Steamed & Seasoned Baby Potatoes

The perfect side

Meat and potatoes, chicken and wild rice - some of the best foods in the culinary world are enhanced by their pairing. The side dish doesn't always get the credit it deserves for making the meal complete. These baby Yukon Gold potatoes are steamed perfectly, so when the skin is pierced, the potato is so soft and creamy, it practically melts in your mouth. The potatoes are buttered before cooking for even more savory flavor, and often get another touch before serving, for good measure.

To light this shot, we used a very large soft light source from the left rear, and a point light source from the right rear.  To fill in contrast, we had a light coming in from overhead, and a hand-held mirror, from the front.

These gems were pretty easy to shoot and even easier to make.

3-Way Grilled Corn on the Cob...

Corn on the cob is a perennial favorite this time of year, and hot off the grill, it’s even better. Grilling corn on the cob changes up this traditional side dish; in fact, most kids don’t even consider grilled corn on the cob a vegetable! When we set up our grill for the upcoming football season, we will definitely have corn on the grill, right along side of the burgers and dogs.

To light this shot, we needed a large unbroken light source to catch all the places the butter had melted. We put a couple of those light sources around the product. One was from the back right and directed toward the left. Beyond that, we had a small point light source from the back left. Even with the soft light sources around the set, we noticed a bit too much contrast, so we put a white card up, over the top of the set, to reflect some of the light back down and fill in the shadows.

Butter is a challenge. The butter started to melt instantly, so we had to move fast. Needless to say, we had to melt the butter a few times to get the effect we were looking for.

Lamb Chops....

Our client requested both a searing on-grill shot and an impressive plated shot of single rib portions. We started with a full rack of lamb and our food stylist, Janet Middleton, cut the rack into chops. 

Fired-Up Lamb Chops.

The concept was to create an outdoor shot, but keep the control afforded by our indoor studio. We rigged up a stationary grill top, and used a long lens (150mm) to come in close on the food. This accomplished a few key points: 1. We could capture the nicely charred look of the meat and juicy accents. 2. We didn't need to use an actual grill in the studio; using a real grill limited our lighting freedom and perspective. 3. We would have had a large black rim surrounding the food and a very shallow bowl for the coals; we also didn't want it to look like the grill grate was resting right on the coals.


In our set up, we had a huge bed of coals farther under the set, allowing us to use our lights to illuminate them, without affecting our food/set high above it. Creating the appearance of a grill also allowed us to have our light sources unimpeded by the black rim of most grills and we were free to light 360 degrees around the food. We had numerous lighting sources. Again, we wanted to create an outdoor feel, so we had to recreate the sun as well as the sky. We put a very large broad source above the set to emulate the sky and control our shadows and contrast. We then positioned a point source coming from the front right to represent our sun. A meat shot really benefits from specific highlights, so we brought in a "meat light." This is a very small point source light, which we placed behind the meat, to highlight the juiciness and detail on top of the meat. Since our coals and fire were too low to cast any real light from the underside of the grate, we put a point light source under the food as well, to simulate the fire. We also focused a light on the coals, so they would be appropriately lit.


We wanted to show the chops at their tender peak of perfection, so Janet cooked the lamb quickly and achieved well-defined grill marks. We timed the shots beautifully and even caught detailed herb and seasoning particles intact on the surface of the perfectly grilled meat for the plated shot.