In my last post, I showed some select shots from the first shoot with Matt Mermod, the Executive Chef at soon-to-be-open Kaama Lounge in San Jose. We were experimenting with high-speed (1/800 sec) food photography, which is fun, but a little stressful for the photographer (aka me) as I really only had one chance to get the shot, as whatever we were pouring inevitably ruined the dish. But anyone who knows me understands I crave the challenge and love to try new techniques and creative ideas. Well the first shoot was such a smashing success (according to all involved) we immediately got back into it for some more dishes. There’s really only one “money”action shot (above), and I’ve decided this is a special niche of photography I’ll call “food porn.” If you can’t figure it out, well, ask a friend.
The Setup
For this shoot, I opted out of my usual studio strobes in lieu of my Foursquare softbox powered by four nikon SB-800 speedlites, and another gridded sb-600 as off-axis fill where needed. The speedlites are ideal for high-speed photography, which I needed to capture the motion in these shots. Most were around 1/800 sec @ F7.1 or so. Studio strobes max out at 1/250th sec sync, and I was concerned that this just wasn’t enough for our needs.
Slideshow
Here’s a slideshow of my favorite photos from the shoot. All the photos can be seen here.
[slidepress gallery=’kaama-lounge-food-action-2′]