Kinder’s BBQ is the classic American success story. Starting in a California meat market, Kinder Foods has grown into a three-generation family deli and catering business with award-winning rubs, marinades, and BBQ sauces made from their secret family recipe. If you are from the Bay Area, you already know their story; however, to most of us, Kinder Foods is a fresh introduction. So, after being introduced by Elwood Beukeleman and Laura Davis of MBT Marketing, we were excited to contribute to their BBQ-legacy by producing images to be used for Kinder’s web site and BBQ-product packaging.
It was quickly evident that Kinder’s was a different kind of client; they didn’t want the perfectly styled, instead, they opted for “perfectly messy” to present their brand as “casual, approachable and fun.” With this guidance Michael Shay (food photographer), Lucy Radys (food stylist) and Stephen Thaxton (Assistant Photographer) shot and styled the food to reflect the eating experience in a Kinder’s deli.
This fresh and yummy approach makes the ribs look so good you may never want to cook your own again. Visit Kinder’s BBQ at one of their 17 locations or check them out at http://www.kindersbbq.com/.
Just In Time For Summer – Kinder’s BBQ
Polara & BodyVox at PCPA
Dance photography presents many of the same challenges as dancing itself. With difficult lighting conditions and transitory moments, dance photography takes a unique combination of technical skill, quick reflexes, and dedication by both dancer and photographer to capture such dynamic movements in one frame.
When Jim Lykins first contacted Polara to encourage us to submit to the “Portland, Dancing” photography exhibit, he raved about an image in the 2011 calendar Derrin Battles had taken for Bodyvox of Ashley Roland hoisting her partner, Jamie Hampton, on her shoulders as one of the finest example of strength in a female dancer he had ever seen. Photographers Michael Shay, Jeremy Dunham, Derrin Battles, Steve Cherry and Jay Lawrence were all honored to have been asked. Images from the Bodyvox 2010 calendar, which were shot at multiple, iconic locations in Portland, were selected and submitted to this fusion of photographic and dance artistry.
The show, which showcases these images from 2010, runs until May 31st at the Portland Center of the Performing Arts gallery. So stop by to see the results of this most natural collaboration between two of Portland’s most outstanding creative communities, dance and photography.
While you’re at it, the images here are from this year’s calendar — the result of a fun three-way collaboration between Bodyvox, Polara Studio and many of the best-known illustrators from Portland’s thriving comic scene.
Check Out My New Bike!
In March, Portland-based River City Bicycles held their annual bike sale. I was also looking for something interesting to do some product photography testing with. I figured it would be the best excuse ever to buy a new bike! So, after much agonizing over several different models I finally settled on the swift, carbon fiber Scott CR1 Pro.
A challenge of shooting anything with two wheels, such as my new bike, is keeping it from falling over. I also wanted to highlight the lightweight, yet robust nature of the bicycle. So, to create the perfect image of this carbon framed speedster, I suspended the bike over the set and hoped that the wire held.
The laws of physics and the photography gods were on my side. I’m thrilled with the final result of the shoot, and now that the weather is a little nicer I can report that the bike is just as fast as it looks.
Wrestling For a Good Cause
Multnomah County receives 15,000 reports of child abuse annually. Children’s Relief Nursery provides parents and children a connection to a healthier lifestyle. Every year they do a great fundraiser called the “Iron Chef” competition. As Polara’s main food photographer, my crew and I tried to help by photographing many of the talented chefs who donated their time to this great cause. We were also charged with creating an iconic image that spoke about competition and food to be used on their main website and postcard. Art Director and all around creative person, Michelle Bexelius brought this project to us as one of her pro bono clients.
The conundrum was to both tell the story of the competition and still be respectful to the cause. Along with the help of our great creative team food stylist, Lucy Radys, we came up with the image below – two chefs arm wrestling over a plate of food. (Thanks to Steve Cherry, one of Polara’s founding partners and photographer, for modeling.)
It was also exciting to collaborate with some top chefs from restaurants like Acadia, Screen Door and Davis Street Tavern. We began with Adam Higgs from Acadia, who is the other main competitor. For the photo geeks in the crowd, I used battery powered Speedotron packs to overpower the natural light and by manipulating the color balance was able to magically turn warm day into cool night. I was also trying to create a color palette to be used throughout all the photographs for this project, uniting visually all the chefs at all their different locations.
Next came Rick Dwidmayer at Screen Door who was as nice and relaxed a person you could find especially considering he was in the middle of preparing for another busy night.
Finally I was given the chance to photograph Chef Gavin at Davis St. Tavern. Since it was pouring down rain that day we had to shoot inside but with a careful choice of angle we were able to get another great image that fit well in the series.
Adam Higgs is one of the competitors in the Iron Chef while Rick and Gavin are competing for the People’s Choice Award. The People’s Choice Award is a “pre-qualifier” for competing for the Iron Chef for next year. They will be competing against the winner of the 2012 award. I want to thank everyone who donated their time from Polara, producer and client services manager Kasey Huber, food stylist Lucy Radys and Steve Cherry and, of course, Creative Director, Michele Bexelius who made this all possible.
Here are all images of the chefs as a triptych like on the studio wall…
Product Photography – The Wacom Cintaq 24HD graphics tablet
I recently had the chance to work on some product photography with Amin and Kelly from Ziba Design. The new Cintaq 24HD graphics tablet was a challenge to work with, but with collaboration of Amin and myself we were able to create some visually stunning images.
This Tablet is cool because the drawing pad is actually a 24 inch monitor screen. This way you’re able to work directly on the file. It’s like you’re drawing on the screen.
The shots are clean, simple and elegant. Imitating the beautiful design of the tablet itself. It was a pleasure to work with Amin and I look forward to our next shoot together.
Video – The Business Challenge
Recently my friend Shawn Busse of Kinesis Inc. came to me with a video project for the front page of his new website. The goal was to clearly and succinctly explain the three main challenges of marketing for small businesses.
We decided that we wouldn’t script it, and instead we would film it in a documentary interview style for a more organic and authentic feel. We made a list of main points for him to hit and started rolling. After a few hours in the studio and a trip to his offices for some b-roll, we had what we needed to put it together.
Shawn is a great guy. Not only did I have a lot of fun shooting this, I learned a lot about marketing too.
The Bounty of Oregon – Eggs
One of the fun things about being a food photographer is that I get to experiment a lot. The Bounty of Oregon project is one of my favorite experiments. It’s a series of photographs and videos that I’ve made in collaboration Jeremy Dunham our in-house videographer/guru, conceived to feature local ingredients in their natural state and then prepared in some sort of appetizing dish.
We have done a few other videos in this series with Oregon produce as the hero. They included local morels, and apples that were grown, hand picked and styled by food stylist, Carol Ladd.
Now we are onto Eggs… Steve Cherry’s Chickens’ eggs to be exact. If you all don’t know Steve, he is the President and another talented photographer at Polara Studio.
Carol Ladd was our food stylist to shoot this series of eggs. We chose to use both a Canon 7D and the now ubiquitous Canon 5D MKII for video. Jeremy worked some great camera moves utilizing Polara’s new jib that let’s the camera literally fly over the set in any kind of motion arc required. But, like most great food photography, it was designed not only to make the food look beautiful but to make the viewer want to eat it, which it certainly accomplished for us.
Playing with Laser Triggered Splash and Pour Photography
Here at Polara we’ve said before that learning from your fellow photographers is simply the best way to learn photography, but there is one exception to that rule and that is “to learn to do it yourself”. When you can combine the two you are guaranteed a winning outcome.
We had felt for sometime that we needed to augment the studio Food and Beverage Photography Portfolio with some cool splashes and pours. A wonderful friend and resource, Dan Tidwell, was so nice in letting us borrow his laser trigger for a week. Dan is known for his forensic and technical photography and counts among his arsenal a Gigapan and a time lapse in box set-up where he’s put to use and can monitor from anywhere in the world.
These first photos you see are the start of a series of photographic “splash” and “pour” explorations we are embarking on to see what capabilities some of the new lighting equipment we have acquired has in combination with this new technology.
To give you more of technical look. This was lit with a trio of Einstein monoblocs that at 1/16 power freeze the action with a 1/10,000 of a second flash duration, moving liquids can be turned into into frozen sculpture. It takes some time to lock down all the variables from the amount of liquid to adjusting the millisecond delays but it was surprising to all how easy and fun making a mess can be. Here’s a short video of the fun we had.
In Remembrance of Steve Jobs
When my daughter, who now is 23, was in middle school, it was time for the annual science fair. We were old hands by this time at science fairs having been through it a couple of times with her older brother. We had all the science project suggestion books (this was pre-Internet, if such a time really existed) and started leafing through them, disappointed that we had in two years already exhausted the best ideas as the dog-eared pages attested to.
We wanted to do something beyond prototypical erupting volcanoes and how well do plants grow kind of project. Something that was a bit out of the box, and my daughter wanted something that wasn’t the typical “girl” project. We hit upon the idea of learning, really learning, how a computer works.
In the basement was an original Mac Plus we hadn’t used for some time. Our daughter had a fascination for this little beige box and what made it tick. So off we went to the library to find everything we could on Mac computers. Since we didn’t want this project to be one of those “Daddy did it for me” projects, we made out daughter, all of 11 years old and with a pixie hair cut, get a book from the library, find the right Apple manuals and figure out what all those mysterious black rectangles did on that single big, green mother board we would find.
Then with a little homework on “Daddy’s” part, we figured out how to wire up LED’s to a battery box and a switch. Together we drew the circuit diagrams we needed and shopped for the parts at the local Radio Shack. Now came the hardest and the most fun part of the project. My daughter and I bravely pried the case of that old Mac apart-being carful not to touch the power supply. We managed to pry up the motherboard with the help of a couple screwdrivers.
We then began to drill holes near the important parts we had identified from our many diagrams we found in the library books. I did the first hole and my daughter, holding the drill awkwardly with both hands, did the rest as I pushed the motherboard against the tip of the drill, figuring better my fingers at risk than hers. Together we soldered in the colored LED’s next. I held the wires and solder together as she did the rest. I had her twist the wires together after she watched me do it and in no time we had all the leads running to this little wooden box that we had commandeered as a control panel.
It was only then, after we were proudly surveying our work, nursing a couple of minor burns, that my daughter noticed some weird scratches in the back of the case.
We investigated and figured out that when you held it just right you could tell those weird scratches were actually signatures, signatures of the whole Apple team that had been responsible for making the early Macs. We later found out that when the first Mac was done, they had a big party and Steve Jobs made everyone sign a piece of paper. It was that paper he took and without telling anyone, made a plate which would inscribe all their names on every Mac off the assembly line.
I remember my son walking up to us just after we had noticed the signatures and in his best know it all 12-year-old voice said, “Yeah it’s cool, even Steve Jobs signed it though he didn’t actually make it.”. A family discussion ensued about what it really meant to make something and how, in the end, it was so right for Steve Jobs to sign this thing. He had unveiled so many mind blowing, technical breakthroughs and he was the man who was really behind the Mac. Only now do I realize how that “Man behind the Mac” had taught us something else again…not just how computers operate but how it was recording history and what pride and team work were all about.
Portraits of Influence
One of the wonders of photography is how time imbues images with power.
These images are a series of Nobel Prize Laureates, former heads of state and famous political figures. Each of them traveled to Portland over the last couple of years as part of the World Affairs Council International Speaker Series. It is a step outside of food photography for me however it’s nice to work the mind in different ways. Featuring Karl Rove, Howard Dean and Pervez Musharraf.
