So Long and Thanks for All the Fish…
This blog has hit the end of the road, I’m afraid.
On the advice of one of Ireland’s leading bloggers, I’m consolidating my blogs, bringing my food photography and general commercial photography blog together at Photographic Narrative.
Come and visit. I’m shooting an increasing amount of food projects, so there’ll be plenty to see.
Song, Supper and Shutter Speeds
(c) Chase Jarvis
Food and photography is an known combination.
How about food, photography and music?
And how about food cooked by a renowned chef, music by some pretty famous and respected musicians and photography by one of the business’s leading lights? Sound finger-clicking good? (Sorry, couldn’t resist the little pun there). Then click here to check it all out: Songs for Eating and Drinking.
Plum Tomatoes
Just a couple of quick shots from the studio today. I’m playing around with some simple lighting set ups as I work towards a signature way of lighting my food photography. The whole black and white thing is also starting to fascinate me. Food photography doesn’t naturally lend itself to B/W, but some subjects seem to work. See what you think.
Fried Potatoes
I don’t know about you, but “potato” is one of those words that I can’t spell without double checking the dictionary. “Quail” is another one.
It’s been a bit quiet on the blog here lately. Most of the action has been over at Altar Narrative. Still, I’ve been shooting some personal food stuff lately, mostly when Anne is cooking. One of her great dishes is fried potato slices. They are so good, they are practically medicine.
Fried Potato Slices
(c) Roger Overall
Sweeeeet
Call me cynical, but I didn’t think that there was much room left in today’s mechanized world for handmade cakes. I certainly didn’t think that the cakes you buy by the half-dozen or dozen at the supermarket could be handmade. Let alone by proper bakers. Surely, you just tip in the ingredients at one end of an industrial smokestack and the cakes come out at the other end, ready packed?
No.
At least, not over at Old Mill Confectionery here in Cork, where I was shooting earlier this week.
Yes, they use machines, but most of what they do is still done by hand. Turns out that machines just can’t do what humans can. Something to do with opposable thumbs.
The assignment brief was to capture images that convey the human involvement in the production process. Specifically, the agency that hired me was keen to include hands in the photographs. The pictures are for packaging and promotional use, and the client wanted B/W photographs. Nice.
At the end of the morning, the two owners of the company sent me on my way with a large box of cream cakes. A thoughtful gesture that made me look like a hero when I got back to the office in time for the mid-afternoon teabreak. As long as the staff are happy.
Here’s a quick sequence of shots of cakes being iced.
(c) Roger Overall 2008
(c) Roger Overall 2008
(c) Roger Overall 2008
And a couple of other quick grabs from the day:
(c) Roger Overall 2008
(c) Roger Overall 2008
(c) Roger Overall 2008
Honest Food
We’re not short of quality local food here in Co. Cork, and you don’t have to look to hard to find it either. There are plenty of farmer’s markets about and local supermarkets do stock local products and produce.
Just before Easter I was commissioned to shoot a series of pictures for a supermarket chain of one of their local franchise holders visiting some of the producers in the area whose products he stocked – one a baker, the other a dairy farmer. The brief was to show a nice, relaxed and natural interaction between the franchisee (John Hurley) and his suppliers.
We met up at Jack Cuthbert’s bakery on a business park on the outskirts of Midleton, Co. Cork, and decided together with Jack that we’d get a picture with loaves coming fresh out of an oven on a huge tray. There was no possibility of relying solely on the natural (strip) lighting in the cavernous bakery, so I set up a single off-camera flash to light John and Jack (and Jack’s son, also Jack) as they talked over the loaves. In fact, I suggested they talk rugby and they completely lost themselves in the conversation.
Jack, Jack and John – Cutherbert’s Bakery, Midleton, Co. Cork
(c) Roger Overall 2008
From the bakery, John and I traveled in convoy to Arsallagh Farm, where Jane Murphy makes renowned goats cheese – so renowned that chef’s as high up the culinary pecking order as Gary Rhodes and Gordon Ramsey source cheese for their restaurants here.
The lighting set up was pretty similar to the one at the bakery. A single off-camera flash lit John and Jane as they discussed cheese over a freshly produced vat. I was also quite keen to get a shot with the pair of them and a goat, so we also spent some time in the barn where the goats live.
John and Jane – Ardsallagh Farm, Carrigtwohill, Co. Cork
(c) Roger Overall 2008
John, Jane and Billy – Ardsallagh Farm, Carrigtwohill, Co. Cork
(c) Roger Overall 2008
The Story of a Shoot
Here’s an image that I recently shot for tea producer Barry’s Tea here in Cork.
You can read about the assignment on my commercial photography blog Photographic Narrative, just click on the link.
Barry’s Tea Fruit Infusions 3
(c) Roger Overall 2008
Colourless Food
Food is one of those subjects that is rarely given the black and white treatment.
After all, much of the sell in food photography is the colour.
You betcha.
So here are a couple of B/W food images shot for a client here in Cork last year.
The absence of colour isn’t a problem. Firstly, the B/W helps underpin the traditional artisan feel that the client wanted. Secondly, your brain more or less fills in the missing colour information of its own accord.
Chopping
(c) Roger Overall 2007
Awaiting Filling
(c) Roger Overall 2007
750 Million
I did a mussel shoot recently for Bantry Bay Premium Seafoods here in Co. Cork. Great fun, especially as I’m a big seafood fan.
Two of the firm’s product development managers attended the shoot to do the cooking and styling, along with the designer who was going to take the resulting shots and use them on new packaging designs. Naturally, we got talking about mussels. Bantry Bay sources its mussels locally (west cork has some of the best seawater in the world) and Chile. In fact, the mussels we were shooting had been shipped from Chile because their shells are richer in colour – there’s Latin flamboyance for you.
As we were chatting, an incredible statistic emerged. Bantry Bay sources close to three-quarters of a billion mussels each year. You’d hate to think what would happen if they ever got unionized.
Anyway, here is one of the shots from the shoot, cropped pretty much as it will appear on the new packaging that will be launched into the US market soon.
Mussels in Tomato Sauce – Bantry Bay Premium Seafoods
(c) Roger Overall 2008
Food Photography
Food photography is a specialist discipline that requires skill, dedication, talent and vision. A good food stylist helps – but, hey, it’s about the photographer, right?
Here’s a video showing one of the world’s leading food photographers at work.
Truly inspirational.
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