Gani Pinero Photography

Serrano Peppers | Underwater | Oakland | San Francisco | Product & Food Photographer

Gani Pinero — Wed, 15 May 2013 03:23:36 +0000

Here’s today’s underwater photo project, Serrano Peppers. I added some distilled water and club soda to get the bubbles just right. Again, I have to give credit to Alex Koloskov for putting out such great work and sharing his techniques with other photographers.

Fruit Underwater | San Francisco | Oakland | Product & Food Photographer

Gani Pinero — Mon, 13 May 2013 22:37:40 +0000

I have a water tank set up and I’ve been trying to think of any way to use it for creative product photos. I’ve been playing with different way to create bubbles and use lights to photograph fruit. Here’s what I came up with…

Product Photography & Water | San Francisco | Oakland | Commercial Product Photographer

Gani Pinero — Fri, 10 May 2013 05:52:59 +0000

I’ve been learning and testing out several new product photography techniques and I’ve made my way to playing with water. These shots were inspired by a very talented and successful commercial photographer, Alex Koloskov. In fact, I’m basically copying a photo that he created and put out a video tutorial on how he shot it. Not many photographers out there do this sort of thing, but Alex has figured out a way to create a community of photographers based on helping each other, rather than just considering each other competition.

The idea is “Here’s how I created this photo. Now go out and get creative and make it your own. Show me what you can do differently/better/in addition to how I shot my photo”.

I know I’m enjoying his tutorials and I’m definitely improving on the way I approach any photography project because of them.

Wildflower Triathlon | Lake San Antonio, Bradley, California | Sports Photographer

Gani Pinero — Mon, 06 May 2013 20:34:09 +0000

I was in Lake San Antonio this weekend to photograph the 31st annual Wildflower Triathlon. I photographed this race last year and it was one of the first triathlons that I photographed ‘solo’. This was also an important year, because last year’s winners of the Elite Men and Elite Women’s race were heavily favored to repeat their wins and, on the men’s side, 3-peat!

Between photographing the races over the past year and some of the commercial work I’ve been doing with some of the corporate sponsors, you get to know many of the triathletes and it’s hard not to want to root them on during the race… In fact, I don’t really hold back and I am definitely rooting for them to do well, work hard and finish strong.

The two champions from last year’s race, Heather Jackson and Jesse Thomas, did in fact defend their titles and repeated and 3-peated this year. Congrats to you both!

Smith Optics | I/O Black with Mirror Lens | Oakland, CA | Product Photographer

Gani Pinero — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 03:35:48 +0000

I’ve had these Smith Optics I/O snow goggles for a little while now and have been wanting to photograph them before they started showing any signs of wear. I was clicking around admiring some different product photography when I came across the web site for Alex Stepanov, a product photographer based here in San Francisco.

He has a really cool photo of some snow goggles on his home page, so I tried to figure out his lighting for his shot and came up with, what I think is a pretty cool photo.

This is a pretty common practice for photographers, looking at a well executed photo and trying to figure out, “How they do that?”. I even emailed Alex a copy of my photo, just so he knows his photo was it’s inspiration. You can see his photo of snow goggles on his home page, image 21 of 24.

The first image is my take on his shot set-up. The second image was me playing around with one light and some a flexible plastic sheet, to get a photo that shows off the entire surface of the lens and doesn’t show the camera or the lights in it. I’m not sure how they photographed the Smith goggles on their web site, but it looks almost like the lenses were photographed separately…? Anyway, I wanted to figure out another way to shoot them and this is what I came up with.

Denver vs. California | Division 1 Women’s Lacrosse | Lacrosse Magazine | Berkeley, CA | Editorial Sports Photographer

Gani Pinero — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 05:06:59 +0000

I photographed the (#11) Denver Pioneers versus the Cal Golden Bears Women’s lacrosse game at Memorial Stadium on Friday night for Lacrosse Magazine. Both teams came into the game undefeated, but Denver ended up taking the win 13-10. Here is the Lacrosse Magazine write up online.

Denver Hands Cal First MPSF Loss of Season

Canon EF 17-40mm | GoPro Hero 3 | Nikon N2000 | Oakland, CA | Product Photographer

Gani Pinero — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 18:49:12 +0000

I have a few new pieces of lighting equipment and have been testing out different lighting techniques. Here are a few more samples of some gear that I’ve been practicing on.

Glassware On Black Background | Oakland, CA | Product Photographer

Gani Pinero — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 06:09:01 +0000

I’ve been messing around in my studio with different lighting techniques. Here are a few samples of different glassware on a black background.

James And The Giant Cupcake | Oakland, CA | Commercial Food Photographer

Gani Pinero — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 06:28:11 +0000

This is where it all began… A little over 3 years ago, we met this wonderful girl and her little cupcake company called James and the Giant Cupcake. We were looking for a local bakery to buy mini-cupcakes for our son’s first birthday party. We found some great reviews on Yelp and decided to give them a call. I noticed that there were (not so great) photos on the back of her business card and offered to shoot some new photos for her.

This was my first official product/food photography client. There were 24 different flavors and I got to photograph and then taste every flavor!

Fast forward a few years… 40+ flavors, a retail store in Oakland and it is now our tradition to order a few dozen mini-cupcakes from James and the Giant Cupcake for our son’s birthday each year.

The Prisoner 2011 | Napa Valley Red Wine | Oakland Product Photographer

Gani Pinero — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 18:12:11 +0000

More practice using a few lighting techniques on one of our favorite bottles of wine, The Prisoner.