She then takes a spoonful at a time and slowly puts it back, rotating the cup to get a swirl.

When she gets the desired height she finishes with a small dollop. With pudding you have about 5 minutes to get the shot. Once it gets under the hot lights it starts to melt and settle. If you’re not quick you lose the nice swirl and have to start over.

An example of a finished styled pudding swirl/dollop.

Consignment shops & Goodwill are great resources for us because we can find very unique items at a very affordable price. The average cost of the items seen here were $1.00 each.

Pretty standard portrait set.

We use a posing table in formal shots to help keep people looking relaxed in the picture, by giving them a place to rest their arms & cross their hands.

look for these updated head shots on Daymon.com over the next week or two. We’re also working on a series of more casual shots this year. More to come on that!

Here is a very simple jig that our food stylist made to hold the ice cream cartons steady while she pulled & created the perfect ice cream scoop. We’ll have more behind the scenes on this photo shoot to come.

Light Modifiers

Light modifiers for off camera flashes were big this year.  Gary Fong puts out some great grids, gels and light domes.

Rogue FlashBenders is a great alternative to Gary Fong.

Ring lights are always a popular source of lighting.

Lenses

Some fun lenses that I have yet to try are lensbabies.

Online Photo Labs

A great lab that I use often is Nations Photo lab. They have a wide range of services and products.

Production Resources

If you are looking for a model, art director or hair & makeup artist, there is a new online network called www.photomodelnetwork.com. You can search anywhere in the world and find the professional you need and see their portfolio online.

And Last…

www.bayphoto.com sells wall clusters, canvas gallery wraps and metal prints.

Pizza is a difficult food item to shoot, so cutting a slice out of that pizza can really kick things up a notch. Shooting a pizza slice actually starts the “old-school” design way. Pencil to paper. Literally tracing the pizza’s shape, cutting out the slice shape to create a template for the set.

Before we go into anymore detail, lets back up a bit. It really starts with getting the samples from the supplier. The supplier not only sends us the final pizzas, but also all the ingredients separate.  This way we can pick out the best of the ingredients. We also receive the final pizzas as reference for quantity and arrangement of the toppings. Often the ingredients are sent to us as shown above.

Before we shoot the styled pizza slice we use a stand in to set up the lighting correctly.

Then we measure out the slice correctly. We then cut a paper representation of the slice and put it in front of the camera so we can get the angle and width of the slice just right.

Once the pizza is cooked there’s not a lot of time to get the shot. We make sure everything is lined up perfectly, so its just a matter of switching in the styled pizza slice for the stand in.

Here is an example of a finished pizza slice. Styling a pizza with a slice is a great way to highlight the crust, get a close up view of the pizza’s toppings & creates a more appetizing image.

A quote from Carla Copper, Daymon Worldwide’s CEO & President, taken from an article running in Progressive Grocer’s Store Brands magazine, in a feature called “Industry Voice”. The magazine was distributed at this weeks PLMA show in Chicago, IL. You can read the full article titled Apply a Consumer-Centric Approach, here.

Some of Spartan Stores new healthy food items were highlighted in a segment of Eight West, a local news show in Grand Rapids, MI. Daymon Design is partnered with Spartan Stores & executes all of the current Spartan & Fresh Selections brands. This includes the healthy items that are featured in the video.

Spartan Stores made a commitment in May of 2011 that they wanted to support FMI/GMA’s “Facts Up Front” initiative (icons seen above). Our design team provided the layouts showing how these icons would get integrated onto the front of their packaging. We have been integrating the “Facts Up Front” on packaging since Spartan’s commitment in May. It’s Spartan’s plan to have “Facts Up Front” on all Spartan & Fresh Selections items in store by Jan 2013, which Daymon Design is working on now in conjunction with the redesign that is in progress. For more information about Spartan Stores integrating “Facts Up Front” check out these stories from Store Brand Decisions & My Private Brand.

Brooke Burke seen taking an “Omega Water Break” during her work out! But Brooke isn’t the only celebrity drinking Omega Water. Daymon Design’s work on the brand identity, packaging design, and promotional materials for the Omega Water brand were highlighted last month at the annual Emmy Awards.

On September 15-16, celebrities were grabbing Omega Water while attending the Kari Feinstein Gift Lounge at the 2011 Emmys! Lauren Bowles (starting on left) from True Blood loved the Berry Breeze Flavor, while Cheryl Hines (who plays Cheryl David on Curb Your Enthusiasm) enjoyed Fruit Fusion. Singer and actress Christina Milian called for a bottle of Omega Water from her dressing room while getting her makeup done, and Eric Stonestreet (Cam on Modern Family) said that he loved his bottle of Berry Breeze

A 20 oz. bottle of Omega Water provides 100 mg of DHA/EPA Omega -3 and more than 100% RDV of Vitamins C, E, B3, B5, B6, and B12. It has zero calories and available in all-naturally flavored Lemon Squeeze, Orange Splash, Berry Breeze, and Fruit Fusion. Learn more at www.omegawater.com

This stop motion video was produced to be part of a collective tribute video shown at a dinner honoring Daymon Worldwide’s co-founder Milt Sender. Our video team spent about a 1/2 hour with the entire Daymon Design group instructing them “step-by-step” (pun intended). The stills were shot with a Canon 1Ds Mark III & we strung the 200 plus stills in an after effects timeline to edit & render the final video. To see more of the Daymon Design’s video work click here.