Behind the Scenes: Thrift Store Still Life
This week, I’m sharing another peek behind the scenes into my Chicago food photography studio. Make sure to read the first one here!
Over the summer, I was on a walk with a friend of mine, popping in and out of vintage stores to cool off from the hot sun. I stumbled upon this painting hanging up on the wall of one of them:
It caught my eye for a few reasons: first, it was peach season. Peaches were on the mind! Second, I am a sucker for still lifes. As you may remember from this photo essay, I became briefly and ardently obsessed with light and how it plays off of fresh produce. I love the way the artist rendered this light across the fuzzy peach skins. Lastly, I actually have a very similar wine bottle that I had purchased at this very store. It felt like fate. I had my assignment!
The Props
I didn’t have to do much sourcing for this photo because I already had everything I needed: a basket of fresh peaches on my counter, a vintage Chianti bottle in my prop closet, and some greenery I had been slowly drying in hopes of saving for a project just like this. All I had to do was pull backdrops and settle on a lighting set-up. Easy peasy!
I ended up pulling a few bonus props in: some twisty, cute vines from my butternut squash plant to add some visual interest and a cool little stone piece we have on our back porch.
The Set-Up
I’m trying to remember to take pictures of all of my lighting set-ups these days, but on this particular day over the summer, alas, I did not. But, luckily, I remember exactly how it worked, so here’s what went on:
The Equipment
Here’s what I was using that day:
My camera (Canon EOS 6d) and a tripod for the camera
My strobe light and trigger (Godox AD400 Pro) and a tripod for the light
My trusty folding table work surface
A faux window from Bessie Bakes (this helped shape the light, as you’ll see in the final photo)
Backdrops and surfaces from my collection
Lots and lots of Photoshop
The Post-Production
There was a lot of post-production that went into this photo. I tether when I shoot, so edits were happening in CaptureOne even as the photos loaded on my computer screen. In that program, I tweak lighting (shadows versus highlights); color-toning (how each color balances the other); and about a million other variables. But for the hard edits, I pull things into Photoshop.
I had recently read Jamie Beck’s An American in Provence, in which she talks a lot about composite photographs, so I leaned on that method heavily for this photo. A composite is when you take several different photos and then layer them together to capture different elements of each shot. I took about 12 frames (aka photos), each one of them featuring a different angle of the leaves or the delicate butternut squash vines. I pulled them all into one final photo to create the effect I was looking for, which you can see in this video below:
Photoshop Layers
Here’s a video that shows the final before and after:
Final Photo Edits
The Final Photo
I haven’t shared this yet on Instagram, but here’s the final shot. It’s one of my favorite photos that I took last year. Of course, it’s not an exact replica of the photo I saw in the store, but using that as a jumping off point was a great exercise to get my brain working in a different way.
