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Craft Beer Photography

Beer Photography – Lighting Setup and Technique

Product photography, and especially beverage photography involving glass, is a true melding of technical geekery and artistic decision making. Although the challenges of photographing glassware and liquid can be at times frustrating, the rewards are high. It's the feeling of building an image, as if building a piece of furniture. You look at examples, lay out a design, start to assemble the parts, and then you invariably will stray from that design in actual practice which produces something unique. I…

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business portrait

K.I.S.S. Portraits – Keeping it Simple in Commercial Photography

Recently I did a corporate portrait session for a local Biotech and it was the first one I think I've ever rolled in with just 50mm and 85mm prime lenses and a camera for the most part. Of course I always tote a backup camera and some lighting gear along for the ride but the K.I.S.S.  method prevailed because of the beautiful window light and great overall blue color cast of their office environment. There are many factors that can…

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food photography - granola

Bag Check: Food Photography

One of the nice things about food photography is you don't have to sell your little brother into slavery and mortgage your house to get professional results. Since each photography assignment is a little different and a little special, I decided to do a little "bag check" post today about the equipment I typically use as a professional food photographer. This is my personal kit and is geared mainly toward food magazine work and other in-restaurant types of  photo shoots.…

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white background portrait

White Seamless Studio Setup

One of the questions I get asked a lot in classes and workshops is how to achieve a pure white background without a lot of Photoshop knockout. Graphic designers like a clean white background so that the subject could be plopped anywhere on a website page or white paper layout without borders (or easily extracted and placed on a different background). TLDR: The trick is to light your background about one stop brighter than your subject. In this case, my…

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facebook image resize

Optimizing Photos for Facebook Display

It's no secret that the 'ol Book of Faces can be a great marketing tool for photographers as well as just a generally fun place to show off some family photos. Facebook, however, has a tendency to compress, convert, or otherwise mangle your photos if you don't do some image prep ahead of time to maximize their display quality.  Here are some steps I'd recommend to optimize your images for Facebook display. I recommend using Photoshop but you could certainly…

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