Category Archives: Greenmarket in the Studio

Sep 28 0 comments
Commercial Photography, Greenmarket in the Studio, Portfolio, slow food, Union Square, Vegetables

Greenmarket in the Studio #4A

3:24PM, 9/25/2009 - Outcast Bean

3:24PM, 9/25/2009 - Outcast Bean

As always, there are many ways to skin a cat (bad metaphor – I have two cats), or should I say capture a bean.

If there is any one piece of advice I can give about shooting in the studio, it’s don’t quit when you think you’ve got the shot. Hey, it’s digital. It’s not like you’re going to run out of film or rack up a huge lab bill. You’ve already done that by buying a nice digital camera. First, I cover the preliminary set with a point and shoot camera, then shoot until the set has been covered top to bottom, upside down and backwards. It’s quick, it’s easy and there are hidden ideas floating around that get overlooked when burdened with a tripod and tethered to my iMac capture workstation. Then I hook up the big guns and get down to business.

This anthropomorphic alternate to Greenmarket in the Studio #4 was influenced by another photographer’s bean image I have seen in an on line portfolio, but can’t remember who or where. That photo was a group of bean tips simply plated in geometric formation. Well done and quite beautiful, that image has stayed with me, but not the photographer’s name (sorry! Maybe you’ll read this and set the record straight).

Anyway, enough with the beans. What else is out there to shoot?

Sep 26 0 comments
Commercial Photography, Food, Greenmarket in the Studio, NYC, Organic, Personal Photography, Photography, Portfolio, Slow Food, slow food, Union Square, Vegetables

Greenmarket in the Studio #4

3:04PM, 09/25/2009 - 3 Beans in a Bowl

3:04PM, 09/25/2009 - 3 Beans in a Bowl

Finally, my first Union Square produce photo shot in the new studio.

I was waiting to get settled before capturing these images of wax beans (crappy name, but that’s what the sign said), also known as yellow, heirloom or golden beans, and almost missed my chance. Except for the folks with the big ORGANIC banner, none of the vendors had them. Wax beans (yellow green beans as far as I’m concerned) have these really gorgeous yellow to green transitions at the tips. When I started to play around with the curved ones it looked like steam coming up from the bowl, so I went with it.  Maybe this will make it to the portfolio.

Who said legumes can’t be sexy…?

Sep 16 2 comments
Commercial Photography, Greenmarket in the Studio, NYC, Portfolio, Union Square

Moving Day

Sugar Hot Peppers (Greenmarket in the Studio #3)

Sugar Hot Peppers (Greenmarket in the Studio #3)

I’ve spent the last 6 years working out of a small studio inside of Graphic Systems Group on Union Square. It’s been a good run, but now it’s time to move on to something a little more, well, studio like. So it’s out and down to 12th Street, just two blocks south of my favorite greenmarket, although the market at Grand Army Plaza on Prospect Park is a favorite, too. Oh, yeah, then there’s Chinatown, under the Manhattan Bridge (one of NYC’s best kept secrets), and the markets at Testaccio and Campo di Fiori. But Rome just isn’t a daily event, so I’ve got to pull in my reins here and get back to the topic of moving.

I’m working with old friends in a crisp new space, oddly named, Cheeky Little Monkey Studio. They’ve invited me to join them and I couldn’t turn down the offer.

I had to pick a day where we expect rain…

Sep 09 1 comments
Food, Greenmarket in the Studio, NYC, Organic, Personal Photography, Shooting from the Hip, Slow Food, slow food, Union Square, Vegetables

Shooting from the Hip (and from Outer Space) #17

Savoy Cabbage at Union Square Market

Savoy Cabbage at Union Square Market

Satellite Photography of Anchorage Alaska, February 16, 2003

NASA Satellite Photo of Anchorage Alaska, February 16, 2003

What do Savoy Cabbage from Union Square Market and a Satellite image from NASA have in common? Benoît Mandelbrot’s mathmatical Fractals.

In the mid 1980s Jonathan Herbert and I were creative partners, owning one of the first IBM XT computers and diving head-first into pretty uncharted territory for photography at the time: computer generated graphics combined with traditional photography. He was the artist and I, the photographer. Although we were far, far from creating anything remotely close to what Mandelbrot had achieved working with the Cray Super Computers of the day (the Cray-2 and X-MP), we aspired to create something, someday that resembled the pages of our hero’s book, The Fractal Geometry of Nature, which, believe it or not, is still in print after 26 years. And, I keep discovering fractals in so much of what I shoot.

Romanesco Broccoli Detail - Also called Fractal Broccoli

A detail of my Romanesco Broccoli from Union Square market- Also called Fractal Broccoli

So, where are we now? Jonathan Herbert has taken to fine art and I, to still life, back to the basics for both of us. The computer still figures in to our lives pretty heavily, but our desires are different.

And I have to admit after 25 years of computers, I can’t imagine living without my iPhone, MacPro tower, my MacBook Pro or my digital watch for that matter. By the way, the 2008 MacPro Tower runs about a thousand times faster than those old Crays.

I would never go back. Now, to sit down to Vicki’s French chicken and cabbage dinner…

Aug 29 0 comments
Food, Greenmarket in the Studio, NYC, Organic, Personal Photography, Portfolio, Shooting from the Hip, Slow Food, slow food, Uncategorized, Union Square, Vegetables

Shooting from the Hip #14 & Greenmarket in the Studio #2

Which do you prefer?

3 Zucchini Flowers on white background

3 Zucchini Flowers on white background in the studio

Zucchini flowers on display at the union square market in NYC

7/31/09, 2:57PM - Zucchini flowers on display at the Union Square market in NYC

As I continue to shoot the Union Square Farmer’s (Green?) Market, I see a pattern. My studio work of Union Square produce over the past three years has clean crisp lines and, with a tip of the hat to Avedon, is shot unadorned with simple lighting.

On the other hand, the “as is, where is,” technique I use for the Shooting from the Hip series has an earthy, gritty look due, in part, to higher contrast curves and vignetting in post production.

One has the elegant, but not quite blemish-free, perfect look of food for advertising; the other is a raw, nearly random capture of food as it appears close up and personal, blemishes and all.

I like them both. Which do you prefer?

Aug 29 0 comments
Food, Greenmarket in the Studio, NYC, Organic, Personal Photography, Portfolio, Shooting from the Hip, slow food, Uncategorized, Union Square, Vegetables

Shooting from the Hip #14 & Greenmarket in the Studio #2

Which do you prefer?

3 Zucchini Flowers on white background

3 Zucchini Flowers on white background in the studio

Zucchini flowers on display at the union square market in NYC

7/31/09, 2:57PM - Zucchini flowers on display at the Union Square market in NYC

As I continue to shoot the Union Square Farmer’s (Green?) Market, I see a pattern. My studio work of Union Square produce over the past three years has clean crisp lines and, with a tip of the hat to Avedon, is shot unadorned with simple lighting.

On the other hand, the “as is, where is,” technique I use for the Shooting from the Hip series has an earthy, gritty look due, in part, to higher contrast curves and vignetting in post production.

One has the elegant, but not quite blemish-free, perfect look of food for advertising; the other is a raw, nearly random capture of food as it appears close up and personal, blemishes and all.

I like them both. Which do you prefer?

Jul 29 0 comments
Food, Greenmarket in the Studio, NYC, Organic, Personal Photography, Photography, Union Square

Greenmarket In the Studio #1

Fresh Beets from Union Square Market, NYC ©2009 D.A.Wagner

Fresh Beets from Union Square Market

Beets are one of those foods folks either love or hate. I love ‘em. Roasted with goat cheese and grilled chicken in a salad on a hot summer evening.

I took these guys back to the studio to give them their proper respect (thanks Aretha!) and then shoved them in the oven for an hour or so, wrapped in aluminum foil.