Project365 - In the Kitchen

Introduction

Pat bought me a slab of Montréal Smoked Meat from Dunn's. It's an extra-special treat, bringing back memories of kosher dill pickles, beautiful rye bread, and tangy mustard. These were all shared with my father, whose laboratory at McGill was just a few short blocks from Dunn's famous delicatessen.

So todays's project was to slice it up & repackage it, so that we could enjoy it over a longer time. Unfortunately, we are also getting ready to move, so our meat-slicer is packed, but I know not where !

 

The Setup

Product shoots require a little bit of planning. Usually, you use a light-box, which helps create evenly diffused light on all surfaces of the product. I didn't want to lose the feeling that we were in the kitchen, so I decided to just shoot handheld, right on the cutting board

I used my trusty Canon 60D, and mounted my 40mm "pancake" lens. While it is capable of a nice wide aperture, I wasn't interested in a really shallow depth of field, so I shot it at about f/8. I also mounted a single Canon 430EX II on a Cactus v5 trigger, so that I could simply wash the ceiling & create a more natural light.

 

The Photos

So let's see how we did:

The smoked meat had a beautiful "marbled" effect. Montréalers will tell you, it must be served fatty & hot, so the fat runs out, releasing the flavour !

When the meat is cured, it is first rubbed with a wonderful medley of cracked pepper, which you can see here. Obviously, this shot is taken before we began slicing the meat.

While I wasn't able to shave it as close as I could have with the slicer, I still got nice thin slices. We then arranged them in stacks, so that they could be repackaged.

Lessons Learned

I spent a lot of time working out the lighting. I took a number of shots that I immediately discarded, as they looked so unnatural. I tried bouncing the light, dialling it down & aiming it slightly away, and I still couldn't get the look I was looking for. Finally, I decided "back to basics !" and washed the ceiling with light at about half power. Finally, it looked natural to me.

 

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