think I got it less. Who's keeping the chunk? Say 1,000,000 but just less dis less. I can't got it. Got it. So I'm sticking my butt out to you, but I thinking that's good. Okay, so But again, I'm being conservative, not gonna clean up the plate cause there might be some changes. Right? Things, Last one? Yeah, that makes sense. Because it feels like it's almost way too much feeling for that slice of crust. You're absolutely right. I agree. I can see that rational because it looks fake. Then it looks like somebody intentionally put they didn't know that I feel better. Yeah, Okay. Okay. This is gonna be personal question. Everybody's gonna have different opinions. Do you want me to keep this? What? Do you want me to wipe it off right. Okay. Who asked that? E Just heard it from the audience. Okay. One strawberry piece. Like Wait. Okay, wait. A massive chunk. Oh, that was you. Okay, Chunk. Like like you like right here? Yeah, just like, Oh, so it's not so aligned. Right? I agree. I'm all for you on that one. I'm scared of it too much. I'm glad the cameramen don't have an opinion. Because I'm done right here, guys. You guys love it. Right? Okay. I just on this annoying red thing here. You got that? I was going to say something, but you got it. But the color is just changing so much. Just gonna see what it looks like from back here. Okay, The juice on the strawberry darker. Feeling a little bit more controlled, filling that still Chucky. Okay. Is this a wrap? Yep. It's a wrap on this one. Done. Thank you. I'll send shame with the invoice to next week. Okay, We're not done yet. It's a nicely Why some clients you can shoot 12 some. You shoot three. Now you understand how long it takes, like professionally for some of you that want to shoot professionally that really want to get into the level of advertising and commercial work work. That's where you really start to get a lot of creative feedback, you know, And how you respond to that is really going to really help define the type of work that you do and who you are because we're super patient. We came from a background of managing people. I deal with criticism really well because I grew up in a Vietnamese family of six kids and how my parents control this was making sure they were really, you know, strict. And we were all discipline, so I don't ever get my feelings hurt. So if you want to enter this industry and like that and like, this feedback was really awesome. Because if you're the type of person that's gonna be, like frustrated with that feedback and always changing, maybe food styling isn't for you, Really. Maybe it's just more photography and letting somebody else deal with that frustration. But that's been super helpful there. And it's a rack, right? Great. Yeah, that's great. So I think we've done this. We've done the different light. I'm happy with that. And the story of this Okay. Can you tell me what you think that the story would be if you saw this in a magazine. Nobody really quickly cause the story to me is very rustic country. Somebody who just loves. It's like a Sunday thing in a ritual after dinner, sitting on the porch with her pie. Yes, thank you it does. It looks like Grandma made the pie. It has a very lonely feeling. What does a lonely feeling? Because there's a pie. Somebody's about to eat it. And where is the other person? Yeah, I was. I was thinking that same thing where maybe it's Grandma's. I went to the store, left a pie and grandpas like I mean suppressing shit issue. That's That's really great, cause everybody sees something different and especially if you're going to write a story about that right then, starting from a writer's perspective, because you are a writer view and have a piece that you need to write about and you need to shoot a photograph to help mirror or reflect and to help emphasize that story. That's how you would shoot it. I think that's really perfect. So I don't have to shoot it with a second. So you write the story, you know, but that's what you would shoot it