Kidding Around

You know that thing they say about kids and animals?

…

Yeah, that’s the one.

It’s true. Mostly. I mean, I’ve had my fair share of two-year-olds tear up a studio - literally in one instance where backing paper was involved. It wasn’t pretty. It got worse when he got hold of a €8,000 camera and poked his fingers inside to see if anything in the mirror chamber would be his friend.

So I was a little anxious when we set out last Friday to shoot some pack shots at Ardsallagh goat’s farm, where Jane Murphy keeps her herd that produces outstanding cheese and milk. The brief was to shoot a picture of her daughter Siobhan holding a baby goat. The plan was to echo the farm’s current label, which is a drawing of Siobhan when she was a little girl holding a kid. Siobhan is grown up now, so she was never going to be the issue. My concern was working with a bunch of kid goats.

Turns out the kids weren’t the problem. Give them a belly full of milk before the shoot and you own them.

The shots of Siobhan and a series of kids went really smoothly. It was afterwards that the trouble started.

Behaving like a professional
(c) Roger Overall 2008 - All Rights Reserved

The agency designing the new labels wanted a back-up photograph of some of Jane’s goats and we decided to get a group into a field so that the background would give the open air feel we wanted. The goats, though, were perfectly happy to stay in their barn. I’ve seen kitten litters more co-operative.

It took several attempts to get a half-dozen of them out of the barn and another two attempts to herd them up to the field. Even when we got them there, most of the goats decided that their rear-ends would make for a great picture. You can’t reason with a goat that its bum is not going to sell cheese. It doesn’t care.

Eventually, though, we got some suitable shots. Actually, the agency was thrilled with the pictures. I can’t wait to see the finished label in the supermarkets.

Kidding Around
(At least they’re facing the right way)
(c) Roger Overall 2008 - All Rights Reserved

Icicles

I’ve just posted a series of images from a shoot in a bakery earlier this week over at Gastro Narrative, my food photography blog. Have a look.

(c) Roger Overall 2008

Food Book

A Dublin design agency got in touch with me the other day asking to see my book - biz speak for portfolio - to put me in the mix to be considered for an upcoming food shoot. (Oddly the job has almost exactly the same brief as a shoot I have lined up for next week. Must be something in the air). So, I sent over my food book by email as a PDF and then had the thought that the book would make for a good post. So, here it is, page by page:

I also sent a book of executive portraits and I’ll post that as well soon.

Brain Food

Today we were up in Limerick shooting school lunches for Carambola Kidz, a company that delivers healthy and nutritious lunches to primary school children and teachers throughout Ireland. They’ve also coupled this with an education programme to get kids eating right early on in life. Good stuff.

Today is also my mum’s birthday as well as that of my niece in Australia - Hi Chloe.

(c) Roger Overall 2008

Back in the saddle

Mussels with Lemon and Lime Slices
(c) Roger Overall 2008

Well that was a week and then some. My head was filled to bursting point with information on how I can improve my business and at the same time generate referrals and relationships for others. If I implement all that I learned last week, it will transform my business.

Not that I have much to complain about at the minute, mind.

I’m writing this from the set of a food shoot while two of my clients are preparing mussels. Tomorrow I’m off to London for an annual report shoot on Wednesday and then I have a high-end property shoot for Thursday back here in Ireland. I was hoping to keep the weekend free, but when your bank manager rings you with some business, you can’t really turn it down, so there’s a small shoot on Saturday as well.

At this point, you’re probably picking your chins up from your keyboard in a bid to close your mouths. “Bank manager?!” you ask. Yes, that’s right. And it’s not the first time my bank manager has put business my way, despite the fact that I am most likely not the only photographer in Cork that banks with him - or maybe I am - I don’t really know. It doesn’t really matter. What matters is that he picked up the phone to me instead of calling another photographer.

So why did he choose me?

Because we have established relationship - he’s used me before and is happy to put business my way. And why did he use me in the first place, several years ago? Because I was referred to him by a source he trusted.

Told you this referral stuff was good.

Giving It All

It’ll be quieter than usual on the blogs for the rest of the week. I’m in Dublin on an intensive business referral training course, followed by a two-day business referral conference. 

Why? Because a good slice of my business comes through word-of-mouth referrals and I want to get a whole lot better at generating and encouraging those referrals. I also want to get a whole lot better at providing referrals for others - after all, giving creates a desire in the receiver to return the favour. Ultimately, you end up in a self-perpetuating spiral of giving and receiving - and the way I see it, that’s a good thing. (Listen, I was born in the 60s, so something’s gonna rub off).

Marcel Mauss wrote a book called The Gift about how the exchange of gifts builds bonds between humans - a form of social glue, if you will - and it’s a principle that works well in business.

Anyway, that’s what I’m up to for the rest of the week and into the weekend. 

In the meantime, here are two photographs from a food shoot that I did earlier today for one of Cork’s shiny new prestige hotels. The lighting was very simple and a good example of the less-is-more adage. 

In both instances, the plate is being lit on the right by a large window in the hotel’s restaurant. The light is very diffuse and soft because the window is frosted glass. On the other side of the plate, I put up a large silver reflector to bounce light back. And that’s it. The dappled background in one of the pictures was provided by a crushed-velvet curtain about two metres behind the table. 

Keeping with the theme of the post, it’s only fair to point out that the assignment came to me through a referral from a printer buddy who is currently working with the hotel and recommended me for the job.

(c) Roger Overall 2008

(c) Roger Overall 2008

Local Food

I’ve just posted the story of a food shoot over on my food photography blog. Click on the link to read it: Gastro Narrative.

John and Jane - Ardsallagh Farm, Carrigtwohill, Co. Cork
(c) Roger Overall 2008

Evolution of a Photograph

It’s great getting the shot first time, but it doesn’t always happen. Sometimes, a photograph develops over a couple of shoots with feedback from the client. This recently happened with a commission from Cork-based tea producer Barry’s Tea.

The brief was to photograph a series of new packaging designs for use in printed material aimed at retailers rather than consumers. Barry’s had produced similar material in the past and asked me to deliver a result that would keep all of the current and past material in synch.

The first shoot produced this image for one of the new ranges:

Barry’s Tea Fruit Infusions - 1
(c) Roger Overall 2008

On reflection, the client said that they would prefer to see all of the boxes standing. They also asked for a different colour background in line with the dominant fruit colour and for the ginger to be removed from the shot.

No problem. Here’s the second photograph:

Barry’s Tea Fruit Infusions - 2
(c) Roger Overall 2008

A little more discussion followed, and the client decided that they preferred a green background after all, which gave us this photograph:

Barry’s Tea Fruit Infusions - 3
(c) Roger Overall 2008

All along we had also been shooting versions of the photographs without the fruit and ultimately this is the image the client chose:

Barry’s Tea Fruit Infusions - 4
(c) Roger Overall 2008

The lighting set-up was fairly simple. The boxes were lit from above with a large diffuse light created by bouncing a strobe off the white ceiling of the studio. A second light with a grid spot was fired from the left of the frame creating some fill and shadows. I lightened the shadows a bit by placing a silver reflector to the right of the boxes. Lastly, the coloured backgrounds were created using a third flash with a colour gel aimed at a white backdrop about three metres behind the boxes.

All the fruit made for some terrific smoothies afterwards.