Behind the scenes: Playing with Cheese

The rain seems to be done for the season here in Northern California (I hope)... It had me a bit on edge with an outdoor shoot scheduled last week for one of my favorite clients - Laura Chenel's Chevre. And no, they're not a favorite client just because they share their delicious cheese with me!

The morning was crisp and almost still in the Carneros vineyard where we chose to set up shop. Tiny frogs hopped across our muddy feet as we unloaded gear and positioned the set. The intent of the shot was to showcase the Laura Chenel's Chevre product line in a way that illustrates that they're produced in Sonoma's wine country. Hmm... what would say wine country???

Uh, duh... vineyard - lush green vines, blue sky and a giant oak tree! But this wasn't just any vineyard; it's a cheese wheel's roll and the future view from Laura Chenel's new Sonoma cheese making headquarters. Lucky stiffs will get to look out their windows at this site - without the table and photo gear, of course.



Our next order of business was finding the right angle to position the table. How do you show a table full of short, round products while capturing the vineyard and tree but a minimal amount of grass in one frame? Answer: tilt the table.

Assistant Hailey plays peek-a-boo behind the table to help adjust the angle. Tilt too little and we don't see all the products. Tilt too high and the cheese falls off the table. Twice. Plus a jar of olive oil. Oops!



Once it's just right Marie and Chef Jacquelyn start adding cheese and plates and props of all sorts.



More cheese and plates are added and subtracted until it's just right. Except then we decided to abandon the "voyeur" perspective. That required some more adjusting. Actually, we decided to forego props and just show the cheese. Delicious, mouth-watering cheese.
The right-hand photo shows a myriad of abandoned props peeking from under the table including but not limited to: plates, extra cheese, platters, jars, more cheese, baguette, wine, cheese, cheese knives, linens, clamps and cheese. There was definitely cheese under there!



And our nearly final vineyard photo...



Next on our shoot list was a more detailed group photo of all the cheeses. Many of the items were already in place but we wanted a bird's-eye perspective. That required more massaging of cheese to create a balanced composition.



We added a few more slabs of travertine tile to complete the background, and add more cheese until the photo fills out.



Nearly there... We move things around to create a composition we like. This is me teetering atop a ladder in the muddy vineyard. Unlike some unfortunate cheese logs, I managed to not fall.



Everything seems arranged as we want it but from this perspective it seems too flat and one-dimensional.

So we tilt the camera angle a smidge (right side photo) and get better profiles from the cheese wedges, slices and rounds. Just a few more compositional changes and tilted even more and... voila! Our final photo... well, almost...

 

Here's the final final photo with some post-production edits to achieve the desired look and feel.



Hope you liked this cheesey little journey. Now go out and EAT SOME CHEESE!

~ Jason

I’m a lousy blogger.

But I can change… Really, I can! C'mon... Gimme another chance!

It’s been a while since my last post and much has happened. Many photos were taken. Fun was had. Interesting people were met. New lands were visited. And I didn’t share any of it! Sorry about that. Allow me to fill you in – photographically speaking…

Let’s start with some recent work and work backwards, shall we?

Client work: Laura Chenel Chevre Blossom - I love working with the wonderful staff at Laura Chenel’s Chevre. They’re a fantastic group to work with and not because they send me home with delicious goat cheese products.

Recently, we worked on their latest product called Blossom. It’s a wonderful hockey puck-sized ring of creamy chevre with a center filled with one of three fillings – sun dried tomato and roasted red peppers, fig and olives, or my favorite, basil and olive oil. I’m actually noshing on some as I write this. Jealous? Yeah, I bet you are ;)

Look for Blossom and other delicious goat cheesy goodness from Laura Chenel’s Chevre at a fine food store near you.

To view more food photography, visit the newly redesigned, TrellisCreative.com.

Next week... the editing of a portfolio. I'm revising my portfolio and letting you in on what's normally a pretty personal process for me. In a nutshell, I look over all my photos, select a group of a few hundred, spread 'em all over the floor, paste them to a wall, and whittle them down to a batch of 40 something images to be put into a printed portfolio and website.

And yes, Nestle helps pick the photos.

Client Work: Laura Chenel’s Chevre – Delicious Cheese, Cheese Making

Client Work: Laura Chenel’s Chevre – Delicious Cheese, Cheese Making and Portraits Take Two

About the client: Hand-crafted in Sonoma County since 1979, Laura Chenel’s Chevre is America’s leading brand of artisanal goat cheese. It can be found on the menus of fine restaurants and purchased in grocery stores across the globe.

About the shoot: Back in October of 2008 I was fortunate to work with the great folks at Laura Chenel to create a series of food photos featuring recipes using their products. Once again, chef extraordinaire, Jacquelyn and VP, Marie, worked wonders styling our dishes and sets; their expertise, creativity and patience were invaluable.

This time around, we not only made images of the products, but of the cheese making process as well. It was a blast! I have to admit, I had a great time putting on white scrubs and a hairnet before entering the inner-sanctum of the cheese factory. And don’t even get me started about the sight and smell of all the cheesy goodness being prepared before my eyes. I felt like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, except I was in a wonderful land of milky-whiteness.

Enjoy the photos!

The Cheesemaking Process: Making Laura Chenel Tome

First, goat milk is pasturized and heated in a vat, where special enzimes are added during agitation. After about an hour, water is added to cool the curd.

The cheese curds and this screen is used to slice the curd and loosen it from the bottom and sides of the tank.



When the curd is ready, the tank water is drained, and the artisans begin to make the forms. Cheese curd is scooped into a bucket and placed into cheesecloth. Workers form the curd into a ball and squeeze out all the excess moisture.

Squeezing the cheese makes these rounds which become wheels after they are compressed more and aged for 6 months

Six month old dry-aged Tome. Got any crackers?

Enjoy!

Client work: Laura Chenel's Chevre

Hi y'all!

Recently, I had the great fortune of working with the fine folks at Laura Chenel’s Chevre to produce photos of their revamped product line. While the products themselves are still the same fabulous goat cheese masterpieces, the packaging and marketing are brand-spanking new. Have a look and certainly have a taste next time you’re in the grocery store.

About the client: Laura Chenel's Chevre
Laura Chenel's Chevre was founded in 1979 by you guessed it – Laura Chenel. Chenel became the first American producer of goat cheese, and was put on the culinary map, to some respect, by Alice Waters of Chez Panisse in Berkeley, CA when she listed the brand of goat cheese on her menu. The brand took off and production grew to over two million pounds of cheese per year.

Great lactating goats, Batman - that’s a lot of cheese!

Indeed, Robin. Laura Chenel’s Chevre became THE American goat cheese. It’s sold pretty much everywhere – from larger supermarkets to Whole Foods, Trader Joes and other artisanal food shops.

Fast forward to 2006, Laura sells the production and brand to Rians Group, a French corporation that purchases small artisnal food companies with the promise of unchanging the products or philosophies. While Laura isn't involved in the business anymore, her 500 goats are and still making fantastic chevre!

So the goats don't actually do anything but eat, sleep and shh-uffle around the farm. Oh yeah, and give their milk. It's a pretty good arrangement, I think.

Read more about Laura Chenel's Chevre in the NY Times.

About the shoot: Unintentionally, we decided to shoot on what may have been one of the hottest days of the year. While things outside were cooking, chef extraordinaire, Jacquelyn Buchanan, whose real title is Director of Culinary Development at Laura Chenel’s Chevre, and chef Nick were cooking up a storm inside.

I arrived to the smell of eggplant grilling on a cast iron skillet. With the patience of a Franciscan scribe, Nick tended to the delicate slices, and after seeing the ones that came off the grill, I swore that he was painting on those perfect grill marks. (A later attempt at the same recipe in my own kitchen did not yeild the same results…)

Back to the kitchen and task at hand. Our goal for the day was to shoot three types of pictures: the straight product packaging shots, “ambiance” shots featuring multiple products arranged real purdy like, and recipes featuring the products.

With a large task at hand, we set to work. Jacquelyn and Nick, with their years of professional chefing moved about the kitchen with an efficiency of motion likened to ballet dancers. They cooked and styled dishes while I photographed.

It’s quite something how food is basically another art form, another medium. And as with any creation, the piece takes on a life of its own, showing its true persona only after being massaged, heated, cooled, retooled, poked, prodded, brushed, turned, twisted, and lit.

Add more light here; Less light there. More garnish. No, less garnish. More cheese. Always more cheese! That’s actually my motto – when in doubt, add more cheese. :) We worked in tandem to create photos that portrayed their products in a mouthwatering, creative and beautiful way.

For me, the recipe shots were the most challenging and rewarding to create. It takes very little to make food look unappetizing in photos, yet a great deal of lighting and finesse to make a dish look like something you’d actually want to put in your mouth.

Most of the photos were made shooting into the light, which is against the general rule of thumb that the light (sun) should be behind you when photographing. Though there were several light sources being used at once, having the main light source behind your dish provides a soft, indirect light that wraps around the food. Additional light sources like other strobes and bounce cards are used to add light to specific parts of the plate, to say, add a nice highlight on a drop of oil or the edge of a plate. Next time you’re flipping through Gourmet magazine (particularly page 54 in the October 2008 issue) keep in mind that every spec of light in the food photos is deliberately placed there. Cool, huh?

So after a long day of shooting the dishes below, there was the question of what to do with all the leftovers… heirloom tomatoes, mushrooms, eggplant, and cheese up the wazoo. Lucky me ended up with an amazing doggie bag. Later that evening, I dove into it as if I were a kid with a stuffed trick-or-treat bag from a Halloween bumper crop. Soooo good.

I love my job!

Enjoy the photos…