And for something totally different ...
Here is a photo I took last fall for a magazine article. I wrote about Grandma Opal's Cookie Dough, a frozen food product produced by an Oklahoma farm family using their own hard red winter wheat. And this is about the most product photography you'll find me doing.
I wanted to show the frozen product, and of course, the final product. The finished cookie product was easy enough - you slap some cookies on a plate and shoot it; or you can just shoot the cookies straight out of the oven with a little bit of moisture still on them if you're like me and don't want to delve into any food prep voodoo.
For the frozen cookies (oatmeal raisin, if you care to know), though, I wanted to show the fact that you baked them at home. The only thing that would do is a baking sheet of dough and a red-hot oven element in the background.
So I heated my oven to a very low temperature, pulled one of the top cooking racks out a bit (as to get as much separation from the glowing element as possible so my flash didn't hit the bottom of the oven) and set the sheet on the rack. I shot a single reflective umbrella with a 50mm f/1.8 lens at f/4.0. I used a slower shutter speed to get the right amount of red glow, which required me to use a tripod and cable release. And after several minutes of the mind-boggling inefficiency of taking photos with the oven on and door open, this is the shot.
The final version for the magazine layout was cropped square.
I say all that to show you a picture of frozen cookie dough. Oh, and the cookies were delicious.
