I am extremely fortunate to say that a lot of my work recently has revolved around local businesses. I live in an area that is quickly growing, creative, and very determined. Being apart of a relatively small community here in the Quad Cities, it's important to be present in the local scene. To show up, and support businesses that are working towards the greater good of the community. I take great pride in being able to work with so many cool people & contribute images to the local food & restaurant scene.
Rise in The East Bakery is a local bakery I have had the pleasure of working with for over 3 years now. The image that I am sharing today is one from our most recent photoshoot to promote a couple of their new summer menu items. The subject displayed in this image is a jalapeno cheddar focaccia loaf.
In the past, a lot of the images we have shot together have been lit by using very big, bright, & soft lighting methods. Usually, it was our go to lighting method of one light being bounced in from a V-Flat and one gridded reflector in front of the V-Flat to help accentuate texture. This time they wanted to try something different. Something a bit more direct, moody, and eye catching. Those were the directions that I was given. So I ended up coming up with an effective method that I felt fit right in with the vision the client was looking for. I went with one bare bulb strobe from 10/11 o'clock, with two large pieces of black foam core on each side of the strobe to help encourage the direction the light. While also creating these very deep shadows on the edges of the image that help to better frame the loaf of focaccia. Compositionally, we wanted it to be fairly simple and straight forward. Lately, I have been such a big fan of shooting these high up, top down type of shots. So we built a fairly simple scene that utilizes only the necessary styling elements in order to complete the story. I believe that this allows the viewer to feel at ease, easily engaged, and gives them a sense of place, as well as a feeling of nostalgia when they look at this image.
In the end, this is the final image we ended up with!