Author: John Krüger

Adelaide based South Australian professional photographer with a special interest in food and portraiture photography.

Chef Tom Boden

John Krüger

Tom’s a lovely bloke and a great chef. When he took over the kitchen at Penny’s Hill cellar door in McLaren Vale, he gave me a call and we did a few small shoots to rebrand the new identity “The Kitchen Door”. Interestingly, the first thing he did was remove the door between the kitchen and the dining room.

The Kitchen Door Restaurant. Penny's Hill. McLaren Vale Photo: John Krüger

The Kitchen Door Restaurant. Penny’s Hill. McLaren Vale
Photo: John Krüger

The Kitchen Door Restaurant. Penny's Hill. McLaren Vale Photo: John Krüger

The Kitchen Door Restaurant. Penny’s Hill. McLaren Vale
Photo: John Krüger

The Kitchen Door Restaurant. Penny's Hill. McLaren Vale Photo: John Krüger

The Kitchen Door Restaurant. Penny’s Hill. McLaren Vale
Photo: John Krüger

The Kitchen Door Restaurant. Penny's Hill. McLaren Vale Photo: John Krüger

The Kitchen Door Restaurant. Penny’s Hill. McLaren Vale
Photo: John Krüger

The Kitchen Door Restaurant. Penny's Hill. McLaren Vale Photo: John Krüger

The Kitchen Door Restaurant. Penny’s Hill. McLaren Vale
Photo: John Krüger

The Kitchen Door Restaurant. Penny's Hill. McLaren Vale Photo: John Krüger

The Kitchen Door Restaurant. Penny’s Hill. McLaren Vale
Photo: John Krüger

The Kitchen Door Restaurant. Penny's Hill. McLaren Vale Photo: John Krüger

The Kitchen Door Restaurant. Penny’s Hill. McLaren Vale
Photo: John Krüger

The Kitchen Door Restaurant. Penny's Hill. McLaren Vale Photo: John Krüger

The Kitchen Door Restaurant. Penny’s Hill. McLaren Vale
Photo: John Krüger

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The Bartender, the Chef and the Model

John Krüger

This was a fun shoot for a restaurant. They wanted to look too cool so we got Kali Holmes, the amazing model in. It pays to work with professionals! (even though I ended up being payed a total of one gin martini for the shoot.)
My favourite shot is the first one below where I composited Kali in, one each side, in different vintage swimsuits, so it looks like twins.

Aaron the chef is now working around Asia and Dubai, and I hear the bartender is now in Sydney.
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This red dress below was so expensive we weren’t allowed to drip the chicken nugget sauce anywhere near it, so I had to composite the dripping sauce in later.

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Winery Pics in Clare

John Krüger

I did this great shoot in Clare over a few days last year. We got to shoot at all of these different wineries, most of which I’d already been to. It was so much fun. Hard work and long days, but fun!

Kirrihill winery. Clare South Australia Photo: John Krüger

Kirrihill winery. Clare South Australia
Photo: John Krüger

Clare Valley Winemakers South Australia Photo: John Krüger

Clare Valley Winemakers
South Australia
Photo: John Krüger

BenQ Monitor

John Krüger

Although not quite classed as camera gear, nothing in digital photographic workflow is more important than the computer monitor. If the colours of an image are too cool (too much blue) then the photographer warms up the colour balance (adds more reds) to make the image look normal. If the monitor is showing true colours to be inaccurate, I could be warming up images too much, so my client gets images where people all look sunburned, or a sickly blue.

Colour balance is a really bizarre and very involved subject. Being pregnant, hungover, tired, ambient lighting, diseases… they can all effect how your brain perceives the light hitting the back of your eyes. Not only do my images have to be accurate in colour balance, but the monitor that my client views the image on is also hopefully accurate. Then, if the image is printed in a magazine, the RGB image is converted over to a CMYK version that’s also hopefully accurate to the original.

My workflow has traditionally involved dual monitors. Mostly because I really enjoy the extra screen realestate, using palates and email on one external monitor and full screen image on a MacBook Pro (MBP) monitor. I even went as far as adding an extra monitor to an old MacBook and having two MacBooks next to each other, with a total of four screens! Like I said, I really like my screen realestate. My extra monitors were cheap BenQ monitors from MSY. At the time, I wasn’t too bothered with colour accuracy as that was a job left to the Apple monitors on the MacBooks.

Then I got an email from BenQ asking if I’d be interested in trying out one of their new monitors that are specifically designed for photographers, the SW2700PT. Colour accuracy being a critical point. Of course I said yes!

Setup

Spotting the Mac logo on the box had me smiling right from the start. I only use Mac. My first impressions were “Wow, this is big!” It’s 27″ or 68.6cm of screen. The stand is sturdy and adjustable which is really cool. Personally, I’d like just a little more height so I can have a 15″ MBP open underneath the main BenQ screen. I love being able to rotate the screen 90 degrees to show someone a portrait image on a full screen. There’s a little bit of tilting involved because the monitor stand isn’t quite high enough to rotate unless you tilt the monitor as well. No real dramas there.

The other thing I really like is the monitor shades, that even have light absorbing black felt on the inside surfaces so there’s no reflection and glare on the screen. Brilliant. The little sliding opening on the top had me confused for a second until I went to do a setup calibration with an EyeOne2 calibration spider. Ah! The calibration tool comes through the sliding hole. Again, smart design. The puck controller is also really smart. With very thin borders on screens these days, all the control buttons are underneath the screen, which is a hassle. The SW2700PT has a small “puck” controller that can sit in the bottom of the monitor base, or via a small cord, sit on the desk right alongside the keyboard for easy access. This makes it very easy to cycle through settings for a quick look how the image would look or change inputs. With HDMI input, it’d be nice to add a media player or PS4 when I’m not processing..

Thunderbolt cable included=very happy! I hate having to add adaptors, so the Mac logo on the box was well deserved. (It’ll be interesting to see which cables are needed for the new round of MBP’s with USB-C)

All in all, setup was very easy. The side screens were a bit fiddly but once I worked it out, no problems. Good old Mac, no driver needed, just a restart and the monitor came up.

The display looks stunning! The greens look better than the MBP display and it’s very sharp without looking pixel sharp. Great depth in the shadows and the brightness doesn’t change with the viewing angle as much as the MBP. In fact, barely at all unless at extreme angles. I can see this as being a main monitor instead of a side palette monitor. The tables have turned.

Calibration

One of the most important parts of using a monitor is calibrating regularly. The old CRT monitors were very prone to changing over their lifespan but new monitors should still be calibrated once in a while. I pulled out my old Gretamacbeth EyeOne Display2 calibration spider and downloaded the Palette Master Element software from the BenQ Australia site. Surprisingly the old calibration device came up on the software. Bonus!
Unfortunately about 10 seconds into calibration, the software would crash every time. I called support and a very switched-on guy called Ivan was very proactive in getting to the root of the problem. I emailed him a copy of the crash report data (the page you can send to Apple) and he’s sent it on to BenQ HQ. I’m guessing that running the very recent upgrade to MacOS Sierra might have something to do with it and a V1.2 of the calibration software will help.

I’ll update this page when I hear from them. In the meanwhile, I might try an old white plastic MacBook running OS Lion and see if that makes any difference.

 

 

Equipment

John Krüger

There’s an old saying with photographers that goes something like this:

Amateur Photographers worry about equipment.

Semi-Pro’s worry about light.

Professional Photographers worry about invoices being paid.

Hardware. I suppose as a professional photographer, I make sure I use the best equipment I can so I don’t have to worry about gear. I get the occasional “train spotter” come up to me while I work and try to strike up a conversation about their camera they use at home. I’m actually the last person to talk to about consumer and pro-sumer cameras because I haven’t had much experience with them before. The top level Nikons I’m familiar with are the D2X (my first freelance digital camera – before that we had D1’s at work.), the D3 and my current D4S. I had a look at the D5 but the minor improvements don’t seem to match the extra expense.
I did buy a D5300 as a second video DSLR, and to be quite honest, I hate it. I hate the feel of it, the sound of the shutter, the convoluted controls… It’s a real pain to use. Sure the pro cameras don’t have WiFi or GPS (unless you pay through the nose for add-on hardware) but my fingers know where all the buttons are on a D4S and it’s super strong and reliable.

I take literally millions of photos and I’ve only had to replace one shutter mechanism on the D3 a few years ago. It turned out, after the cost of a D4 camera hire and the cost of replacing the shutter, it would have been cheaper to fly to Sydney and have it replaced straight away. That’s one of the few downsides to living in South Australia.

After years of digital work, I stick with some reliable brands. SanDisk for CF memory (that’s right, pro-cameras still use CF cards, much to the disbelief of electronics store employees. Apple, the SD card reader on a MacBook Pro is almost useless.) I also use Sony QXD cards and Western Digital hard drives. It’s not unusual to shoot a large project that requires around 70gb of card storage, plus hard drive backups.

Lenses. The great thing about a pro-camera vs the D5300 is I can use any Nikon lens. I love old manual 50mm “pancake” lenses, obscure macro lenses, you name it. I haven’t used many other brands because years ago the auto-focus was really slow and vignetting was sometimes extreme. I’d be happy to try some new other lens brands in the near future.

Computers. Apple all the way. They work in a simple and easy way. Using a PC is a nightmare for me. Everything works in the most convoluted way possible. I can’t stand them! I currently run a MacBook and a MacBook Pro, both with 1 external monitor each to maximise palette space and make workflow easier.

As for software, I’ve been a Photoshop fan since version 5 in the late 90’s. Before that I was using Aldus Photostyler which was acquired by Adobe in 1994. Most of my training that wasn’t in the workplace was done at Regency Park TAFE. It was a great place to learn.
I suppose I’m quite set in my ways in regard to workflow, so other than some new plug-ins occasionally, I’m very happy to stay with Adobe Creative Cloud and the regular updates to Photoshop and Bridge.

I’ve still got a fantastic Nikon negative scanner which I used before moving over from SLR to DSLR and I’m really disappointed that OSX upgrades have meant I can’t use it any more. I’ve still got piles of transparencies that I’d love to digitise and put up online.

 

Shooting a cookbook with a difference – The Primo job

John Krüger

When I got the call to see if I was interested in shooting a small brochure for a wine company, I was pretty keen and in the end it turned into a pretty big shoot. The brochure tuned into a small book and we organised to shoot almost a full week at Joe Grilli’s house and then a day or so at his cellar door in McLaren Vale. Joe owns Primo Estate Wines.
This was a cookbook with a difference. The brief was all about family. Each shot had to have a family member in it somewhere because all of the recipes are old family recipes, passed down for generations. It gives the images a different feel having people in shot as well. Most of the close-up images of just food were quick grabs before we cleaned up and moved onto the next dish. Joe’s house is a beautiful open space building with great natural light, so we barely had to light anything, which gives the dishes a lovely warmth and natural homely look. Everything was cooked on site apart from a few slow-cook dishes and they were all cooked by family members. Occasionally Joe would say, “Let’s cook that dish next instead and we can have it for lunch.” Then we’d all sit outside in the sunshine, eat delicious food with liberal splashes of his olive oils and drink his Tuscan wines. It was fantastic! He’s a very interesting man to talk to and a delight to work with. He’d wander around the house chuckling to himself and he made such an impact on me and my own cooking style that I’m delighted every time I bump into him.

The book is still available via the Primo Estate cellar door and online www.primoestate.com.au/product/Primo-Style-Book

Below are some of my favourite photographs.

Primo Style Photo: John Krüger

Primo Style
Photo: John Krüger

Primo Style Photo: John Krüger

Primo Style
Photo: John Krüger

Primo Style Photo: John Krüger

Primo Style
Photo: John Krüger

Primo Style Photo: John Krüger

Primo Style
Photo: John Krüger

Primo Style Photo: John Krüger

Primo Style
Photo: John Krüger

Primo Style Photo: John Krüger

Primo Style
Photo: John Krüger