Happy Friday and more importantly happy Julienne Fries Day! Today I am celebrating by….
Eating julienne fries of course. Julienne is a type of culinary cut, so as long as your fries are cut in this manner any recipe or type will do! (sorry curly, waffle, and belgian style, this isn’t your day). I knew I was going to eat julienne fries, but how to shoot them? There are millions of different directions to go!
First thing I had to do was figure out what I wanted the theme or message of my picture to be. Again there are millions of ways to go there as well. I usually eat fries when I am drinking. The amazing combination of cheap beer and hot, salty,greasy fries that is just amazing! I could have eaten an entire basket by myself! So to celebrate today’s julienne fry day. The theme is a bar theme.
Ok, so I know my message, what next? Well I needed to use props and backgrounds that related to this message. For this, I went with a plastic basket lined with wax paper. This is an incredibly popular way to serve bar food, so it makes sense. For the table cloth, I wanted something that read kind of dive bar. You know. One of those whole in the wall places with inexpensive decor and amazing food! Gingham vinyl is perfect for that!
For props there was only one that made sense. BEER! A bottle would be too hard to see through and a can wouldn’t work. I want to show the nice golden yellow color that is very similar to the color of the fries.
For the lighting here is what I did.
Just a window next to a table. I lit the fries from behind, but I didn’t shoot directly in front. I was about 15 degrees off to the right.
The yellow line shows what the camera angle would be if I was directly facing the window. Instead, I was off to the right and the green line was the angle I had with my camera. This gives an effect similar to back lighting, but with it slightly off to the side, I am able to add some fill into the front of the fries.
So that is what I was thinking when I decided to celebrate Fry day! Celebrate with some beer and fries!
Hi Taylor,
These fries look mighty tasty, but the beer…shame on you! Where’s the Wisconsin brew?! No self-respecting Badger could drink Bud Light! ?
Have a great weekend!
Gwen
Ha ha Well the beer is shoot with is warm and has salt added, so I save the undrinkable “bud light” as my shooting beer. I save the WI beer for enjoying ha ha!
This makes perfect for a cold beverage. Great overlooking in the photo.
Wait, you mean to tell me everyday isn’t national eat fry day? Oh, hm. I’ve been celebrating a bit too much ?
SO bummed you’re not going to FBF ?
Totally awesome.
Love it! mostly because it’s french fries. ?
Oh YUM! My two fav foods groups. Except my glass would be filled with dark ale ? May not be as photogenic as the pale but so, so good!
Excellent tutorial. Thanks!
Beer and chips (that’s what we call em in the UK) are an awesome combo and that’s an awesome photo. Thanks for sharing your technique, very useful info.