Burning Marshmallow Peeps

Nothing says springtime like the smell of flowers … er, uh … burning marshmallow Peeps.

I couldn’t resist when Harry Frankenfeld offered up the notion after my recent adventure in burning regular ol’ plain boring marshmallows. (See my March 8th post.)

Well, you see, what you don’t likely know is that Harry and I worked together for almost 10 years, and during that time there sat a small package of Peeps Brand marshmallow chicks on his desk, untouched and unchanged the entire time.

So, in honor of the abnormally long shelf life of the marshmallow Peep, I present to you my photo experiment … burning a marshmallow Peep.

There you have it. All my curiosity is satisfied … at least about what a burning Peep looks like.

What next? Any ideas? Harry?

- Kyle

Food Styling – Visual Fodder

I’m so drawn to the kitchen whether it be at home helping my wife get dinner ready for the boys or when I’m on set and my food stylist is prepping for the next shot.

What draws me to the kitchen? I think it’s a little like a mad scientist being drawn to his own laboratory. There’s a thing happening with all the senses … visual, smell, touch … and there’s also an element of “ooo, what are we going to build today?” Enter mad scientist laugh … “muu-ha-ha.”

For fun, I grabbed my DSLR and snapped a few photos of some interesting color and shape as it was happening in preparation for the real shot on set involving kitchen products/utensils. This is what I was seeing as it happened in the kitchen.

It’s fun to just capture what is happening naturally compared to spending one to two hours on a single dish. (Honestly, I enjoy the tedium of highly controlled shots as well as the spontaneity of these “as they happen” shots.)

So, here are a couple fast un-styled food related shots from our studio kitchen.

There you have it. Now you see what I saw.

- Kyle

New Series – To Be Continued

I’ve started a new series of images based on a concept that came to me the later part of last year (Fall 2009). What’s exciting to me is as I’m now only three images into the series, the legs on the concept continue grow … I’ve got thumbnails for about a couple of dozen photographs of the concept or variations there of.

Photographing this concept is definitely going to be much of my focus (no pun intended) for my personal work this year and likely leading into next year. I get excited by the main idea, the individual photos and their execution … in fact, I’m guilty of doing the victory dance when an image comes together just as I’ve envisioned. (side note: the victory dance is only seen on set and shall not be performed for the simple pleasure of observers.)

One thing I truly enjoy is ‘getting it right’ in camera. So often photographers (I’m guilty) will brush off some aspect of the shoot to fix later in Photoshop. Sure, maybe it can be fixed later by why not fix it now? Why not spend two or three minutes to get the lighting just right instead of ten or more minutes in front of a computer to ‘get it right’ after the fact? (I’ll save my rant on this topic for a later post.)

So, because I can’t yet reveal the details of my project, I thought I’d tease you with some behind the scenes shots. Pardon the quality of these images, they are hand-held, 1600 ISO with my DSLR and literally no consideration for production value or public consumption outside of this blog entry.

There. Is that enough disclaimer?

Sorry, I had to blur out some incriminating evidence. The food’s anonymity is vital to this project. Not really, I just like keeping things under wraps until I’m ready to reveal the series. What I can tell you about this particular shoot was it involved sushi and sake. There, I’ve probably already told you too much.

- Kyle

ps. We have added two of the images from this series in my physical book (AKA food portfolio), so if you really want to see you can. Call Mollie.

Burning Marshmallow

I don’t know any guy who doesn’t enjoy setting things on fire. I’m no exception. I love watching things burn. Mix this with my affinity for food, photography and well … things that are sugary … and this is what you get.

Additionally, while there may be a debate about the optimal roasting of a marshmallow, I prefer my burnt.

What I enjoyed finding in the stills was the puffs of smoke that burst out like little smoke rings. Air, sugar and fire. What a fun combination with very interesting results.

This video is a series of stills from my experiment. Each marshmallow burn was about 15-30 seconds. I was grabbing an image/frame about every second.

So, next time you’re at a campfire roasting marshmallows, think of all the little things happening that we usually don’t see with the naked eye.

Hmmm … what to burn next? Any suggestions?

-Kyle

Architectural Exteriors – Before and After

Last month we had an architectural photography assignment that took us to Le Conte Hospital in Sevierville, Tennessee just outside of Knoxville. This new hospital is in the Smoky Mountains and on our shoot day we were greeted with snow then clear skies. Thankfully, the snow melted enough to get a few exteriors, albeit with fresh (aka brown) landscaping.

We were able to salvage the shoot with some nice timing, the roof of a moving truck and a little post production. So, all that being said, I thought I’d share a couple before and after shots.

Entrance - Before

Entrance - After

Front - Before

Front - After

Nothing beats a few adjustment layers in Photoshop and some clouds from our own stock library.

Look for a later post with interior photography from this particular job.

- Kyle

Closet Photographer on the Edge?

There are too many puns and jokes that could be made from these situations from a recent architectural photography shoot for Marriott here in Nashville. My first assistant Rory White is lightning fast with his iPhone camera to capture me in precarious situations.

It never fails, regardless of how big a room is, when photographing architecture I always find myself crammed up in a corner, against a wall, or in this case … in a closet. No, there were no skeletons. Just a nice robe for the next guest.

Kyle Dreier stuck in closet.

Or, in this case, where we were rooftop and leaning over the edge three stories up. It was brutal cold with the wind.

Kyle Dreier out on edge.

I’m afraid you’ll just have to wait for a later post to see the finals. It was a good day of shooting and the client was very good to work with. Here’s hoping that we do more for Marriott here in the near future.

- Kyle