Firing Up The Grill...

It's another grilling season and we can't help but take full advantage of it.  Call it a primal instinct, or just football fever settling in for the winter, but something keeps drawing us back to the grill. In fact, year-round grilling has become increasingly popular.

Each of these shots was unique, but they all had the grill in common.  When shooting pics that require a grill, you can do it in a few different ways.  You can shoot on an actual grill, you can fake the grill, or you can photograph when food has come off the grill.  Each of these shots demonstrates one of these options.  

Shooting on the grill is tough, because you have a limited time to get the shot before you have to pull the food off the set, and shoot the next hero.  But with a good team, it can be done without having to worry.    

We touched on how we created the grill shots in a previous post on our blog.  There we went into detail about each step of the process.  So, if you are wondering how we accomplished the fired-up looks, check out our blog post here.

The Moist and Tasty Pork Chop....

Nothing says summer, like grillin'...

A griller's choice and challenge,


     An outdoor feel was a must for this summery shot. To keep control, but still have the natural light look from an afternoon sky, we placed a point light source to come from the back right. This light gave us direction and also produced all the specular highlights on the chop.

By doing this, our indoor set became a realistic afternoon sky with a controlled, simulated sun. To create the look of a natural light, you can't just create a sun, you also have to create a sky. We put a large white flat behind the set and wrapping around towards the left, thus creating a sky-like impression and producing a large, unbroken highlight on the sauce. Since the front was going a little dark, we filled in with a mirror to light the front and captured the delectable details of both the meat and potatoes. 

The shoot was fun, fragrant and we all spent a lot of time licking our lips.