Boy was this photo shoot fun! I know the Stokers from my mission, I served in their ward for 9 months. A couple of weeks ago I was feeling the photography itch and posted a status on my facebook,”Anyone wanna do a photoshoot!?” The Stokers responded, I gave them a sweet “people I love a lot” discount, and we scheduled a time. Before the shoot, I asked about styles they liked from my portfolio, and location types they were looking for. They wanted a warm feel outdoor setting. We met at Liberty Park in Salt Lake and started shooting away. The kids were routy, so we tried to move location often to keep them entertained. I used natural light with a gold reflector for most of the shots. Afterwards, I let them look through the photos on the camera while I explained the details. 2 week turn around, how I would get the photos to them etc. While Kayla (the wife) looked...

If you haven’t had Caryn Esplins artisan bread, you are missing out on a little piece of heaven! With these HDR shots I kept the hdr effect as natural as I could, using the technique to bring out contrast and details of the bread. Combining the darkest and brightest parts of the photos allows a great range on contrast which helps amplify the details of the subject matter, a HDR. Depending on your settings of HDR it can make the photo look artistic, cartoonie, etc. For these images I chose to keep the effect subtle. – Paul Chris...

There are very few things in this life better than a buffet when you are starving! The food was wonderful, and the photo ops aplenty! One unique thing I did is with the bacon noodles in camera raw. I added a lower saturation adjustment brush with a heavy feather. Instead of the normal darken the boarders, this left the only color in the middle of the frame, which achieves the same purpose of a vignette, drawing ones eye to the point of focus. -Paul Chris...

I don’t know if it was the lack of eating breakfast, or just the food itself, but Big Juds was amazing! It was all we could do to resist devouring the food before taking pictures of it. What ensued was a kind of rushed madhouse of shooting and eating, a very fun experience for all! Since it was relatively dark in the restaurant itself, most of the shots were taken using a continues light box. I increased the clarity on most photos to bring out the detail of the food. Added vignettes, blurred around boarders, etc. I still can’t believe Tim ate a whole burger all by himself! -Paul Chris...

Well, if you haven’t guessed, this isn’t me. However, it is my partner in crime, Adrianna! She did a great job being our creative director who arranged all the products we shot. It was a blast shooting with her, and I hope to do so again soon! -Paul Chris Luke

So for part of this assignment, we were supposed to capture steam coming from the hot chocolate. Unfortunately, due to technical difficulties, we were not able to get real steam to come up from our cups. However, I added steam in photoshop, and I think it looks pretty dang realistic, what do you think? Used a white brush to brush in some steam lines, lowered opacity, set a heavy blur filter over the top, and viola! Steam On the Italian soda shots I increased the saturation to give it a more vibrant feel. I think one of the most interesting shots was the flying salad. The salad is actually placed on a piece of glass, so it is not moving at all! It will be interesting to try this technique with other items! -Paul Chris...

I sure do love Chinese Food I think my favorite of the series is the dine in plates. However, that may be just because I like orange chicken more than egg rolls! The take out shot was done in product light tent, while the dine in had a continues light umbrella from above. Lowered saturation on the take out shot, increased clarity of all three, increased saturation of the dine in full sized shot. -Paul Chris...

Well I sure need to get myself a cheap piece of fogged glass! That combined with a couple flashes can make anything look good! I used that method with the tic tacs, and CoCoa Bean cupcake and I think it looks great! I also used a lightbox for some of the shots, which is a small white tent with lights on either side. The jewelry, motorcycle helmet speakers, and Geneva watch were shot that way. I think out of both options, I would prefer the fogged glass with flash combo. Also, I brought a Cisco Phone for everyone to take pictures of. -Paul Chris...