the "yum" factor

last week i had the opportunity to collaborate with karen wise, an amazing photographer (wedding, food and much more) i used to work for during my post-college days of part-timing 3 different gigs. so when my interest in food photography piqued i contacted karen to see if she knew anyone that might be interested in taking on a photographer and showing her the ropes, instead she was nice enough to offer a collaboration where i made the goodies and she would shoot them and let me observe and learn some "tricks of the trade".  

such an offer i could not pass up and went ahead with brainstorming on some things we could shoot. since baking sweets is something i know i can do with decent results, i decided to make 4 different items. i figured it would be good to have a variety of sweets/colors/textures to give us more options to style and shoot. karen also enlisted the help of talented floral designer emily thompson to help us style the shoot with some really amazing props (which come to think of i now regret for not photographing!). there were so many gorgeous pieces from old school cutlery to silver trays... it was hard not to try to use everything but luckily emily was there to help sort things out for us! 

*note, the following images below were just quickly shot by me, the more professional shots will come later...

one of the first things we shot was a chocolate chili cupcake with whipped dark chocolate ganache frosting. we agreed immediately that we loved the cake pedestal as a prop and that the red silk linen was a perfect color compliment. but we continued to play around with composition and placement of the cupcakes (i made about 18) - should we use 5 cupcakes? 3? with paper or without? additional props (i.e. dried chili, cinnamon sticks)? 

luckily karen also had a digital camera, so she took a few shots and made adjustments. when we were finally happy with the way things were looking, she switched over to her medium format camera - a hunky mamiya (seen in the first image above) to do some shooting in film, which as i learned gave a completely different look in comparison to the digital camera. the mamiya's depth of field and even 6x7 frame changed the composition of the setup and so slight adjustments were also made to make things look "right".

the next shot was working on the creme brulee (torching that thing was so much fun!). the colors for this were kept cool and neutral - by doing this, it really brought out the colors of the creme brulee and gave it that "yum" factor that karen told me is what every image should aim for... the "yum" factor is most certainly there! 

there was also a panna cotta which i didn't have the opportunity to shoot (i was busy trying to unmold another one just in case the first one started looking too "juicy" and flat... which it did eventually). the lemon panna cotta was given a nice splash of color with some ground pistachios and raspberry coulis. since there was a lot going on with the dish, things were kept really simple and the palette was white-on-white.

lastly was the chocolate crinkle. it was given a healthy dusting of powdered sugar and plated on this somewhat retro-y brown floral plate. frankly it looks like this plate was made for these cookies! the one thing i didn't capture in this photograph is the subtle pattern of the white tablecloth the plate is on... the tablecloth pattern really compliments the pattern of the plate itself and does a really nice job of tying the final image karen took together. 

overall this collaboration was a really great experience! i had a lot of fun learning different quirks about food photography and most importantly it really inspired me to shoot more food and things in general. i'm looking forward to the karen's final images but in the meantime here's a little sneak peak on her blog "julie's chocolate crinkles"