We Shoot Photography Of The Day For 6/8/2015
Monday, June 8th, 2015
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Thursday, June 11th, 2015
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Tags: big, cab, commercial, control, controls, cutting grass, interior, large, lawn mower, levers, modern, mower, pedals, present day, red, riding mower, switches
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Monday, June 8th, 2015
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Tags: architectural, architecture, black and white, build, building, church, commercial, construction, frame, framed, frames, framing, lumber, plywood, under construction, wood, wooden
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Thursday, May 28th, 2015
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Tags: cheeseburger, commercial, dinner, food, food service, french fries, fries, hamburger, hamburgers, lunch, Marketing, meal, meat, potato, potatoes, restaurant, slider, sliders, stack, stacked, stacking
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Monday, May 18th, 2015
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Tags: cake, chocolate, commercial, commercial photography, devil's food, food, food industry, frosting, fudge, icing, photographer, photography, Seattle, sweet, sweets
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Thursday, May 14th, 2015
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Tags: blueberries, blueberry, commercial, food, food industry, food photographer, fries, goat cheese, photography, salmon, seafood, Seattle
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Tuesday, May 12th, 2015
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Tags: asparagus, beverage, bloody mary, commercial, container, food, food industry, glass, lime, lip, photographer, photography, prawn, prawns, salt, Seattle, shrimp, skewer
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Monday, May 11th, 2015
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Tags: bright, cards, clubs, color, colorful, commercial, commercial photography, diamonds, hearts, macro, photography, plastic, plastics, playing cards, product, spades, tooth picks
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Thursday, July 10th, 2014
Like a lot of other people, I go to Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, and other social sites, and I see lots of images of food. Contacts and colleagues, as well as anonymous strangers, have decided to show what they are about to eat, or have partially eaten. The explosion of cell phone cameras and other low-cost digital cameras has allowed many people to think of themselves as “Food Photographers.” Anyone today with a heartbeat can take a picture. I look at some of the food photography online, and there are comments from others on this, like: “That looks so yummy, I wish I could have some!” Or, “That looks delicious!” I look at the images and it is all I can do to keep my last meal down. What I usually see is not well composed, never styled, improperly lit, and the colors are sickly. This is akin to those blurry, out of focus images some people take of their kids and post on Facebook, to the delight of their friends and grandparents who say “Great shot!” The one thing they all have in common was that all the images were created for free, once you factor out the cost of the phone or camera, memory cards, readers, computers, and editing software. As I create food photography professionally, I have decided to see if I could take decent images of food with my cell phone and run it through Photoshop to get decent looking food shots. Now, real commercial food photography takes planning, a good food stylist, lots of lighting and equipment, and photographic experience. It also takes a tremendous amount of patience. I have dealt with clients, corporate chefs, tight spaces, and less than ideal shooting conditions. Sometimes the food looks great but is actually inedible because things are done to it for the purpose of great photography. I went out to a favorite Mexican restaurant for dinner the other night and, as usual, I brought along my iPhone, which actually has a decent camera built-in (for what it is). It takes 8 megapixel images in .jpg form. It performs reasonably well in relatively low lighting conditions. It has a strobe. But, first, it doesn’t shoot in RAW format. This is important for making better final images. More megapixels means more information and higher enlargement quality. Not all megapixels are equal. There are many cell phones that have larger pixel counts than the iPhone, but the picture quality isn’t as high, as evidenced by the fact that several stock agencies will accept still images and video from iPhones, but not other cell phones. Image noise becomes a factor when jamming high pixel counts on small sensors. For this reason, a cell phone isn’t what a pro would use. If you are going to shoot food, in my opinion, a 24mm X 16mm sensor in a DSLR at 10 megapixels that shoots in RAW format would be the minimum to use. So, despite my opinion, I decided to experiment as a pro since I have indeed been paid to photograph food by people in the food biz. I decided to work with the chips and salsa. The first obstacle is lighting. In this example, we are away from the outside windows and close to an inside wall. I am shooting hand-held. So it has to be either the ambient room lighting or the camera flash. Trying the flash, I get the following image: Although it looks sharp as a small image, there is unacceptable camera movement evident in the full-sized version. Harsh shadow at the top of the paper. Loss of light away from the center, and all the color is off. No styling is evident. This was just the way the food was delivered. Yet I see images on FB worse than this with someone saying “yummy” in the comments. I then try the somewhat same shot using room lighting, without the strobe. See the sample image below: While in-focus and more appealing color is evident and lighting is more even, the shadows are still way too heavy, caused by non-diffused room lighting. The position of the camera is dictated by my seating. I can’t get far enough back to get the chips and salsa in the frame. The tip of my silverware can be seen at the bottom of the image. Remember that I am shooting as most people do who post images online, not as a pro. There will be no styling. Next, I take the image and put it through a little Photoshop massage. It comes out looking like this: With shadows lightened, color enhanced, top of the image straightened, and the silverware tip removed, it looks better – but still nowhere near professional quality. Maybe worthy of FB, but not for marketing. I will show you a styled, professional image we did a while back of two taco salads, chips, and the rest of the fixings: As you can see, the color is quite appealing, the image is light and colorful, and the food is crisp and fresh-looking. Shadows are attractive and unobtrusive. The image has been styled by a professional stylist, and a lot of diffused strobe light has been used. Lighting is off-camera to give highlights where needed and provide depth. This is professional food photography – the kind supplied by We Shoot.
– Gary Silverstein
Tags: commercial, commercial photographer, commercial photography, food, food photography, Photoshop, retouch, shoot, shooting, weshoot.com
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Thursday, June 5th, 2014
The definition of “rebranding” from http://www.whatis.com is as follows:
“Rebranding is the creation of a new look and feel for an established product in order to differentiate the product from its competitors. Rebranding efforts may include a name change, new logo or packaging and updated marketing materials that includes the latest industry buzzwords. The goal of rebranding is to influence a customer’s perception about a product or service by revitalizing the brand and making it seem more modern and relevant to the customer’s needs.”
Sounds pretty good, doesn’t it? But, really. Rebranding. I mean, please. Is anyone as tired of this word as I am? Every way I turn I see it. I even think about it when meeting other business people. As a professional photographer, what often comes to mind is, “you definitely need to upgrade your imagery and do some rebranding.” I mean some of them SCREAM for it in the way they present their business. It is definitely apparent in the photography of their product and service presented from their website and collateral material. But does this mean that everyone in business needs to rebrand?
Sure, we can all use an occasional evaluation of our business. Who is our clientele? What is our focus? When do we exercise a new strategy? Where are we going with this business? Why did we start it? Yup, somewhere in there is the good old “who, what, when, where, and why.” The nucleus of journalism may apply to a business as well.
But should we hire a rebranding specialist? How about just sitting down with ourselves on occasion – say every 3 months – to ask five questions like the ones above. Make it fun. Be your own journalist. Set up an appointment with yourself every 3 months to conduct an interview, or interview your business partner, upper management, middle management, or your administrative assistant. Oh, wait a minute. This sounds like an old tried-and-true marketing meeting. How ‘bout that? You may have been doing it all along. Rebranding. And it didn’t cost you a penny.
For those of you – like me – who don’t schedule a weekly marketing meeting or a quarterly meeting to evaluate your business, begin now. Consult with the people you work with, the people who want your business to succeed as much as you do. From top to bottom. Involve everyone you work with, and you’ll not only come up with improvements to your business, you’ll come up with improvements to the most important business relations of all. The people you work closely with every day.
And don’t forget the maintenance people – or anyone in the business of making something look its best. If this last suggestion sounds funny to you, then you’re missing out on one important factor to a successful business. Objectivity. And you don’t have to hire a professional. Maybe it could be someone you know in an entirely different business than yours. Get their objective input. Or anybody who isn’t as close as you are to the challenge you face. This is especially applicable for a really small business.
Now get away from that computer and ask this simple question of the next person you see. “What do you think?”
– Dione Benson
Tags: brand, branding, commercial, Marketing, photography, rebrand, rebranding, small business
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Monday, June 24th, 2013
Sometimes it pays to do your homework. Don’t just read the headlines. Several times in the last few years, I have gotten some strange phone calls. One day, late in the afternoon, I got a call on our business line. A woman breathlessly asked, “How late are you open?” I was somewhat taken aback by this, as we are basically location photographers who have a studio, but do most of our work outside of it. We have used the studio for food and small product shooting, but our work is mostly on location: commercial, industrial, large product, and architectural.
So it was surprising to get a call like this, and I said to the person on the other end that we are open 24/7. Whenever a client needs us, we are there. Then the caller said, “Do you have an indoor range?”
I realized that this caller had only read our headline on a search engine, and typed in “Shooting Range” for their search. In the headline, a lot of times, our phone number comes up. So, instead of clicking on the link to get more information, they call our number.
I told the caller that the name of our business is We Shoot, that we are commercial photographers – the only things we shoot are cameras – and that our website is weshoot.com. She sounded a little sheepish and apologized for calling. And, she still hadn’t found a shooting range, which I assumed she was in a hurry to find.
In like respect, when choosing a commercial photographer for a project, see if they are what you are looking for. Many photographers who specialize in weddings also advertise for other types of work. Now, this is not to say that wedding photographers can’t do commercial work, but if you go to their website and the first images you see are wedding related or portraiture heavy, this is what comprises the bulk of their work. You won’t find weddings or portraits on our website. Just because we all use cameras doesn’t make us all the same. So, choose wisely for the type of photography you need – it can save you time and money in the long run. Then you won’t be going off, half-cocked!
– Gary Silverstein
We Shoot
Tags: architectural, architecture, commercial, industrial, photography, product, We Shoot Photography, weshoot.com
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