The classic “Flying Hamburger”… 
 I’ve been wanting to prefect this technique for quite some time and finally got it done. Not too bad for a first attempt.
Special thanks to Executive Chef Bruce Tisler for preparing & styling this Gourmet Hamburger right here in the studio at ArtofEricJames.com Photography & Video Productions with minimal kitchen facilities.
Nikon D800 camera through Nikkor 200mm macro F/4 Manual focus lens and custom built LED studio lighting. Post production compositing with Adobe Photoshop CC

Production Notes:

Two suspension methods were used, Glass & Wire rigs both had advantages and draw-backs.

Obviously liquid elements, like sauces can not be hung from wires. The glass seamed to be the best solution for this issue and required some extra work in post to remove reflections of each item staged this way. Perhaps by using polarization this could be minimized in future shoots. However, I did not wish to re-adjust my exposure to compensate for the light loss of using filtration during this test shoot.

I felt the wire rig needed to be able to articulate to chive as many different angles as possible during the shoot with minimal strike and reset time. The clamp solution configured at a 90º angle provided full rotation and tension control in the stage area. 

By bracing of the two C-stands at the top with a cross bar, it prevented the stands from changing their relative distance from each other during the shoot. This insured the wire staging area was more stable and maintained consistent tension. There was still significate bouncing of some items placed on the stage that took just a little time to dampen out and become still enough to shoot at longer shutter speeds. The system worked quite well and will be developed to include multiple layers in future shoots. 

 

Changing out the wire for glass was easily done by extending the clamps out from the C-Stands on each side with rigging hardware to accommodate the smaller size of the the Glass.    

All-in-all it went as good as could be expected and I believe this shoot was a great proof of concept test that will lead to using this technique in a verity of ways with numerous possibilities to add a fun illustrative quality to whatever the client may request. Again many thanks to Executive Chef Bruce Tisler for all the help and culinary advise.

©2021 Eric James Swearingen