Ashley Rodriguez is many things.
She began her career at the prestigious
Spago restaurant in Beverly Hills as
a dessert chef before moving back to
Seattle to raise a family and start her
own business as a photographer and writer.
Through weekly recipe posts on my
blog 'not without salt', I hone my skills
and my passion for food photography so
when DPReview asked me if i wanted to
join them to test a new camera i said
yes immediately
it's sort of the name of the game these
days just have lots of different things
going on and i love that, but it does
make for a very very busy life,
especially when i have three children
who have different activities and
interests and I'm trying to kind of
manage it all.
Today, we're joining Ashley on assignment cooking and
shooting alongside renowned chef Kate
McDermott. But first we wanted to learn
more about how Ashley approaches food photography.
I shoot food how I want to eat the food.
You know there's a few bites missing, the fork is in the shot,
in a way that you can just sort of
imagine yourself sitting down at the table.
Ashley's usual camera is a DSLR
but for this shoot we loaned her a
canon EOS M5 - Canon's flagship
mirrorless interchangeable lens camera.
in return she's promised us some cake
I'm doing a flourless chocolate cake and
then I'm gonna top it off with a with swiss
meringue and I seasoned with peppermint
extract and then torch it so you get these
deep caramel flavors and this really
nice rich chocolate cake. The M5 features
a 24 megapixel ASP-C format sensor, dual
pixel autofocus system and HD video
although it's much smaller than most
DSLRs, the M5 operates in a very similar
way and it's compatible with canon's EF and EF-S
lenses using an adaptor.
The key to great food photography is simplicity
especially where lighting is concerned
and simple neutral background like this
pale white marble make the rich dark
chocolate cake really pop. To add a
little contrast the golden fork matches
the deep brown of the toasted
peppermint merengue.
With the cake finished we headed
off to meet Kate McDermott
self-described 'pie-chiatrist'. Kate lives on the
Olympic Peninsula just a couple of hours
drive away from Seattle. But why drive
when you can fly?
there's not much room in the passenger
seat of a Cessna Skyhawk but with a
wide-angle lens on the M5 there was just
enough space to shoot some video footage
of the trip. The EOS M5 can capture HD
video at up to 60p with touch focus and
movie servo AF. for me it's pretty hard
to top the experience of flying over the
pacific northwest in a small plane but I
think Ashley was more excited about
going to see Kate. Kate McDermott is the
pie master she just gets so much joy
from getting her hands dirty with flour
and butter and teaching people how to
bake pies and feeding people. She's
just a joy to be around.
'so we're going to pick our pie'
We're going to make one of kate's specialties -
an apple, pear and quince pie with an
all-butter crust. 'How am I looking?'
I think you look great and this looks good too
when I cook and shoot at the
same time it's a completely different
approach. I come from a restaurant
background and speed was everything there.
I love what food photography has taught
me - to slow down and really enjoy the
process. Cut it down the center like this
save your cores for your chickens
The EOS M5 can create time-lapse movies
in camera. We set the camera to record
one frame every two seconds. With so much
fruit to chop we sped it up, both
in-camera and with Kate's vintage 'Vegomatic'
pictures can be had at every stage of
the pie making process. I really
like the delicate colors and textures of
the dough. You know what's making me really happy
right now? All the streaks of gold
butter right there
I love it
An egg white wash makes it very sparkly and
pretty
you can use a full egg wash.
This reminds me of my days as a wine waiter - minus 'this'.
With the pie in the oven, Kate
and i decided to let Barney play with
some leftover dough while I took pictures
you're going to put your filling in
look at that just like you promised.
For Kate, pie-making isn't just about taste
she can tell when the pie is ready just
from how it sounds. Like food photography
portraiture is often best when it's not
too complicated. Natural light from one
of the windows in Kate's kitchen provided
all the illumination Ashley needed for
this simple portrait. Sometimes though
natural light isn't enough and that's
where flashes come in. For these shots we
used two canon speedlites with the ST-E3-RT
wireless transmitter. At medium power
output they help provide an attractive
fill light which doesn't overpower the
natural light from the evening sun.
I used to do all of my editing on a
computer but these days i'm using a
phone more and more for quick edits and
posting pictures to social media.
It's crispy, and oh my goodness it's just shattering I think
we did real well. So good.
Composition and color theory and all of
that always came very naturally to me.
It's the technicality of the photography that
was a little bit tricky for me so i
would pick it up and then get easily
overwhelmed by figuring out the aperture
and ISO and all that kind of stuff.
I want it to be easy to just sort of
quickly pack up and not be too obvious
if I'm out at a restaurant and want to take a
quick food photo. The ability to do macro,
intuitive, and all that.
It looks like a perfect color. What do you think? You're the expert
Well it's your pie.
'I made a pie. With help. From Kate'.
With butter-filled bellies and full SD cards we loaded up our gear and Barney's
homemade pie and headed back to the
plane for the quick journey home.
the Sun was just setting as we flew
out of Kate's hometown
I'll never forget the view as we
descended on the lit-up seattle skyline
for dpreview this has been Ashley Rodriguez
and Barney Britton. Thank you for
watching, and bon appetit