Day 319 - Project365

Why do you think they call them specials. Not because they are the freshest or top selling items! No no no… they are yesterdays meatloaf turned meat pie or two day old potato wedges turned into mashed potatoes.

Hell, some of the restaurants I've been to and even shot commercials for looked as if they, like Pierre's american cousin, catches the special of the day out back! I've always wanted to do nasty restaurant shots but having a lot of restaurant clients made me think twice. Over the past 2 years the restaurant clients have dwindled and I now feel free to do shots like this. I have a few more ideas that I'll do just to drive the point home.

I found this location while out with Shawn. We had just had WAY too much burrito at Moe's and my stomach was definitely letting me know! If any of you are unfamiliar with Moe's then just think about a burrito. Got it pictured? ok now multiply that burrito by 10 and you will have Moe's Burrito. They are SO good but with more sodium than a salt shaker and more fat that a pound of bacon its safe to say… its no good for your body. So afterwards we headed across the street to the home depot to see what we could find in the back. Being a large plaza there is a few restaurants. When I saw this I immediately knew this was the spot. We still drove around the whole back lot just to be sure but I was sure this backdrop was the one. After finding nothing of interest we headed back to this spot. I shot several 3 shot HDRs from different spots. The giant ugly yellow parking lot lights were so bright it was near impossible to adjust my white balance. I opted to leave it as is and fix it in Camera Raw.

I shot the foreground elements back at my house. My original Idea was to have the chef about to knock out a picky patron for sending food back. However, not being perfect, I shot the background with the focus on the middle ground and not the ground where the patron would be kneeling. This resulted in a soft focus on the ground. When composited with the image of Shawn I got a very Harsh focus difference and a very un believable result. I was forced to scrap the idea of the Picky Patron all together. Luckily my mind wasn't sleeping tonight and I quickly came up with the idea that the chef was looking for the days special. This, turned out to be a grosser theme in the end and I like the way it turned out. I wish there was more going on in the shot but with only so many hours to capture the elements for the night I was forced to settle. Next year I'll be sure to do more wildly excessive composites with fish flying and ground hogs digging and a woman in a shower with a turkey in the oven.

Today I received a email from a fellow photographer with some more than helpful tips on self promotion. Ed, I want to thank you publicly for taking the time to reach out like that.

next year will be a year of heavy self promotion as well as a continued attempt to learn all I can pertaining to photography and post production. Every piece of information and every person that helps is greatly appreciated.

Lighting:

AB800 Med Softbox at both 10:00 and 2:00. 10:00 at full power 2:00 at 3/4 power
AB800 Beauty Dish Boomed overhead. 1/4 power
Triggered Via Cyber Syncs