My gels I did find. But I also found some help. My friend keith, who is the same vintage as I, is going to lend a hand. I started to pull out the strobe for the shoot. One thing I remember about this kind of shooting is that different color gels soak up light at different rates. Blue color being the worst. It can take 2 or3 times the amount of light, say that a yellow gel will. So each light will need it’s own power supply. The studio floor is covered with strobe heads ,packs, stands,gels, and power cords. It will take both my ranger and keith pick up to haul all the stuff.

I stating a new project. But with a old theme. Back in my early days. I shot a lot of industrial stuff. Big 10 x30 foot machines or sometimes just there parts. The machines are usually in messy dirty factories. They had a film of grease and dirt all over them. I would come in and photography the ” new” machine before it received it’s cote of use. So how did I make the dingy factory look good? Gels, lots of color gels. Blue, red, amber, green, any color that would work. The same goes for the parts. Most industrial parts are black,gray, blue. Not a lot of color there. Gels added some color to the subject. Altho, it was over done back then. This brings me back to my project. Since I have not shot this type of work l a lot recently. I have a lot of figuring to do. So i need to ask… were are my gels?
Joel

On vacation this year the family and I sent to the North shore area. Up past Duluth, around the town of Beaver Bay and Silver Bay Minnesota. We stopped at a road side flea market. I could not believe my eyes. Plates… Cups..bowls! Tables and tables. All a ranged by color.  This is a food photographers  paradise. they don’t have a website so I can’t link you to it.   I was so over whelmed. I need to go back.

This week end I was in Chicago for the Brick World weekend. What’s Brick World… it’s…. Well Lego! My son is really into Lego. He creates small seen from movies, and does some of his own movie making. All in Lego.

I also had the opportunity to also visit a Calumet camera store. I had always wanted to visit one. They all was had a Orra about them in my mind. There were THE camera store for anything photographic. I always look forward to there catalog in the mail. And they were the first place to go when I need to order something. So I drove an hour out of our way just so I could finally get to experience one. I was so disappointed. They did not stock much of any thing. It took 20 minutes before anyone even came up and asked if they could help. When I did have a question, the staff person looked at me like deer in the headlights. They had very little in the way of studio stuff. Not much in camera and lenses. I suppose this could have been one of there smaller stores. It was near a shopping mall. So I suppose it was geared towards the consumer market. But I was still disappointed. I guess the economy has hit them to. It’s just a shame.

Ponchos and Lefty’s, a popular Mexican restaurant in Brainerd MN.  Its going through a make over /remodel. Part of it is a new menu, that’s were I come in.  I was able to spend a couple of days  shooting some of the new and returning favorites.  My truck was full of props,and backgrounds. I also want to thank Crystal of the Johnson Group for doing the prop styling. I shot 11 set shots and 7 drink shots.  that’s a lot for 2 days.  I But I brought a lot of extra backgrounds/props so we would be covered.

 Most Photographers dislike over cast days. They want the light and shadows to play with.  I like overcast days. the clouds create the biggest over head  soft light you can imagine.   And for food photography its wonderful.  Last week  I got to gether with one of my favorite food stylist  Lisa McGann, and created 5 shots at her house.  I brought along a intern from the Central Lakes Collage in Staples MN. Sam is here name. She was able to see first hand what goes in to a food shoot.  My friend Keith was there to shooting some video for a little behind the scenes look. I’ll post it later. 

Here are two of the images we created.

Good images take  time and planing, Great images need luck and photoshop.   Last fall I was hired to shoot a company group photo.  Nothing to hard I thought until I found out it was for 75 to 100 employees,the building and the company trucks. This is were the good planing comes in. The biulding faced west, so I had to create  the shot in the afternoon. There was an all employee meeting that day so it needed to be before the meeting. Other wise we would loses to many emploees skiping out to go home.  I needed a lift to get me up 20-30 feet off the ground. This way the poeple would be looking up at me and therefore I would see all there faces. By the way I had 10-15 minets to shoot it!  

I met with the company owners a week before,  explaining how I thought I would shoot it and all the things I would need to pull off a shot like this. They were very helpfull and understood  what I was trying to accomplish.  They even bought  a t-shirt for every one to help the images look better.

The first image was of the  camera file I shot that day.   this is were the luck came in. as you can tell the storm was coming in from the north.  Passed by and the tail end of the clouds defused the sun, so when the employes look up at me they were not looking in to the sun. The next image  is of all the adtional clean up and recouching I did.  I did this so the client could see all the changes i was going to make.  I added a sign to the building. removed the cracks in the asphalt. and only needed to swop a couple of heads. 

I use Blurb as my book publisher.  The software is great for those who are page design challenged. The new version of the book software allows you to make tweaks and edit the lay out more. My first book,  A delectable Vision, a food portfolio was a hit with  Art directors. I had to get a couple more copies made. It was a collection of images that i did over the past year.  Some of the images can be seen at  Minneapolis Food Photographer, my food site.   The second book, my People Portfolio is now done. This time I went with a rapped image cover and the premium paper.  Its about 40 pages long 10×8 inch horizontal size.  I divided it in to the three areas in-which I work.  Annual reports/ corporate communications, Trade Magazines, and  Collage and Universities. I added some images from a couple resent shoots to keep it fresh. And since most of my people shooting is on location, that is were the name came from.

I’m always trying something new. A new technique, new equipment.  But one thing I try to not to do is do them at the same time. Well I for got that rule this time.  I have been inspired by the images of Nick Onken. especially the sun flare images.  And there was a Minnesota Strobist meeting coming up at a local beach. I thought, hey good chance to try out this technique and a new two flash TTL rig I just put together. What could be  more perfect.  I should have known the day was going bad when I missed the turn to the beach… twice. Got messed up in all the one way streets.  There was no parking lot, on street parking only,  and I was late. so I missed the briefing before the shoot. I really hate being late.   Once I finally arrived and found were the group was. I started to set up. I got the two flashes, the cord, the stand and the 30 inch umbrella. Also the additional battery packs, so my flashes would recycle faster. I got it all put together. I was so proud.  And want happen, one of the flashes would not fire.  So for the next 1/2 hour, a tried to get it working. It worked fine testing in the studio.  I change batteries,  a borrowed flashes from other photographers. Nothing. Finally I just said lets go, I  discussed  the model Kayla what I was trying to do. Got another photographer to assist me and we hit the beach.  I started shooting and the flash would only fire 1 out of 3 times.  I was shooting to fast and the flash was not recycling fast enough. I gave Kalya a brake and  went back to see if I could get the flashes to work.  I did not.  I finally  just used one flash and did some sun setting photos with Kayla in the water.

Above are some of what I ended up with. I think with all the challenges I had that evening things worked out well.  The next day I set up the light again to figured out the problem. I found that one of my batterie packs was fried.  So it was not charging the flash and then the flash was giving the camera a false signal.  I’m waiting on a new pack and I’m going to try the light set up again.  But I think I’ll work in the studio.

I recently was  privileged to meet Mr.Lang.  He is a building contractor. I was not able to go to any of his current remodeling projects. So we did what we could around his office.  I was there to photograph him for MyBusiness Magazine.

He was a great joy to photograph.