Richie Leeson

 Today we were given a talk and demonstration by Richie Leeson, he showed us some of his work then demonstrated how to light a pair of shoose, witch was a standard lighting set up for a lot of product work. 

The lighting set up included: 

• 2 Bowens at the back lighting the white backdrop.
• 2 Elincroms that lit the product.
• 2 polystyrene boards with the white side facing the backdrop and the black side facing the product.
• 1 sheet of glass.
• 1 sheet of white paper to put under the glass.
• 1 piece of perspex board to use as a reflector and defuser.  

To get everything looking sharp and white it was easier to change it capture one rather than the actual light so we bumped up the highlights on the histogram.

Final Images

Chocolate Orange

I felt like I needed to have another go at some product shots. I had a look at how I would like to light the product and then set up an arrangement that would do this. I wanted a gradient background so I pulled the white backdrop out quite far and had the product close to the edge, there was a long white distance for the light to climb up and this created the gradient. 

I wanted a really clean sharp shoot, so I used the Phase One so everything would be crystal clear 

Final Photos 

Soup

Todays Shoot was to create a rustic home made soup image. This was created by a assembling a defuser screen in front of a large window. Again I only used natural lighting for this as it was at 11am and there was plenty of light coming through with out having any studio lighting set up.

  

I wanted to have a go with the Phase One camera so I could see the difference in quality. At first the lens I was using was not focusing as close as I would have liked so I changed it to the Macro lens so I could get a nice tight shot. It was a really good camera to use and would probably be more affective if there were more textures in the shoot so it could pick up all the detail.

   

To get the soup looking really fresh it looked better to use the tool on Capture One to paint around the soup and brighten it by changing the hue and saturation. 

Final Photos

Product Shots

To practise with the lighting for a standard product shot we were photographing a white golf ball against a white backdrop. The challenge was getting the right exposure on both. 

To get the right exposure on the golf ball and the background we used two lights, the Elinchrom to light the golfball and the Bowens with a snoot to light the background. We also added a white piece of paper under the ball to reflect light back into it to avoid shadows.

After we had got both things white it was time to have a go and photographing some real packaging. we had to alter the lighting arrangement a little as it wasn't all white, but it was just minor adjustments like moving lights closer or further away. 

Pancake

With pancake day coming up I wanted to photograph a stack of them for todays shoot. My lighting set up was pretty simple. I set up and Elincrom reflecting of the white board while the natural light filled in the rest. But it looked better without the elincrom so it was just the natural light through the window and the white board to put some light on the other side.

I thought I would try the trick with the cottonwood balls microwaved in hot water to create steam behind the food. I had a go but the steam didn't last long and I didn't want to keep running into the other studio to use the microwave because there was another shoot on in there. So I will have a go next time when I have access to a microwave.

  

I was happy with light lighting as it looked like a sunny morning breakfast scene, and by capturing the syrup dripping off the stack of pancakes it make it look even more appealing. 

Final Images

Group Critique

From the group critique today I got some good feedback and as always its nice to have a look at what everyone els is doing to see how you can make your own work stand out. The feedback that I got was that the photo of the salad could be lightened slightly but, it was pointed out that it's always better to go two stops under because shadows can add mystery to food.

Colour Printing

The colour space is the area size of the colour options there are to print from. Different colour spaces vary in size. It is important to know what the colour space is to what you are getting printed, because you want to know that your print is going to be the right colours. If your image has a different colour space to the paper you are getting it printed on this can affect the quality of the colour as it could darken the image by giving it a brown washed look. 

If the image does have a different colour space to the paper you can soft proof the image in photo shop to get an idea of what it will actually look like then convert its profile.

To render the colours you can either relitive render which will move all the layers in with the colour that is needed. This will keep a close likeness to the correct overall colour.

Or you can select Perceptual rendering but this will only move the colour tithe one layer that has been chosen and by not moving all the layers in one can change the contrast of the image.

Alison Parks-Whitfield

http://www.alisonparkswhitfield.com/index2.php

Alison Parks-Whitfield's work is very different to what I had been looking at from Delores Custer. Whitfield's work sometimes look quite hazy,with soft lighting on many photographs and is usually displayed in a tight crop with only a bit of the item showing, then again that's all she needs to show to make the product look appealing.

Her lights seems pretty specific to the item she is shooting. She captures what time of day you might consume the product and this is reflected in her lighting. Her pictures of morning food such as toast and porridge is shot in bright natural light as that what you hope to stat your day looking at. But then other product shots like the scones and jam are in a much dimmer light as though it is late afternoon, this makes the consumer think of when they might want the product and how it will make them feel.    

Delores Custer

http://www.delorescuster.com/home.php

By looking at Delores Custer's work I can see the difference in styles for different foods. For example the way she photographs a sharp looking chocolate pudding has a completely different feel to how she might photograph a rustic apple pie.

Custer comes across in her work as a real mother figure that likes real home made food and I think this comes across in her work by making it feel warm affectionate. Then on the other side she produces really modern looking sharp photographs that come across as sleek and fresh.  

McDonalds

http://www.picturecorrect.com/tips/food-photography-tips-mcdonalds/

Above is a link to a video about how McDonald's go about their food photography. It is obvious that the product in the pictures and what you get in real life look completely different, this isn't due to major photoshop skills but by simple skills that make the product more appetising.

They start my using fresh ingredients like the bread for example, they use just out of the oven bread buns because they are more risen and haven't had time to be flattened. Then they bring all the fillings of the burger to the front so the consumer can see what they are getting in that particular item. They they add small touches like melting the cheese in certain places and syringe ketchup in where it's needed.        

Blueberry

I thought I would try something a little different for this shoot and decided to add wasps on top of the berries . . . .  I thought the yellow would stand out against the blue and create a contrast in colour as well as bugs on fruit. 

Even though it doesn't look appetising I am still really happy with the outcome. 

Ice-Cream

 I was asked to do some photographs for a ice-cream parlour for their website. They were taken in a bright room full of windows, so I decided that lights wern't necessary. There were over 30 flavours to photograph but once I had set up the light for the first one it was easy enough to put the next one in the same stop that I had marked in the worktop. The one this that I feel like I could have done differently was I should have turned the lights off in the room as it is reflecting onto the plait.

Cheese

For this specific shoot I decided to use the Hasselblad with a digital back, as I wanted to use a high quality camera. It was tricky to focus with at the start but with a bit of practise and the help of capture one I soon got the hang of it.   

My shoot was set up with no lights, just the natural light from the large window on the left. the light from the window was then defused with a white screen that had been assembled in front of it. 

I think the use of the white screen to defuse the light had worked well as it made the light much softer and got rid of the harsh shadows. Capture one was also really helpful as it was hard to focus the camera, but by using the tool the puts everything green when it's in focus made it much easier to get it right. 

The Final Photo

Salad

My second shoot was with salad. It was much better this time as I had more confidence in the studio. The lighting set up was something I hadn't tried before though, there was an Elinchrom with soft box reflecting onto a white screen which then bounced onto the food and then another white screen that filled in the shadows on the other side.    

The final photos

Bit Box

I started gathering a few items for my bit box, as I do a more shoots I will gather more things that will be helpful for my future shoots. So far I have got together scissors, tweezers, salt grinder, pepper grinder and walnuts.

Oranges

My first attempt at food photography was practicing with oranges. It was a good little starter but there is obviously a lot of work to be done but to start with it was good to just start playing with angles and learning things as simple as the right way to cut fruit  

Colour Printing

My first time shooting in colour film was really enjoyable, but this meant having to get use to the colour dark room. I was pretty daunting at the time but after a few test strips I started to get the hang of the new environment.   

The test strips above was from my hardest print as it was going to be a very dark print as the man in the photo was stood in a dark doorway. It was difficult to not go too far and burn out his face. but after plenty of test strips I finely had finished my last print for the project.