The Making of: Copper Blue Menu Photos

in , , , ,

Back in August I had the wonderful opportunity to work with Copper Blue and take photos for their new menu. In this blog post, I will share some behind the scenes and discuss how the photos were created.

Go check out Copper Blue:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/copperblueau/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/copperblueau/
Phone: 3847 6111
Address: 200 Old Cleveland Road, Coorparoo, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia 4151

 
 

Gear

Camera and Lens:

  • Nikon D750
  • Nikon 16 - 35mm f4
  • Nikon 50mm f1.8 G
  • Nikon 105mm f2.8 G Micro

Lighting:

  • Yongnuo YN560 III
  • Yongnuo YN560TX
  • 120cm Octabox
  • 30cm 5-in-1 Reflector
  • 100cm 5-in-1 Reflector

Tether:

  • 13 inch Macbook Pro
  • Tether Cable

Plan

The plan for this shoot was to take photos of 13 dishes for their new menu in one day.

Shot List:

  • Calamari
  • Chicken Burger
  • Chicken Wrap
  • Club Burger
  • Eggs Benedict
  • Fish Burger
  • Haloumi Salmon Stack
  • Haloumi Stack
  • Lamb Salad
  • Muesli
  • Pancakes
  • Prawn Pasta
  • Reef N Beef
 

Shooting and Lighting

The look and feel for these photos we decided on was rustic so in terms of lighting for this shoot, I used off camera flash to balance the ambient light to give a natural look. Upon arrival to the shooting area, there was incoming harsh sunlight from an opening in the ceiling which created unwanted glare on the table. To solve this problem, a 100cm Reflector was used as a flag to block out any incoming sunlight.  Once I metered for the appropriate ambient light, I setup the octabox on camera right behind the dish as the key light to mimic soft sunlight. The small 30cm reflector was placed on camera left as a fill light to lift up the shadows on the front side of the dish. For this shoot, I decided to shoot tethered because it allowed me to instantly review the photos on a bigger screen and show photos to the client for review during the shoot. Overall, the shoot went smoothly and more importantly the photos turned out great.

Haloumi Stack
 

Final Photos

Here are some of the final photos I took during the shoot. Click on the photos below for a larger view.