Lee Starnes is a food and product photographer based in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
One of my favorite places on earth, Indonesia lures me back constantly with its beaches, rugged landscapes, underwater wonderlands, and general laid back lifestyle. This trip took me to Nusa Penida and Amed in Bali and the Derawan Islands in Indonesian Borneo.
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After two long years of not being able to travel internationally, we finally got a chance to hop on a plane, use the passport and revisit our home from before Saigon. Sydney holds so many memories, friends and, as we found out on this trip, new corners and neighbourhoods to explore.
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I recently took on a family session and as most of you know this is far outside of what I shoot on a day in day out basis. It’s not my wheelhouse to say the least. That said, when a client sends an amazing brief (hint hint, always send creative references and briefs to make your creatives happy. You’ll get the best results) and wanted me to shoot street style to document. their last days in Saigon, I jumped at the opportunity.
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In my former life I worked behind bars, in cellars and in kitchens so it’s no surprise I love shooting food and beverage images. Also, with that time in the F&B industry I got to eat and drink some of the best in the world. This exploration carried on in F&B photography, but runs the gamut from the phenomenal to the maybe not so much. This one is absolutely delicious.
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As most of you know, I help run tours in Central Vietnam with Pics of Asia with one of my good friends, Etienne Bossot. Also, unless you’ve been living under a rock under another rock buried next to Jimmy Hoffa, you’d also know travel has been sketchy and inaccessible in Vietnam the past year or so. So, when I got a chance to finally get back to Hoi An, I told Etienne we had to go shoot one morning
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Over the Tet Holiday this year, I got the opportunity to finally get up to Phong Nha. How it’s taken me this long to explore this part of Vietnam is mind boggling and I’ve kicked myself a few times for not getting up there sooner. It’s definitely wayyyy up there with my favorite places in Vietnam. Caves, rivers, limestone karsts, rice paddies…
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I’ve been mostly shooting small objects recently and 9 times out of 10, I’m using my Sony 90mm 2.8 macro. Incredibly sharp, I can get up close and personal to capture all those fantastic little details in product and food photography. When shooting bigger objects, I have a bit more leeway in my choice in focal lengths. Depending on the style I’m going after, I can opt to shoot super wide for a more editorial or advertising feel or I can shoot with a longer lens for catalogue images. It’s not really a matter of what’s right or wrong, but it is rather interesting to see the effects of different focal lengths in these types of shoots. I shot this super slick chair with 4 different lenses in 4 different focal lengths - Zeiss Batis 18mm, Sony 35mm, Sony/Zeiss 55mm and Zeiss Batis 85mm. All amazing lenses, so optics weren’t much of a variable, and I shot them all at f/16 to make sure the chair was sharp from front to back.
Read MoreAs photographers, we’re always looking at different things to tell a compelling story in a single frame. In food photography, light and composition are massively important in creating mood and feeling so we’re constantly looking at ways to control light to tell different stories. That said, many times client briefs call for “natural light” and sometimes that can be quite ambiguous. In the images above, one is indeed natural light. Care to hazard a guess? Let’s have a look at each of these images and break down the lighting setups.
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