Chugrad McAndrews Photography – San Francisco Food, Advertising and Catalog Photography

Last semester I was contacted by a student, Gina Chang, from the Academy of Art University in San Francisco where I have been teaching part-time evening classes. I have been working with students in the Photography department, but this student was from the Graphic Design department. Her assignment was to find a professional photographer to make images of products she would then place into her designs. I thought this was an excellent idea, as I am always encouraging (and requiring) my Photography students to do collaborations with other students at the school who are studying subjects such as Graphic Design, Art Direction, Fashion Design, etc.

The products Gina chose were highly reflective and required some wrestling, but eventually I pinned them down. We were very happy with the results of our collective efforts, as were her classmates and teacher.

Gina has also collaborated with me this current semester by providing layouts for one of my classes that is shooting a mock-catalog. I worked with students on the mock-catalog idea last summer as well, but without layouts, so having the layouts this time really helps the students get a more clear idea of how things work in the real world of Catalog Photography, where there are often limitations set by crop shape, space for copy on an image, space for the “gutter” on a double-page spread, etc. Gina did an excellent job.

To view more of Gina’s work you can visit her website: http://www.ginachang.com

Safeway was in the studio for another shoot that was a little different than the regular stuff I’ve been doing with them. They were having an event and their chef made some recipes which had to be really delicious, yet simple enough to feed thousands of people.

The Shrimp Tacos and Cookie Ice Cream Sandwiches were my favorite shots… Shrimp Tacos are just such a simple, tasty way to have a light meal… and I was particularly fond of our Set for this shot – I really liked the subtle tonal changes in the wood surface and how it created the perfect platform to display the teal plate with the Tacos.  Those Ice Cream Sandwiches were the perfect combination of  moist cookies, dripping chocolate sauce and cold ice cream – good thing the ice cream wasn’t chocolate or I’m sure some people would have ended up in the hospital from chocolate OD!