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[JACKCAT]

[Brooks]

That's a nice burger! Nice styling with the tomato and onion slices, melted cheese and lettuce!

Just in case you want a critique of some sort...

Do you think the onion slices are too thick? I'd like to see the top burger's tomato and onion slices pulled apart a bit so as not to see so much underside of the top bun.

Sometimes on burger shots we'll paint the meat with a bit of vegetable oil so it looks moist. Maybe put some grill marks on the edges of the burger?

The lighting is nice and bright but I wonder if something a bit more directional would be nice. A soft box or diffusion panel hard on the left side to push some shadows to the right and more specular highlights on the tomato, onion, meat and cheese. Add a harder kicker from the rear right?

I do like this shot though, very clean styling and lighting. Good Job!

I stopped in a Burger King a couple of weeks ago for coffee while on a motorcycle trip through N. Georgia and North Carolina and they have a lot of new, strongly lit food photos in their store.

Their menu board had all new photos and they had a lot of larger photos of burgers displayed around the eating area. Interestingly, they shot these in what looks like a house setting on the kitchen table with windows and other furniture in the background. Pretty nicely done.

[JACKCAT]

Thanks Brooks, your critique is always welcome indeed. As far as the onion being to thick, I really wanted them to be some what prominent as well as the tomato slices in order to add strong lines of color and contrast as well as to add to the overall big and over the top look of this thing. I'm by no means a food stylist and it shows! I really tried to fill in that empty area on the right side with lettuce so as to not have so much of the bun showing but the thing was so fragile and the lettuce kept slowly falling out.

As far as the oil suggestion, I agree. It may have added some specular highlights. Also, I did grill the meat but the marks don't show.

The set up is almost as you described, I had a soft box camera right and a white fill card camera left. The background is a sheet of frosted plexiglass lit from behind and I had a portable flash behind and above for a kicker.

I shot this for stock and one of the rules in stock is to keep the light even. I've had shots rejected for "uneven lighting" when the shadow side was less than a half stop darker than the highlight side. Go figure.

I'd go to Burger King to check out the promos your talking about but right now I've had my fill.. Maybe next week!

Thanks again Brooks!

[Steven G Webb]

That's one huge burger! I'm in no position to offer critique but that's a really fine looking picture. As for the ad shots in BK, I think they are using the table, windows and chairs to tie-in to hearth and home, rather than a corporate manufactured product.

[jfklein13]

Nice burger high-rise! My 3 year old said "that's big." What is the middle bun piece, is that a bun top with the crown sliced off?

[JACKCAT]

Originally Posted by jfklein13

Nice burger high-rise! My 3 year old said "that's big." What is the middle bun piece, is that a bun top with the crown sliced off?

The middle bun is just a the bottom from another bun. That is one thing I don't like about this thing, the way the center bun is a little thicker on the left side. Oh well, this food photography thing is much harder than it looks because not only are you lighting and composing but (in my case anyway) your now a stylist! Say CHEESE!!

[Brooks]

Stylist and sculptor in this case!

[JACKCAT]

Last shot

[LinuxGold]

Reversal psychology, BK uses nice background for appeal, LOUSY built burgers. We use corporate-look background, GREAT built burgers?

[Brooks]

Originally Posted by JACKCAT

Last shot

Mr Natural sez " Never eat anything larger than your own head!"

So the question here is whether that's a very large burger or a freakishly small head. I'm going to go with the freakishly small head. Burger looks normal.