Neil Danton

and the winner is…

Oh, before I tell you that, this is how it was done. One essential item I always try to have around is my faithful assistant Tonto**

The problem with letting go a pile of stir-fry ingredients from a tray or bag is that the contents will spread out and not look like a column. It was Tonto** who originally suggested the idea of cutting the end off a 2 litre empty mineral (soda) bottle and filling with the veg.

We had tried actually tossing the contents from the wok, but the column wasn’t anywhere near high enough, and nowhere near enough of it for my liking either

While my subject was trying though, I’d made a mental note of roughly what position the wok was in at the top of the action, so just asking her to put it back in the same place, and a call for “action” and Tonto** released the veg. That’s it.

Still not sure how he got his hand from underneath the bottle, to on top of it, in the 1/250s that it took to get this frame. That’s the thing about Tonto**, he’s a mystery. A bit like a zen master combined with a ninja.

So the winner is Carla from CACM Accountants, and thanks Carla for your guess. I’ll be in touch to arrange to shoot your Facebook landing-page image. I already have an evil plan (or two) for you to consider *mwahaha*

TTFN

Tonto** is Margaret’s husband Alec

Alternate post titles:

a) How to shoot to a tight spec
b) How to shoot something creative with the same amount of frames as a roll of film
c) How to shoot something the old-fashioned way, without resorting to Photoshop to help you out

This is Margaret Smith who runs a small cookery school under her business name – Umnumnum (take it slow: Um num num). Margaret talked to me about shooting some images for her website (more tc on that later maybe) but specifically something eye-catching for the Umnumnum Facebook landing-page.

This is where a) above: “How to shoot to a tight spec” comes in. Margaret wanted some type of image where “something” was lined-up with the “Like” button on the FB page. It might have taken all of ten minutes before I suggested maybe using a wok and throwing the contents up in the air towards the Like button. Not just a normal amount of content though (hey it is me, you expect normal? You’re in the wrong place). I wanted a RIDICULOUS amount of content that couldn’t possibly really fit in the wok and be cooked, just to add to the fun of the image.

Even though she is a friend, Margaret in this case was also the client, and *sigh* if only I had more clients that were as game-for-a-laugh as she is. There was no hesitation in agreeing to my dastardly plan, so we arranged the shoot day.

This is where b) above: “How to shoot something creative with the same amount of frames as a roll of film” comes in (can you see a theme developing here?)

The whole shoot took just 37 frames (I counted them when I did the post-production). 30 of those frames were light-tests. OK, so that’s a little dig about photographers who use a camera like a digital-Uzi and can’t seem to lift the finger-pressure off the shutter button. The “spray and pray” merchants, or the “shotgun principle”. Dig over

Here’s the lighting set-up:

Four lights: two Elinchrom d-lites with softboxes on the background, one 580EX into an Ezybox softbox for the subject, and another 580EX with a snoot behind the subject, similar principle to a hair light, but just to darken the chef’s hat the tiniest fraction by putting it into shadow, so as to allow it stand out a little from the background (a lot of white floating around).

The image was shot against white-seamless, one because I just l-u-r-v-e white-seamless and two because the landing-page is white. Oh yes, and three, because there’s a little trick you can pull-off when using white, or black, or indeed any solid colour as a backdrop – you can add space around the image afterwards using Photoshop (or as I do, using Pixelmator), so SHOOT TIGHT. Pointless adding the white around the image as you shoot and wasting all that space. I can do a run-through on that if anyone would like to find out how, but you’ll have to let me know via the comments section here on the blog, or on my facebook page, or on The Twitter of course.

Lastly, this is where c) above: “How to shoot something the old-fashioned way, without resorting to Photoshop to help you out” comes in. The food is really there for the shot. ALL the food. None has been added or cloned in. I’m old-school enough to believe that I should be able to create something “in-camera”. I’m not a graphic designer and that’s who Photoshop is for. Either that, or it’s used to get-out-of-jail by being lazy, or shooting crap, and hoping to fix the problem afterwards.

I’m not saying there was no post-production on the image. There was. The white had to be tweaked from around 240 to 255 (the white point). A small amount of white had to be added to the left of the image as I shot a little too tight to the left margin to line up with the Like button.

I won’t go into the half-dozen variations of the image that I had to produce in post-production, including flipping the image from left-facing to right-facing before flipping back, just because the frigging Like button moves, depending on whether or not you’re already a fan of a page. That would make another blog all on its own.

Finally then, a little fun:

If you have a Facebook business/fan page and would like your own personalised custom image, here’s your opportunity.

I’ll shoot an image for you for free, anything within reason, and licence it to you for use on your FB landing page. The catch? It’s a competition. The restrictions? You have to be in the Republic of Ireland (unless you’re willing to pay travel expenses. Then I’d be delighted to come to the Bahamas).

Here it is then: the first person to tell me EXACTLY how I shot the food detail of the image wins. Answers in the comments here, or on my Facebook page (the link’s over there on the right). No twitter entries, only because I might miss the winning answer in the stream. Final decision on the winner will be decided by Margaret, myself and one other person. There are a few people who know how it was done, but we know who they are, and naturally they’re excluded.

Competition is open until another blog post appears here, which should be next Thursday, 21st April.

Best of luck. Get guessing!

TTFN

It’s always strange to be in a sports stadium on non-match days. I’m used to being in Páirc Uí Chaoimh when there are anything from 10-45,000 people in the place, so to be there with just my subject (and the grounds-man out on a tractor cutting the grass) was slightly surreal.

I was on assignment for one of the “Sundays” and my subject was former Cork hurler and All-Star Sean(ie) McGrath.

Of the 7 or 8 images I made, these were my favourites:

For the first one I wanted something… not melancholy but maybe, reflective. Days gone by and all that, looking out towards the pitch..

Started off with this as the lighting with just the small amount of natural light that comes into the tunnel, so that wouldn’t quite do:

Never mind, I have an app for that. Oh no that’s something else. I have a flash (strobe) for that. One flash with a snoot on top of the steps out to the left. Don’t want to light up the whole stadium, just enough for top-half of the body. A small change to to the working aperture and we were nearly there:

Et voila, the result:

Whady’all think? Load of crap? OK, moving on..

One-light again, 580EX flash with a 60cm softbox:

..and finally, one-light with a mini beauty dish – no need to light the sliotar (ball) too much, just him:

TTFN