Photo Sharing & Photography Forums | June Photo Assignment

June Photo Assignment

Posted by grimo1re on June 1, 2008 at 9:34pm in Beginners Group

The results of the May assignment were very diverse and all very good! I found it a difficult challenge though to be honest, but I guess that's why one calls them 'challenges' :)

This month the theme is Food Photography.

I've done some research into the subject on the internet and these are the tips & tricks I've found:

Light
You need plenty of light to make those scrumptious food photos. Set your still-life up by a window and perhaps bounce flash off the ceiling or wall (If, like me, you don't have a separate flash unit you can try and do this with a mirror or white card directing the flash to the ceiling or wall). Don't use direct flash, it flattens everything out. A sunny day and/or steady hands are preferred.

Get out of 'auto'
You'll need to use the white balance option here. On most camera's that's pretty easy to use, check your manual.

Here's one I prepared earlier...
Prepare your camera set-up before preparing the food...unless you're going for that wilted look :) I read somewhere you have 1 to 3 minutes before a dish runs, changes colour, wilts, collapses, congeals, melts or just loses that freshly cooked/cut look. You can set-up the shot using a stand-in plate.

Details
Think of all the details. Make the food look nice on the plate, bowl, whatever. If you want the food to glisten, brush on some vegetable oil. Another idea is to put some water droplets on fresh vegetables to achieve that 'fresh' look. Consider the table, table-cloth, the type of plate you're using, etc. to make sure it suits the look you're going for. Rule of thumb: simple is best.

Angle
Don't just shoot the food from directly above. Get up close and personal. Also remember our 'parts but not the whole' assignment. Perhaps there's a really nice detail that could form an interesting shot on its own.

Go nuts
Shoot heaps & be creative. There's probably at least one good shot in there somewhere :-D

Need inspiration?
Check the following links:
http://www.epicurious.com/
http://www.recipezaar.com/
http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes
http://blogs1.marthastewart.com/dinnertonight/?rsc=dinnertonight_Ho...

And just for fun, have a look here: http://www.thewvsr.com/adsvsreality.htm

As with our previous assignments, do TELL us about your shot. The SETTINGS you chose, what you were AIMING for, and ANYTHING ELSE important about how you approached the assignment.

As always, enjoy!

Tags: assignment

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Anna Black on June 19, 2008 at 8:06am: hot- cold - great idea and great resuls (as usual) pipit!; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Anthony Saucedo on June 24, 2008 at 3:21pm: Nice i like it; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by pipit on June 12, 2008 at 7:04pm: olive oil

olympus sp510uz
macro setting; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Firefighterswife681 on June 14, 2008 at 11:27am: >; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by grimo1re on June 16, 2008 at 12:27am: A plate with fresh vegies. I didn't have a white plate so had to use this checkered one...not sure if it works. Settings: F4.5, 1/6s and overexposed slightly. Didn't flash as it was a sunny day. Click for larger image.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Kim on June 16, 2008 at 3:58pm

Here's one more I couldn't resist...A beautiful bowl of Father's Day corn on the cob with serving tongs as contrast. Please let me know which one you like better and why.

Attachments:

IMG_1429.jpg, 2.5 MB
IMG_1431.jpg, 3.1 MB

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Permalink Reply by Anna Black on June 19, 2008 at 8:08am: kim - beautiful - can you tell us about the settings?; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Anna Black on June 22, 2008 at 11:51am: By the way I forgot to tell you which I prefer: 1429 - because there is less emphasis on the tongs. The tongs look great in 1431, but just aren't an exciting subject like CORN!!; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Anna Black on June 21, 2008 at 2:28am: Grim - you really captured a lot of detail considering all the different colors / textures mixed in - nice job! I like the checkered plate- white might have been too much white.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Anna Black on June 20, 2008 at 8:23am: This is a Beginner Group - so since I am a BIG TIME beginner I might state the obvious or be wrong, but here goes . . . Ok, so I have never ventured beyond the "basic" settings: portrait, macro etc. But I just purchased my first DSLR and by golly, I have to learn now. So I used this assignment for a baby step: I set the camera on AV (one of the "creative mode" settings) which is aperture priority. This means I select the F-stop and the camera chooses an appropriate ISO for me. As the Canon D40 is hard to focus on automatic, this is a skill I will need to get good at.

A basic and helpful rule of thumb I experimented with was this: higher F-stop (in my case 20) makes a smaller aperture hole (how open the lense is) = more foreground and background will be in focus, lower f-stop (5.6) = larger hole = more blur in foreground and background. It was not difficult to make these changes on the camera, for anyone who is intimidated by all the numbers and settings, I found this was a GREAT first experiment! Blueberries were F/ 5.6 ISO 800, Tomatos were F/20 ISO 800 no flash as I was outside on a perfectly cloudy day. My camera's focus points blink red where the main focus of the shot will be. I have more tomato shots where I switched the F/ if anyone is interested. Here's what I came up with:

And here is why I was forced to switch subjects from blueberries to tomatos:; ▶ Reply to This