Andriy Zolotoiy Photography Blog

Flowing liquid ( wine, water, etc.) is quite hard to photograph. Primarily this is due the fact that you cannot recreate same shot twice, exactly as in old saying that you cannot walk in into the same water. Flowing liquid doesn’t require as much stop motion as splash so even slow Alien Bees will work. I used two B800 units set to 1/32 and aimed at background. Camera is set on tripod, pre-focused on the subject with remote release attached. I try to use somewhere between f/11 and f/14 for these shots to have all subject in focus. After that it’s just trying to synchronize your liquid pouring action and shutter release.

When I got tired of pouring wine into the glass I played a bit just shaking the glass in attempt to create some interesting shapes of the liquid:

This little buddy was watching whole 15 minutes of video on the computer. He was staring into the screen whole time. Some stuff really gets dog’s attention.

Had beauty shoot few days ago and decided to experiment with non-traditional approach for beauty work. Instead of large lights I used standard 7” gridded reflectors and 100mm macro lens which are known for excessive sharpness. Model’s skin has to be be pretty good though for these things to work out.

As I dabble more into food photography I discover new ways to shoot the food. In many ways food photography is similar to fashion photography. Styling, lighting, location, props – all same things just applied differently. Every photographer is using preferred photographic techniques to achieve desired results.

One school I got familiar with suggests using large light sources to completely eliminate the shadows. I tried this method but frankly I consider the results quite lifeless. The image made this lack character in my opinion but I guess this is personal point of view. Here is illustration of such method:

While every single detail can be seen there, the photo just looks plain flat to me.

Another school deals with smaller light sources. Small is relative meaning – sun is large but photographers consider it small. So if you take window light for example it is pretty big but place your plate of food away from it and you’re getting quite directional light.

Here we see light and shadows which is much closer to my liking.

If you want to show the texture of the food you have to use smaller light and set it pretty low comparing to plate plane so light brushes over the surface of the food.

Whether to use natural or artificial light I guess is just personal choice and availability of either one. Hard light coming through a window and reflected by bounce card can create some dramatic shots. They are might not be used for packaging but might work for editorial or advertisement.

I love to snap small 50mm on my camera and shoot while driving. The trick is not look into viewfinder, shoot from the hip so to say. Photography can be dangerous.

It was incredibly warm here in Toronto for the last few days. Today we’ve got nice fog in the evening, a very pretty stuff to photograph.

It was cold and my fingers froze within 5 minutes of walking. But air was crisp and light was amazing. Certainly the best time for photography.

Few days we had a small photoshoot with lovely model Yaryna from Orange models for her portfolio. We aimed at edgy darkish photos with some serious attitude. Since we were shooting in my basement my main challenge was light placement; when model is 5’9 you cannot position the lights at standard angled in your average basement. But it all worked out pretty nice, thought I had to kill ambient almost completely to hide the mess in the background

Used one old couch that my wife didn’t finish yet:

Kristy Muy was responsible for amazing makeup work:

At the end I decided to get little snow in the background, and our model stroke some killer poses:

For the last couple of months I’ve been shooting some tasty foods for the cookbook on Canadian cuisine. Chef Suman Roy is behind the book:

We’ve had some great time cooking, styling and shooting. This is the first cookbook I’ve been working on, and it is amazing how much work actually goes into such publication.

Little accidents always happen. Here is salmon went on fire:

New website design is finally up, file management seems to be working perfectly.