Angie waits for the perfect moment to photograph an illuminated art installation in a beautiful office in Palo Alto.
We love when a job brings us out of the studio and into the sunshine and summer air. We just finished shooting a project at a house in Piedmont with prop stylist Daniele Maxwell. With a house as pretty as that, wouldn’t you be happy to go to work too?
Do you belong to Team Donut or Team Donut Hole? This was the question hanging over our heads during Angie’s donut shoot.
She teamed up with food stylist Alexa Hyman, who filled the studio with the smell of fried dough, and we made some pretty photos in the process. The beauty of the donuts was so overwhelming that it brought a tear to Angie’s eye.
Wolheim Brings All the Boards to the Yard
We love prop stylist Christine Wolheim for a multitude of reasons, but right now we feel like bragging about her finely tuned ability to select surfaces and backgrounds that compliment our recipes perfectly. Can we keep her forever?
Take one look at Angie’s music collection of holiday hits and you’ll understand very quickly how much she loves December. Here are some photos from the set of Angie’s holiday themed shoot.
Angie's Diabolical Sweet Tooth
When your morning starts with cupcakes, gumballs, and sugar pearls, you know you’re in for a good day. Angie loves photographing cute sugary things for two reasons:
- She has a big fat sweet tooth.
- She is determined to send the entire studio into diabetic shock.
Angie begins every shoot just like every other photographer. She stretches, does a few jumping jacks, throws punches in the air while singing the lyrics to “Eye of the Tiger,” and pets her camera for good luck.
Angie actually has “mad bow tying skillz” listed on her resumé.
The following photo shows Angie hard at work while Dan ignores her cries for help and stares at cupcakes. So typical.
Eventually we all caved to the pastry pressure and treated ourselves to some post-photoshoot sweetness. We finished the day with smiles on our faces and jitters in our bones. Yet again excessive sugar intake marks another successful day at the studio!
Fanny and Angie: Photoshoot Shenanigans
Angie and Fanny Pan (food stylist extraordinaire) got together on Tuesday to make some magic.
Angie was excited about using her brand spankin’ new view camera.
Angie ruins another Kodak moment:
Calling Giggles McGee to the set!
Fanny was finally able to get some work done once Angie stopped picking on her.
Angie has so much enthusiasm for photography that it shoots out her toes. Composing her shots on her tippy toes is the only way she can harness her power.
The hardest part of the day was choosing the right spoon for the job.
Decision time:
Prepping for Fall
The San Francisco summer is in full effect, but our heads are stuck in the future. Angie teamed up with food stylist Fanny Pan and prop stylist Daniele Maxwell to work on creating a photo for her upcoming fall promo.
The day began with some beautiful, refreshing snap peas. Yum!
Fanny artfully arranged our green bean salad. Working with a great food stylist is like having a gourmet cook, a world class puzzle solver, and a fine art painter all rolled into one.
Angie and Fanny took a moment for a quick meeting regarding radishes.
After lots of serious discussion and a few charts and graphs, Angie took some photos and evaluated her radishes. Are they too squatty? Are their stems perfectly green and perky? Do their tails look too ratty? Cao Studio is an equal opportunity employer, but unfortunately this does not apply to root vegetables. Those poor radishes had to face some serious Top Model scrutiny.
Fact #1: Angie has a background in circus acrobatics. After checking to make sure her life insurance policy was up to date, she combined her circus training with her photography training to entertain us while she snapped some shots.
Fact #2: that first fact wasn’t entirely true.
Studio clamps and gaffers tape may not make an appetizing meal, but they serve as great stand-in models for light and focus tests.
Daniele stepped in for some final adjustments to the props. She did a great job finding props to match our cool color palette.
Today’s shoot was a total success! We had such a great creative team that collaborated to make these fall promo photos unique. We can’t wait to show everyone the final images.