Holiday Shots!

All photo shoots come with challenges. In the case of our recent shoot of the amazing holiday baked goods from The Pantry at Dedrick's Farm Market one of those challenges was not eating the subject before we were finished. More from a lighting point of view, it was interesting how much I had to adjust the camera and lighting between shooting the dark cocoa and chocolate finishes on the No Bakes and Peanut Butter Balls and the white powdered sugar and buttercream frosting finishes on the Russian Tea and Frosted Sugar Cookies.

Kathy always asks for both vertical and horizontal shots so that she has an option for using for the image for either an Instagram or Facebook post or social media covers. For a shoot like this I shoot a variety of angles and depth of field. Above you see the set up for what we called the "bright" shots. Above you see my Canon R6, the Paul C. Buff Octabox (double diffused) over my shoulder, two small portable flashes with DIY diffused "snoots" (the snoots control the amount of light from the flash hitting the cookies). Just out of frame is the Digibee 800 long throw reflector. In the above shot that long throw flash isn't quite as important but it is there.

Below, you can more easily see four flashes. The Digibee 800 Long Throw has a 15 degree diffusion grid. That flash really came into play for the "dramatic" shot Kathy ended up using as holiday cover photo for the client, Dedrick's Farm Market in Dryden, NY.

More from a lighting point of view, it was interesting how much I had to adjust the camera and lighting between shooting the dark cocoa and chocolate finishes on the No Bakes and Peanut Butter Balls and the white powdered sugar and buttercream frosting finishes on the Russian Tea and Frosted Sugar Cookies.

These dark No Bakes cookies were shot at about a stop and a half brighter than the cookies shown below!

Because both the plate and the cookies are white, in order to have the cookies "pop" I also made some adjustments to the layers in the image in post production.