Shots from our first studio food shoot. Light source for all studio photos is natural light coming from left side of photo through the open studio 1 door, white card reflectors and mirror used on right to reflect light and reduce strong shadows. Ambient light on the day was very changeable, sometimes very bright and at other time quite dark with cloud cover. All images as shot no adjustments applied other than a couple have been cropped square.
Looking back upon the shoot it is easy to see why professional food photographers have food sylists not only for the cutlery and plates but most importantly for the plating.
Starting simple with just a couple of star fruit shot on a linen tablecloth.
Platter used for the cut star fruit was shallow sided however there is too much shadow. These should have been shot on a board or with the pieces standing and the light coming from behind. I tried to use DoF as an advantage displaying these pieces of fruit. I prefer this first photo with the fruit sharp in front and then fading. The second photo is uncomfortable to look at with the out of focus foreground and background and the central part in focus.
For my food research I was hungry for Italian so did antipasto. I decided to carry that over to my studio shoot. Must admit I went overboard on my purchasing and used only about half of the food stuffs I had brought to the studio. This first shot of the antipasto is a bit like th previous one of the star fruit with the foreground out of focus as well as the background. I don't find it very appertising. I also find my eye distracted by the horizontal and vertical lines of the plate edge on the bottom and left.
A better image than the one above, more appertising but that could because I have a weakness for salami, olives, fetta and stuffed peppers, yummmm! I like this tighter shot.
Added some green garnish to the primarily red filled platter. Ok but something still not right.
Basically the same photo as above with the large bit of parsley removed from the centre. Much more appertising and an image I'm quite pleased with.
A simple red capsicum, I didn't expect to capture with this plain red pepper to have a masterpiece such as Edward Weston's,
Pepper No. 30. I just had to be shot before the knife did its work
. For those that don't know Weston's image follow the link here
http://www.edward-weston.com
I guess one has to select several capsicums to ensure you get one with lots of seeds and looks good when cut. This one was disappointing. That said, I like the texture of the inside and the natural colour gradient from red to white.
My next shoot was pasta. The pasta had been cooked the night before and mixed with some olive oil to prevent it from sticking. For the photo I just tossed it a bit and added a bit more olive oil, sprinkled some dried crushed chillies on top and sliced some slivers parmasan cheese on top. It is not a traditional dish but it is the way I like my pasta. In hindsight I should have added a sprig of parsley, especially since I had it at the shoot, to add a variation to the colour.
The lighting on this shot needed more reflection into the left hand side.
Slight change of lighting but noticed the bowl looked too empty.
Pasta repositioned in the bowl to give it more depth. Cloud came across so the lighting is too dark.
Repositioning of the bowl in the shot and the sun was shinning again. Looking at these photos now I feel that more of the bowl and contents needs to be in frame. These photos have too much bowl and not enough food showing.
When I got home from the mornings shoot I decided to have lunch and use some of the ingrediants from the shoot. I heated the pasta in the microwave, cut up several pieces of the meats from the antipasto, olives, spiced fetta, parmasan and mixed them all together and topped with a sprig of parsley.
The bowl was placed on a checkered tea towel on the picnic table on the back veranda with lots of natural light, serviette, and fork and shot for a DPS. Very pleased with this first image.
Same as above from differnt angle and a bit more background to indicate a picnic table, possibly another setting across from this setting.
