Jill Greenberg, Monkeys and Sharks

(UPDATE: Adds more links, cover shoot video.)

Who did I wake up to find under my bowl of Frosted Flakes this morning but the Incredible Being of Lightness herself. Does this mean she has jumped the shark?

Maybe, maybe not. More inside.
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Note to this site's perfectly sensible foreign readers:

"Jumped the Shark" is slang for when anything has clearly reached its peak, and is on the downslope. It's from a "Happy Days" TV episode in which the writers had a lead character jump a shark on a motorcycle (correction, on water skiis) in a desperate ploy to save plummeting ratings. More here.
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Jill "Dingo Made Your Baby Cry" Greenberg has not been without notice on this site. She has what anyone would at least have to admit is a very interesting lighting style. And she has worked it to the point to where she is practically the Aaron Jones of the day.

As for her lighting, she can imitate Jill Greenberg better than perhaps anyone else on the planet, if that is a good thing. But as for her range, well, I would compare it to the number of facial expressions mastered by Keanu Reeves in his movie career.

(Okay, that's not fair. Keanu has mastered two facial expressions and is said to be working on a third.)

But now Ms. Greenberg is getting written up in family newspapers, aimed at the general public. Or at least The Washington Post, who had a two-page photo spread and interview in honor of her monkey show at the National Academy of Sciences. Usually a newspaper getting around to writing about something being hot is pretty much the death knell.



Her Washington Post piece, by the numbers:

9: Total number of her photos used in the Arts section today.

6: Number of photos which contained monkeys. I thought it was seven at first, but one turned out to be of American Idol host Simon Cowell.

75: Percentage of a page dominated by the lead photo. Seriously, Pulitzer Prize Winners do not get that kind of space.

9,000: Approximate percentage of dot gain on the photos in the spread. They looked pretty rough. This photo, bounce-fill-flashed and adjusted, does not do the monkey-howl-inducing repro justice. Welcome to the world of newspapers, your Jillness.


IMO, she is could go either way. One direction being Annie, Avedon and the like -- the fabric of American culture -- and the other being Fonzie, suiting up to jump. Nothing against the quality of the photos -- they are stunning. But any specific technique, so heavily used, is always in danger of suddenly going out of style. Witness Aaron Jones and the Hosemaster craze of the late '80's.

It will be interesting to see just how long the ride lasts.



At least a little longer, apparently, as shown in this Fast Company magazine video of a recent cover shoot. I did notice the way she just lights the backgrond from behind the paper, to keep things clean and wire-free. (Yes, I'm so pathetic.)
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Slideshow: You, Imitating JG
Washington Post: Greenberg Feature
Jill Greenberg's Website
YouTube: Fonzie Jumps the Shark (Thanks, Brian!)

Jill Greenberg's Lighting Setups Laid Bear

Reverse-engineering Jill Greenberg's light is always a fun way to spend a few minutes. But we are gonna make it easy on you today, as this vid shows her shooting a bear with that trademark lighting setup included for your viewing pleasure.

Her Jillness also talks about the time-honored publicity magnet of making toddlers cry, and even shows you a little workflow in the process. (Panther eyes, anyone?)

But that's not all, kids. Today we have a Jill Greenberg double-feature, with the back half coming after the jump.

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Reading the cool photo editor blog featured in Saturday's speedlinks, commenter RuthDeb found another YouTube video of Greenberg photographing pop diva Gwen Stefani.

In the first few seconds of the video, you get a bird's eye view that shows the whole lighting scheme, naked to the world. If you do not have twelve seconds to wait, I'll spoil it: Two big brollies, ringlight, twin back/rimlights, an overhead beauty dish and a background light. You know, the same way you light shots of your own baby.

(After that it is all about Gwen, who apparently likes to play photo editor.)

On Assignment: Photography for Social Media

I have been getting a new type of assignment over the last few months that I would have never anticipated even a year ago: Shooting corporate headshots and portraits specifically designed to be used in social media.

If you are a photographer who is savvy with Facebook and Twitter, you might do well to hook up with forward-thinking people who are heavy users of social media sites. More, inside.
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Ahead of the Curve

For me, the first thought of social media headshots was in an email exchange a while back with fellow blogger Ben Popken. He was sporting a cooler-than-thou avatar pic, and I asked him about it.

He told me that he "had it done," by photographer Nikola Tamindzic [NSFW]. In an instant, this made total sense to me. We register visual impressions in a fraction of a second, and Ben was smart enough to make the most of that for his online presence. Think of the number of images that hit you on a given day, and how efficient you are at making subconscious assessments based on image content and style.


Ben's avatar is current, cool and loose -- a perfect fit for his highly visible job Consumerist. But also is part of a group of photos at the ready for the speaking gigs and TV appearances that are part of his duties.

Take a moment to check out the bottom/right sidebar at Consumerist, which features Ben's headshot as seen above. Just below him, Meghann Marco's photo is also from a pro shoot, albeit a tight crop. It's from a cool group shot by the same photog of the (then) three editors at Consumerist:


The other sidebar shots are more typical of what you would normally see used as a bio pics or avatars. And to me, there's a huge difference in the first impression left by the different types of photos.

Consumerist doesn't have a gazillion bucks to go out and fund a big shoot. But even in 2007, they were smart enough to give themselves an instant leg-up on projecting a cool image.

What's amazing to me is that even in 2009, some much better-funded companies using social media still don't get this. In fact, some companies actually are using employee I.D. badge photos as avatars for their Twitter folks. Talk about penny-wise and pound-foolish.

If you are corporate social media type -- or just very visible on the web in your profession -- how much is riding on that first impression? Should you really be letting some guy down in security make your avatar photo on his ID-O-Matic mugshot machine?


Have a Compass Point

The trio of headshots up top came from a recent shoot I did of a social media team at a financial services company. They work directly with the public, and wanted to project an attitude of being fun, smart and approachable. Not exactly your father's corporate headshot. One of the ideas I tossed up for this shoot was a "Fast Company" look, based on the very smart Biz 2.0 mag of which I am a big fan.

As good as Fast Company is, one of the things that irks me about them is their willingness fall back on the same Jill Greenberg-style cover, say, 6 times a year or so. But that does give them a look, and one that is recognizable to even their non-photographer readers. This common knowledge is helpful in finding a visual compass point before the shoot. And they went for it right away.

I'll confess to having a love/hate thing with that Greenberg style. I like where she starts out, but frequently do not like where she ends up. Way too much over-lighting and post work for my taste.

My preference is to go with the natural, 3-D look of that wrapping style of light, and go lighter on the post work. I'm just not a big fan of the highly Photoshopped, alien-looking plastic skin thing.



Here is a pullback for Suzanne, the subject on the left up top. We kept this lighting pretty consistent throughout the shoot, which involved six people on that day.

As you can see, there is a beauty dish for key, and two gridded strips behind her for separation. Not a lot of juice on the strip lights, either. Just enough to define the area rather than nuking it. What you cannot see is a diffused (bare-bulb) SB-800 close to the collapsible backdrop, and an ABR-800 / Moon Unit for on-axis fill.

That last light is important, as it allows you to dial the contrast up or down as needed right from the camera position. We nixed the fill altogether on Rob (on the right) for instance. And if you don't have a ring you could use an umbrella right behind the camera in a pinch.

This lighting scheme gives a lot of control, as you are pretty much lighting every plane in the photo. Thus, there is a volume control on everything. But by keeping the ratios close, it all just look very crisp and 3-D -- and not so nuclear as in the Fast Company fronts.

The files were pretty close right out of the camera. I only added a little bit of high-pass filtration with hard-light layers to punch it up a little in post.


Bring Some Attitude

In the end, the edited photos set the tone for what should connote a fun, person-to-person feel in a social media environment. So while you should definitely start out with some standard corporate neutrals and smiles, get past that stuff quickly and work a wider variety of expressions. Then you have the ability to make choices in the edit later.

For these, we decided to go with more of an impish, fun look for the avatars, with a range of expressions inside on peoples' profile pages. When you think about it, everything in business comes down to person-to-person relationships. And being willing to open up a little bit in a corporate environment can pay big dividends in social media. It helps that this particular group of people were smart, funny and outgoing.

Which, of course, also makes them the ideal type of person for this job. Clarky, in the center, is hard-core social media. She had tweets timed to drop in while the shoot was happening. (FWIW, I sometimes use Future Tweets to space mine out, too. Keeps me from looking like a freak by dropping in tweets at 3:00a.m. when I frequently am actually awake writing.)


Just Do It.

If you are interested in building a social media portfolio, the best place to start is by photographing people in your circle who are already blogging and/or on Twitter. It's great for them, obviously. And done right, you will already have the beginnings of a viral marketing arm for your work.

Come to think of it, if your goal is to spread the word you might want to find the people who are already social media hubs in your town and work with them right off the bat. Being the chatty, social types they are, the first thing they'll probably do when they throw up the new photo is to talk about and link to the photographer who shot it.

But the important thing is that you get a subject and they get a photo. Lather, rinse and repeat until you start getting a better comfort level -- and a better, more targeted portfolio. Then you'll be ready when the word of mouth starts to come back to you.

This is an area I am interested in for several reasons -- not the least of which is because it is an intersection point for several areas of my professional life. So I have been shooting friends and colleagues to create the beginnings of a body of work in social media.

Which, in turn, has also led me to what I think will be the most interesting project I will be working on in 2010. Not ready to talk about it here yet, but suffice to say that the serendipitous aspect of just jumping in and making things happen can be very powerful.


Your Examples

Knowing that a lot of you are on Twitter, I'd be curious to see some of your choices for cool avatars there. It's a small amount of real estate, but some folks are creating a kickass first impression with it.

For instance, I like Tim Ferriss's avatar, which is perfect for the globe-trotting lifestyle engineer that he is.

Whose avatar -- other than your own, of course -- do you like? Hit us with a comment, and include a fully-formed URL (i.e., http://www.twitter.com/ahetherington) in the comments.
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Next: STB: John McIntyre

Ring Flash Week: Getting Past Cliché

Nothing I blog about, save maybe Jill Greenberg, is as polarizing as is ring flash. You either love it or you hate it.

(The haters are in the minority, BTW, as the RF posts are consistently among the most widely read pieces on the site.)

That said, I'll play Devil's Advocate for a moment.

(More after the jump.)

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Little Tommy G., of Burtonsville, MD, (USA) writes in to say:

" ... I just don't like the look of ring flash, and I'm not sure why all your readers are so excited about this terribly unflattering and uninteresting form of light. Granted, it's new and trendy, but it's not much better than the "3-stops overexposed direct flash" look that was big in all the fashion mags 2-3 years ago.

And it's neat to build stuff, but it doesn't seem worth the time investment to create something that so limits your shooting flexibility. ..."

Well, Tommy, your problem is simply that you are 100% wrong.

(Kidding, of course.)

And I only did the "Little Tommy" thing because this particular person used to rule over me with an iron fist as my assignment editor at The Sun. Actually, those are all valid points, even if coming from a guy whose idea of "shooting flexibility" used to be asking for a weather feature squeezed in between assignments at 2:30 and 3:15.

I digress.

And I'll admit to being a little schizo about the whole ring flash thing. For me, it comes down to how the thing is used.

I think the "up-against-the-wall" one-source ring flash shot is overused and pretty one-dimensional. (That said, I never do get tired of that Lenka photo...)

But I'll admit right here and now that after I finished building my ring light a few days ago, I shot darn near everything and everybody in the house that was up against the wall with it. The cat won't even stay in the same room with me these days.

But the new car smell wears off pretty quickly on that look. Although it is always there to pull out if you need it once in a blue moon.

What does interest me -- fascinates me, actually -- is the idea of a ringlight as an on-axis, secondary light source. And to be honest, I plan on using it more for still life than for people. I like the idea of hard edge light, filled by that 3-D, wrapped light coming from the ring flash.

I start to get more excited when I think of color contrast between the frontal and edge light, too.
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More than anything else, the work of Dan Winters has gotten the ring light stuck on my brain. He uses it in a variety of ways -- as a sole light source, a primary source in a multi-light setup, or as subtle fill.

I could look at Winters' photos for hours on end. (And I have.) I would really like to be able to experiment with some of his techniques on the cheap. A DIY ring flash is not gonna make me Dan, of course. But it will allow me to play with some of his methods and see how I can apply them toward my own style.

If you are into really cool, quiet, cerebral photos, I'd highly recommend a walk through his site, BTW. And if you are a photo editor, you should hire this to shoot something for your mag in every issue. He can make anything look interesting.

Closer to home, for example, reader Michael Hui is doing some neat stuff, too. He is playing with an Alien Bee ABR800, which he uses both alone and in conjunction with other light sources. In the photo at left he used an additional bare Vivitar 285HV from camera left.

It's the latter look that I am drawn to, and I sometimes have to keep myself from faving Hui's pix automatically, as soon as they appear.

In addition to combining the RF with a hard sidelight, Hui is also using it with a multi-source, wrap-lighting scheme that is totally working for me, too.

In short, where some people see a one-trick-pony light, I see a jumping-off point for more creative looks that I simply cannot get with any other light source. So, to that end, I want to learn as much about it as a possibly can.

For now, I am a total newb. But I hope to be doing cool stuff with it soon.
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NEXT: Designing the DIY HD Ring Flash

Vote -- And Consider Uplighting

First of all, if you are reading this in the US, get off your butt and go vote today. Either that, or don't complain during the next four years no matter what. I'm just saying.

That said, take a look at this morning's Washington Post. They are running the expected, "same play" careful coverage that a newspaper has to run, lest it get howling complaints.

(Seriously, people count square inches and write in. So you need to keep them even, especially on critical days like November 4th.)

But enough election talk. Thankfully, we are almost done with that. It has been a long two years.

This morning's front page also is a very interesting look into lighting styles -- and media control. After you have voted, make the jump for a little more on the lighter side (so to speak) of this front page.


The Same, But Different

Looking at the two lead photos, McCain by Melina Mara and Obama by Linda Davidson, I am struck by the difference in the lighting. (Click here to see it bigger.)

Needless to say, a lot of thought goes into lighting political events. The campaign staff wants to do all of the heavy lifting, so the media can swoop in and get stuff that looks good with a minimum of effort.

In that sense, how you light your candidate is a point of significant control. Do it well, and he/she looks like a hero. That's a strong visual statement. And it is somewhat subconscious, which makes it even stronger.

McCain is classic Michael Deaver. And by that, I mean, create a little looking-into-the-sunset lighting and line up the shooting pits to where they show your guy in front of a big American flag.

Deaver (Reagan's Deputy Chief of Staff) was the first to exploit on a large scale the idea that, if you controlled the lighting/backdrop/shooting location, you could damn near put your candidate on a movie set. It helps if your candidate was a former actor, too.

Reagan, of course, was exactly that. And since the Reagan/Deaver (or maybe, Deaver/Reagan) one-two punch was so well executed, that strategy went a long way towards crafting a heroic visual image of Reagan in the media. The media could hardly help themselves, either -- Deaver had seen to that.

The lighting and shooting geometry on McCain are now pretty much standard procedure. It works, too. Not even Jill Greenberg could make the guy look bad in that situation.

But looking over at Obama's photo, I find myself wondering if his campaign's lighting person is not trying to evolve the Deaver look a little bit. The first thought that came to my mind when I saw this morning's dual front was to notice the uplighting.

I have been interested in learning more about uplighting when I realized that the technique was one of the reasons I like so many of Greg Heisler's photos. I love the way it sculpts and creates form and texture.

I have played with it a little bit, in a random, clunky way. And even my first clumsy efforts were encouraging enough to make me decide to learn more about it. I want to approach it in a more thorough way, as we presently are doing with on-axis fill. And I hope to write about the technique later.

Seeing Linda's Obama photo above (lit probably not by her but by a campaign staffer who appears to know their stuff) really shows the power of the technique. All the more so because it it juxtaposed against the technique that has been the Gold Standard of making a US politician look heroic and significant for the last 25 years.

Not to say that uplighting is anything new. But clearly, it is a powerful way to accent light -- and one that certainly lends itself to speedlight-based lighting. Sad, but after two years of non-stop campaigning being shoved down my throat, this is what I notice on the Big Day.

To me, the Obama photo looks like it jumped off of the pages of WIRED Magazine. Which is pretty amazing, really, when you consider that the person who shot the photo was not the person who decided the light.

In a time of increasingly sophisticated visual presentation in the media, it is interesting to me that we might be seeing the next chapter in the Michael Deaver playbook.

Feel free to electioneer ad nauseum in the comments. (No). This is a Red-Blue-Free-Zone. But I would be curious to know your nonpolitical thoughts about the differences in lighting above. If you have covered either campaign, feel free to chime in with lighting-related observations. Although, I would think you are probably busy today, at least.

Seriously, the politically-tinged stuff is strongly discouraged. Plenty of other places for that. Save the politics for the one place that it really matters.

Please vote today.

On Assignment: Parking Lot Ambush

This photo, which was previously posted on Monday and shot during the DINFOS Advanced Lighting Team workshop last Friday, got a lot of interest up on the Flickr comment threads. So I thought I would do a little tutorial on exactly how it was done.

If you are looking for a setup shot, you already have it. The photo is the setup shot. We used everyone's flash, synchronized to produce a photo that looks random but was in fact very choreographed.

We used six flashes for the shot - 3 SB-26's and 3-SB-800s. They were mounted on voice-activate light stands, also known as photographers. There are several tricks to pulling this off. But once you have a roadmap, it is quite easy.

First, you have to make the flashes think they are not connected to the cameras. We did that by sliding pieces of paper between the flash and the hot shoe. (After that point the shooters are essentially light stands.)

Second, you have to sync the flashes together and to the main shooter's camera. We did that by using Pocket Wizards on the SB-800's and using those in turn to fire the SB-26's in slave mode. You could do it with fewer flashes -- even one could look cool. But we had six at our disposal. So what the heck, baby.

Third, you have to position the flashes to create the light you want. It appears fairly random. But if you look carefully, we have two back lights, two side lights, a front camera left main light (coming from up high - the "Hail Mary" camera, for a good lighting angle) and a front camera right fill. Kinda hard to miss, come to think of it.

My camera, ironically, had no flash on it -- only a Pocket Wizard. IMO, the total effect almost looks a little Jill Greenberg-ish, but without the soft lights or ring flash.

The exposure was based on the sky. I wanted to underexpose it a couple of stops. So we shot with a D70s (using the electronic shutter sync hack) at 1/1500th at f/8 at ASA 200, if I remember correctly.

The flashes, in close and zoomed to 85mm, were set on 1/8 or 1/16th, depending on their distance to the subject. So recycle time was not an issue. I could have pretty much motored away.

Always remember: Short distance = power and speed.

I had never tried this technique before, and our only prep was a couple of shots up in the hotel room. We like to be thorough, so we put in a good minute or so of research and testing.

Really, this was just a run-and-gun thing, with very little prep time and not much shooting time, either. It was shot at 1:00pm on a 96-degree day in really crappy light. We had much to do, and we were getting hungry.

Once we were downstairs in the parking lot, I popped a couple of frames to make sure that all of the lights would synch. They did -- every time. No worries, mate.

Also, I wanted to make sure that the flashes would all sync at the high shutter speed. As you can see, we were batting 1.000, even though we were working way above the ambient light.

I have to say that I absolutely love this new (for me) technique. And I would probably use the crap out of it, given the opportunity. But since I do not have six shooters following me around every day, it won't end up happening very often.

That said, I will probably be experimenting with overpowering daylight with a bunch of hard lights wrapped around the subject more often, too.

Here is what struck me from the process.

• It was far easier to choreograph (and pull off on a technical basis) than I expected. If you try it, be sure to stick your results up in the Flickr pool.

• In the end, it was darn-near impossible to get a bad looking shot. They were almost all keepers. Which actually sucked at 2:00am when we were editing this stuff. It was not easy to narrow the pix down.

But as problems go, I'll take that one every time.

As you read this, the missus and I will be at Walt Disney World with a 6- and an 8-year-old in tow.

Lord, give us strength. And please send that 3:00pm thunderstorm to thin out the amateurs in the crowd.

Ring Flash Week: Intro and Resources

Welcome to Strobist Ring Flash Week and the first post thereof. First off, there seems to be some confusion as to whether it is a "ring flash" or a "ringflash" or a "ring light" or a "ringlight."

I am going with "ring flash" for the most part unless there is a reason to differ in a particular circumstance. But the important thing was to get all four versions into the first paragraph to make the search engines happy.

(Now, c'mon -- isn't the honesty refreshing?)

The goal of this week is three-fold:

1. To elevate the ring flash technique discussion to somewhere above the "up against the wall" single-light shot.
2. To show you how to build a completely new DIY version, which is speedlight-based and is powerful enough to use in full daylight. A few of you have seen it, and know just how pumped i am about it.
3. To prime the pump for discussion and group design input for a small, cheap, passive ring flash light mod that will very likely actually be manufactured.

More on that last one later, and much more after the jump.
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This Week's Menu:

Today: Overview and a list of internal and external gear resources.

Tuesday: A look at a reader who is shooting cool ring flash stuff and a high-end commercial shooter who uses it well, too.

Wednesday: The design process for my own version.

Thursday: How to build the DIY Strobist HD Ring Flash.

Friday: Shooting/Experimenting with the HD Ring Flash.

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Ring Flash Resources

Below is a list of internal and external ring flash resources. Please feel free to add any links you may have along these lines to the comments to improve the value of the list.

Whether you are going the cheap DIY route or the expensive studio route, there is something for every wallet size.


The shot at left, BTW, is of Czech model Lenka. She was shot with the DIY ring flash designed by Dennison Bertram, which is linked below.
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:: 3 Affordable Ring Flashes, Compared ::

:: Ringflash, Jill Greenberg using ::
:: Ring flash overuse of, Joe McNally on ::

:: Andrew's fake ring flash in a pinch ::
:: Paul's fake cardboard ring flash ::
:: Over-and-under sort ring-ish flash ::


:: Dennis' DIY ring flash ::
:: Jedrek's DIY Ringflash ::
:: Richard's DIY Ringflash ::
:: Tommy's Fold-Flat DIY Ringflash ::
:: David X. Tejada's DIY tungsten ring light ::
:: How to make said tungsten ringlight ::

Home Depot Week: Fluorescent Lights and Accessories

This is another area I will be getting into when I have a little free time. Fluorescent fixtures are so cheap and so bright, you can use them as portrait light sources very easily.

As you can see, there are lots of shapes and sizes. Normal people see kitchen fixtures. I see soft boxes, strip lights and ring lights.

More on the lights and accessories after the jump.
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Okay, follow me for a sec. Say you have one dinky little flash. Why not consider two fluorescent strip lights for a high-glam foreground scheme and use the flash for the background light?

Seriously, you could mount them vertically (one per light stand) or horizontally (one over your camera, one under, one stand supports the left side of each fixture, one supports the right.) You'd get some very cool clamshell and/or dual sidelight schemes for under $100.

Better yet, throw up a strip light as a side/rim light on each side and umbrella the front to channel your frugal inner Greenberg. (If you want to make the subject cry, shoot another photog and tell him how little you paid for the lights...)

If you are a more MacGuyver-ish, you should be able to find a circular fixture that will work as a ringlight. You'll likely have to cut a hole in the center of the fixture after having relocated the ballast to somewhere off-board.

And if you do this, please insulate the crap out of it. Be safe.

(Some of those progressive Seattle types are already all over this one. Click on the pic for more info.)

Remember, you'll want to green any flashes you use along with the fluorescents and set you camera to fluorescent white balance. For better color, check which bulbs match your camera's fluorescent white balance before purchasing by shooting the various bulb displays and seeing which looks the whitest.
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Moving down the aisle a little, we get to the cool, prismatic diffusers. How does $7 for a 2x4-foot sheet hit you? (Yeah, me, too.)

This is wonderful stuff. It diffuses the light and is designed to be very efficient. It is cheap because it is hardware, not photo gear.

If you have a Dremel tool, this stuff cuts pretty easily. (Ringflash diffuser, anyone?)

You can also use this to make ugly directional sunlight much softer or to diffuse a bare flash. And of course, it works well to front those strip-light fixtures mentioned above.

On Assignment: Munchies

We do an annual survey at The Sun on how people snack - what they eat, how much, how often, etc. I thought it would be fun to play around with the items a little by shooting them very close and lighting them for detail and texture.

Mind you, this is basically a porn shoot for me. I love junk food. Luuuv it.

So much so that I am constantly practicing one form of girth control or another. I could kill a large bag of Cheetos before halftime if the game is good enough. Fortunately, I have recently come across the junk food equivalent of methadone in Ruffles Baked Potato Crisps.

They are great, with only three grams of fat, none saturated. No kidding, they'll make you forget the real thing. I actually prefer them to the original model at this point. Unfortunately, the whole bag still has 30 grams of fat. So I still have to be reasonable about it.

But for this assignment, we were shooting the high-test stuff. Oreos, Cheetos, chocolate - you know, the stuff that makes life worth living. I mean, we had some token healthy snacks, if you don't count the salt. But we knew what folks were really eating.

If the lighting and color scheme looks familiar, it may be because I decided to give these a bit if a Jill Greenberg treatment. I didn't go all the way, as the texture precluded getting that wrap-light sheen. But I did model the light in similar, but more subtle ways.

I do the homage thing a lot when looking for a starting point in the studio. But always out of genre. Kind of like, "How would Timothy Greenfield-Sanders shoot a tomato?"

So, I used hard light everywhere. One speedlight was directly behind the subject, pointed at the background. The front light came in from high, and slightly to one side. Different foods were front-lit from different directions.

The front light also had a very tight snoot, made out of Cinefoil, a matte-black aluminum foil. The exit hole for the light was the diameter of my finger, which allowed for some light control at the macro level.

My separation lights came in from the back and low, on each side. They also had (normal) snoots on them, mostly to control the flare that would come from their being aimed almost back at the camera.

It was an odd scene, really, with a Cheeto, for instance, impaled on a toothpick and surrounded by four speedlights. I found myself wondering if a Cheeto had ever had four speedlights around it before.

But that idle thought was quickly put to rest by an unforseen problem: How to shoot the Cheeto in such a pose so it did not look blatantly phallic.

(Sheesh, the things we have to quietly take into consideration...)

Once I got my lighting scheme nailed down, the shoot went pretty quickly. We'd sort our way through all of the ugly specimens and find a good poster child example to shoot.

It was a fun exercise, and I was surprised to find out (a) how much texture there really is in those little snacks when you get up close, and (b) how many ugly ones you have to eat look through to get to a good one.

I used a D2XS to get a big file size, and extreme detail. I was shooting through a 55/2.8 macro, with an extension tube to get even closer. Everything was shot at f/22 or f/32.

Dang, just writing this makes me want a Reese's peanut butter cup.

Alas, it was all for naught as the designer ended up using the boring examples they had me shoot on blow-away white. She even cut out the potato chip.

(Sigh.)

In the end I thought it looked very pedestrian, and that we missed a chance to do a snazzy looking page. I mean, this stuff would have looked cool really big, IMO.

Ten years ago, I probably would have walked into features and uncorked a few choice words and blown the very working relationship I have been trying to nurture. But now, I just see it as part of the job. And I instead focus on the fact that I really enjoyed both the shooting process and the result.

One of the most important things I have learned in the last ten years is not to use the paper's final product as your validation point. You have to shoot for you.

To stew over something that is in someone else's control would just be damaging to the working relationship and maybe even to my output on the next shoot. And nobody needs that.

Besides, I can always comfort myself with a bag of baked Ruffles.

Click on a pic, and then click "all sizes" to see them really big. If you want me, I'll be in the kitchen.

NEXT: Hero Fan