Photography Self Assignment: Staying Ahead of the Competition

Photography Self Assignment: Staying Ahead of the Competition

As I ended out 2014 I was thinking about my business and also my artistic goals for the coming year. So I produced this image that allowed me to do a a few things.

The first was shoot for a story/theme: Staying ahead of the competition. So the way I shot this (yes these are self portraits) and composited it was was to show how a business needs to stay ahead of its competition even though they may look and act like your business. Regardless of how similar we are there always differences and finding what makes you unique and marketing what makes you unique is the key to separating yourself in a competitive business market.

Number two was to try some different lighting techniques. For the base shots I used a three point lighting technique with two strip boxes behind and to the sides of the subject to provide rim/side lighting and a high front light and a low reflector to provide a fill on the front. This is a lighting technique I want to experiment with more in 2015. The goal was to produce an edgy lighting set-up and further enhance that edgy contrasty look in both Lightroom and Photoshop.

And the third goal was to practice making selections and producing a simple composite of blended and scaled the images in Photoshop. I put each image on its own layer and scaled them according to position with the transform tool and added an increasing amount of blur to the images that appear further away to simulate a realistic depth of field.

Competition by Robert Greatrix

If you enjoy my photography please visit my website for more www.fulcrumimaging.com .

If you want to participate in producing some fun and unique images please contact me I am always looking for interesting self assignments in addition to paid work.


All my blog images are copyright and cannot be used without permission.

Hot Pepper Season

Hot Pepper Season: 

Toronto Food, Commercial and Corporate Photographer Robert Greatrix 

It's that time of year when all the spicy goodness is ripening up in a an explosion of red, orange and green. I was worried earlier in the year that an extremely persistent raccoon was going to successfully destroy my rooftop garden but as it turns out I think I have more peppers this year than ever. So I thought I would highlight some of my food photography portfolio and showcase my hot pepper crop. 

A selection of my peppers on a rustic white board surface, Jalapeño, Habernero, Cayenne or Chilli, one I don't remember and the dreaded Ghost Pepper. 

Some sliced Habernero with a diffused backlight. I love the aroma and vibrant colours of these fresh peppers. A couple thin slices is all I need to add some kick and intense flavours to a breakfast egg scramble. (Maybe a breakfast themed blog in the future)

The challenge comes some trying to use so many hot peppers as they seem to all ripen at once. Here I made a Spicy Salsa, a Habernero Mayo and a Fiery Red Sauce. I adapted the Fiery red Sauce recipe from an article in a recent Chatelaine magazine which always a great source for inspiring recipes. 

A couple more shots with the bottom one including some Guacamole, Tomato Salsa with Corn and Salsa Verde. I honestly never remember seeing Tomatillos before but saw some at the local Riverdale Farmer's Market and had try some of this somewhat unusual fruit. I roasted the Tomatillos over a light smoke on my Big Green Egg Grill and the sauce reflects it with a hint of smoky aromas. 

For more food photography visit www.fulcrumimaging.com and please visit your local farm markets and enjoy your harvest season. More food photography and more blog posts coming up.

Fulcrum Imaging is Toronto Photographer Robert Greatrix who is available for food, commercial and corporate photography as well as time lapse video creation. Please let us provide you a quote for all your photography needs by emailing a request to info@fulcrumimaging.com. We would love to hear from you.

Copyright 2014.

A little behind the scenes shot of my photo set-up, its a lot more work than one imagines and the worse part is the clean-up :-). Cheers.