Well, since I seem to be so behind these days getting blog posts up (not to mention commenting on all of the absolutely incredible egg photos that came in this month), I thought I’d just pop in to give some link love to Kathy Casey’s blog. Kathy Casey is a Northwest chef who has more than a few cookbooks under her belt. Her latest, Sips & Apps, is currently being shot right here in Seattle. Kathy has given a little peak(and hopefully more to come) at the shoot.

I’m a bit late finding this, but if you haven’t seen it yet, and were curious about how the relatively inexpensive Lowel Ego Lights worked for food photos, check out Steamy Kitchen’s excellent post that shows how much difference they can make. Brilliant.

It sounds all so simple doesn’t it… March’s theme of Eggs. Much simpler, I suppose than last month’s self portraits with food. There were some great entries, but I wish that we had seen a bit more of everyone! I know there are times when I have to be my own model, so being able to nail focus while you work with a remote or a timer is a great skill to develop! Even if you didn’t submit anything, I encourage everyone to keep working on it!

Anyway, back to the eggs. I’ve been wanting to do a month focused on eggs for a while, but held off the start of spring which is unbelievably just around the corner. Whole eggs in the shell I think are one of the most gorgeous things to photograph. Out of the shell though, it becomes a whole new ball game… a little air on an egg and it quickly congeals, so you have to shoot fast. It’s up to you how you want to shoot the eggs this month… in the shell or out, cooked or raw, fowl or fish. But try to get creative with it. What can you do that makes your egg shots new and fresh?

The usual rules and are up on the Flickr group… the things like be constructive, take the photos during the month if possible, 3 photos per person and the last day will be around March 31st give or take a few days.

One day, if I’m really, really good, I might have a room 1/100th of this…

I think you all know how big of a fan of Capture One I am. I’ve been using it for a few years, and it makes tethered and remote capture super simple whether it’s batch applying settings or making it braindead simple to convert images from Raw to a whole set of other formats. I usually output TIFF, 2 versions of JPEGs and sometimes thumbnails. Click, click, click, it’s done and I almost never go into Photoshop for editing.

All that came to a screeching halt recently with the addition of a new iMac to my studio and the soon-to-be upgrade to Leopard. It turns out, Capture One Pro won’t work tethered with Canons (not sure about Nikons) on Leopard. I just want to note for the record, that Vista isn’t the only OS with problems on upgrading, even if they don’t have silly cool ads pointing fingers. Leopard is NOT all puppies and sunshine. But, anyway, that’s besides the point.

The real point is that between the lack of Leopard support along with the changes to Capture One 4, it seems I was going to need to be finding some new software. I had already been intent on trying a few new apps… something to manage my ever growing library of images. I’m starting to do some stock photography work with one (and maybe two) of the big rights managed agencies (Stockfood right now, and Jupiter Images’ FoodPix as soon as I can get my act together) and so having a great way to keep track of what I’ve submitted to who is going to be critical.

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Fun camera… but not what I actually do my work with…

Wow. It seems like I just posted my Guide to Food Photography gear… but it’s been almost a year, and I have realized a good chunk of my equipment has changed during that time. Since the number one question I get from readers is what gear do you use, I thought I’d give you a new peak into the studio & camera bags.
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I’ve been meaning to start a regular post series featuring some of the emails I get with questions about photography and styling, and what better way to kick it off with a question that I know comes up all the time with folks just getting started into some more advanced digital imaging. A reader writes:

Dear Lara,

I’m really confused about which image editing software to buy. I’m planning to go in for the Canon 40D. I heard you talk about the phase one capture pro on your site. Maybe I will look at it as an option in the future as I don’t want to suffer from information overload!

I need to edit images for publishing in websites and magazines/newspapers. Should I go in for the Photoshop CS3 or CS3 extended? What are your thoughts on the Adobe Lightroom?

I have heard that Mac is better for photographers so i’m switching over to Mac after years of PC use.

Thanks for being helpful.

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I just had an “ah-ha” moment about prop rental. If you live in Los Angeles, Chicago and New York, you can probably skip this post. You already have great stores that specialize in prop rental, like Creative Elements. But here in Seattle, I haven’t been able to find anything similar. Until today, when I stumbled on not one, but several real estate “staging” services. You know, when you view a house that has already been moved out of and it looks like you just walked into a Pottery Barn photo shoot? There are people who’s job it is to do that (hmm… maybe a second career choice is on the horizon for me! Think of the props I could buy!). Recently, I toured a home that was just up the street. The kitchen was drool worthy, but a large part of that was the cabinets, all with sparkling clean glass windows and filled with a complete set of all white dishware, including cake plates and milk pitchers. There are homes all over the city, on the market, being staged.
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If you’ve been using a digital SLR for a while, you know how frustrating it can be to pick up a point and shoot camera and get good shots. For that matter, if you use a point and shoot, you might be just as frustrated. A point and shoot, for all its ease of size and automation, makes all kinds of decisions for you in what makes a good photo, and while often it is right, it is just a piece of hardware and can’t read your mind about exactly what you want. When you photograph food, this becomes particularly clear.
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I have a problem. I have a little thing called a prop addiction. I’m constantly finding my next must-have props in vintage and thrift stores, at the grocery store, in sales bins at Pottery Barn or Crate & Barrel, and most recently on ebay. Now, you might think that the problem is the fact that I am buying too much. Some might argue that. Not me. My problem is that I simply don’t have nearly enough room, and the stacks are growing ever more precarious. It’s not too much stuff, it’s simply a lack of storage space. At least, that’s what I tell myself. I’m hoping one day I’ll get to be like this shop in Chicago. My family may not be able to move in our house any more, but man, we’ll have some nice props. The photo above features two of my new ones… the palest-yellow oval dish, on sale at Whole Foods and the shabby chic breakfast tray was from ebay.
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