Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2009/07/24
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]unless you're working in a near 0?C studio. Back in (I believe) '72 I spent a year doing a lot of food photography. Hypodermic syringes to to inject water to prunes to get the wrinkles perfect. Eye droppers, spray bottles and sable brushes to apply (just right) glycerine to damn near everything. Propane torches and paint for leg of lamb. Once spent two days to get the frost on the beer mug to look "real." Did ice cream once: Scooped about 10 gallons to get one "perfect" scoop. The client demanded that we show the actual product. The art director was a yes-man and the stylist and I were paid by the hour so we worked it out. The ice cream had to be a perfect temperature to have the right texture. Had the air conditioning up as high as possible. Surrounded the table top set with large blocks of ice (which made for some beautiful light diffusers). The trick seemed to be getting the scoop to "peel" the ice cream just right Ended up buying a half dozen scoops, which also had to be the perfect temperature, over two days. in order to show the breaking textures before it all got soft and mushy. Then dump it and start all over again - rotating dishes - washing and polishing them - then getting them to perfect temperature - for the next attempt. All on 4x5 Ektachrome - probably 200 sheets; and far more scoop attempts than that. Setting up the studio to have the stylist doing her thing close to the set (she had to have her own cooler full of ice surrounding the bulk container of ice cream). a dishwasher; a person in charge of everything being at temperature; my assistant loading and unloading film; and another running film in batches so we could see if we were "getting it" (no time for polaroids with ice cream); was a nightmare. Like anything - fun if you have the budget to do it right.; Regards, George Lottermoser george at imagist.com http://www.imagist.com http://www.imagist.com/blog http://www.linkedin.com/in/imagist On Jul 24, 2009, at 9:43 AM, Sonny Carter wrote: > If you use real ice cream, it will not look real.