In this photo I had to decide what type of orientation I wanted to use. I decided on landscape and the reason for this is because it instantly increased the content in the image as if I chose to take the picture portrait it would have cropped out all the goodness in the picture that is wanted. The second thing I had to take into consideration when taking the photo was vectors and how I could draw the eye around the image, to do this I asked Charlie Williams to add a dash of grated cheese on the top and a leaf of mint by doing this it automatically makes the food look more professional once I had done I had to choose the angle in which I would shoot the shot, I didn’t want too much background in the frame I wanted to see if I could fill it with the food so I found an angle in which I could focus on the front of the food and blur out the back this way you can focus more on the front of the image because it is the clearest part, this links into the focal point on the photograph which Is indeed the mint lead and the front of the frame and it is a sharp focus leaving the background slightly soft like fuzzy. The depth of the field is narrow, by this I mean that only a limited portion of the image is clearly in focus which is what I wanted because it easily catches the eyes of someone. One of the most important things I had to think about when taking this photo was light
and how id create it, I could use artificial light but I thought It would make the whole thing fake or natural light which I decided on the reason for that is because it made the picture look natural as it could of looked too bright using artificial light. In order to improve the photo I used Photoshop, when editing I also thought about how the image is being presented so I decided to increase the Hue and Saturation on the mint leaf therefore it stand out even more and catch the attention of a reader. The next step I took in editing the photo was increasing the brightness and contrast so that I could get the rich colour in the food as you see to your left and lastly I cropped the image so that I didn’t have all the unwanted background such as kitchen utensils etc. if I would of kept it.
The second photo I am analysing is a pizza, once again before taking this picture I had to decide what orientation I was going to take the photo at and once again I chose landscape. The reason for this is I could include a lot more content in the photo by taking a landscape shot rather that a portrait shot as it cut half of the image out that I wanted to include. I wanted to get a close up on the toppings so that I could draw the attention via that so I manually focused my lens on the pepper and chicken as you can see. When I took the photograph I placed my camera on a tripod and positioned it slightly over the top of the food and tilted it slightly forward so that I could get the whole pizza in without too much background included. The focal point of the image has to be the front of the food as that’s what looks more appealing as I put sharp focus on it so that it would be the main concentration on the board. And once again I decided to make my depth of field narrow as I think it goes best with close ups because you get a clear view of the focal point. Lastly I used natural light for my picture because with artificial the image was too bright and looked to staged.
Once I gathered all my photos from the 16th I chose 10 photos that I thought had potential to make professional, to do what I did on the second photo of the left I increased the tone so that I could get the true colours out of the food I
also used the clone stamp to zap out any unwanted that were left on the board. The very last things I did on the edited photo was I increased the Hue and Saturation and Brightness and Contrast as it adds more colour to the photograph and ultimately makes the picture look professional and presentable.
My third chosen picture that I am analysing is picture of a homemade burger and chips. When taking this photo I figured that I could get a better close up by shooting it landscape therefor that’s why I shot it this way. Also I had to create a vector in the image deciding on how I would draw the eye around the image so concentrated on the two burgers blurring out the chips which also links into the focal point of the picture which is the burgers it is the clearest part of the picture. When choosing my depth of field I knew straight away that I was going to make it a narrow depth of field because I could concentrate on a proportion of the image which turned out to be the burgers as I could get a really good close up that shows the onions and the cheese inside. Lighting with this photo I struggled with because I wanted to show the juices that are in the meat but I didn’t want to overpower the picture with grease and juice but on the other hand the recipe book has a target audience of teens and young adults and at that age you aren’t really interested in eating healthy you want to eat something juicy and slightly greasy so I decided to use the natural light and also support it with the flash off my camera because it gave the glow off the meat as you can see to the left.
When it came to editing the photo I couldn’t make as many adjustments as I was planning to because I concentrated
making my focal point better so the only adjustments that I made were I cropped the image making it more detailed as it is a smaller image and also I increased the Brightness and Contrast slightly so I could get more colour on the burgers and the end of the chips.
This is my first food action shot and it was taken during the preparation for the Spaghetti Bolognaise that Charlie Williams was making, I thought that when a student is making the meal they will want to see if they are on the right lines with making the meatballs so I used Charlie as my example when he was putting together his meatballs. Again I decided to use a landscape shot because I wanted to get more of the image in via landscape rather than portrait, this way I could get both of his hands in moulding the meatballs. Another framing technique that I considered was vectors; I used vectors by making the meatballs and hands the main focal point in my image. I also had to decide if I wanted my picture blurred or sharp and in this case I wanted the hands and meatballs sharp whilst the background slightly blurred and soft. My penultimate decision when taking this photo was deciding what depth of field I wanted, I was stuck between narrow and deep but in the end I decided on deep depth of field as there is significance in both the foreground being the meatballs themselves and the background being the comedy value being behind the apron as is it not just food I am trying to put forward the enjoyment and the laughs behind it. Lastly I chose natural light because when I tried with the artificial light it gave a glow of the glossy apron and the features on Charlie’s hands were too distinct.
When I got back to class with my pictures I was more than certain that I wanted to use this photo and the reason for that is that is shows how easy it is to create the food as students have created it themselves. When I was editing the photo I didn’t want to take out any of the original photo and colour out of it because sometimes you can make the image look too fake so I decided to crop the image to get any unwanted area out and also I used the clone stamp to get rid of the objects that were on the surface as you can see, the last thing I did to edit the photo was I slightly increased the hue and saturation so that I could get all the colours back that the lens had taken out.
Food Photography Analysis
This shot also comes under a preparation shot however it is not my favourite because the steam takes over the picture which is what I wasn’t looking for. But anyway I chose shooting this shot landscape because I could get more of the image in the frame as if I took it landscape I would of got half of the image I have before you. The vectors that I created when shooting this shot were the three pans with the ingredients in, the reason why I had this idea is because it shows the simplicity in creating the food which is what you want to show to the audience. The image itself is fairly sharp because there are three different focal points therefore if I had the picture slightly blurred it wouldn’t mean I would have three focal points it would mean id have one maybe two. This also means that the depth of the field is wide because you can see as much of the foreground as you can see background as technically possible. Lastly when I took the photo I already had too much light as the natural light coming through the windows was shining on the white surfaces causing it to shine brightly into the lens when I pressed the shutter button so I decided to leave artificial light and go with natural which I could kind or cope with, it also caused the steam to show up more in my image because the light was shining right through it.
Because of the steam and light making the picture cluttered
I couldn’t really un-clutter it so I just used the clone stamp to get rid of any background that I didn’t want like kitchen utensils etc. Another tool I used on Photoshop when editing the photo was the cropping tool as there was some parts of the image that I didn’t want to keep.
This picture automatically gets the look I want from the wooden board that is used as it gives that homily feeling that some students might want if they are feeling slightly homesick. When I first took this photo I tried taking it portrait because I wanted to see if I could get a close up on the ingredients but it didn’t work very well so I resulted in shooting landscape again. I tried drawing the eye to the image by using the chilli and mint leaf again as it just adds a bit more colour to the picture. Before all the technical decisions though I had to set my camera up, my decision was to set it up slightly raised above the garlic bread as I could include all the board as well. When I came to focussing my camera I decided that I couldn’t really concentrate on the chilli as it would of ruined the photo so I put a slight focus point in the middle of the food. However the focal point isn’t the middle of the bread it is the chilli because it is a different colour. Another thing I took into consideration before taking the photo was the depth of field which I decided it would be deep focus therefore the viewer’s gaze can see that most of the picture technically speaking is in focus. The last thing I considered was lighting and how it would affect the picture I thought that using articial lighting it would make the food look too greasy so I stayed with the natural light like in most of my photos.
This photo is my least favourite as I couldn’t get as much light into the photo as I wanted and when I used artificial light it was too bright. I took the photo landscape because it was the only way I could get more light into it. But when it came to finding something that could instantly draw the eye around the image the garlic being crushed came to my mind, this then acts as a vector and focal point for the picture. I also blurred out the back ground so that I could concentrate on the focal point because I wasn’t having much look with the light, by blurring out the background slightly it has gave the foreground a bit of hope. My chosen depth of field is narrow as I didn’t want a photo that just looked dull I wanted to focus of the garlic by leaving the foreground sharp and the background slightly blurred and soft. As I said I never had much luck with the light and even using artificial light it never justified the picture like I envisaged it to look.
Because of the light issue I thought I could edit the picture on Photoshop but it didn’t really work the only thing it did was make the photo too saturated and bright. However I managed to use the clone stamp to get rid of any scratches that were on the garlic crusher and also I cropped the picture to a more suitable size.
This photo I had to take quickly as it had just been taken out the oven and I wanted to catch the cheese still bubbling with the temperature. Once again I took this photo because it allowed me to include everything that I was in the image. The vectors that I have included in this picture have been produced by enhancing the colours in the tomato puree and cheese. Before I took the picture I set my camera up on my tripod just above the food and thought about how I would focus the picture, my end decision was keep the whole photo in focus and sharp as it wouldn’t really work if I made any of the photo blurred this leads in to say that my depth of field is deep as it is all in focus. When I took this photo I didn’t have that many problems with the light as it was still reasonably light so I could deal with the natural light rather than artificial.
When I was editing the photo I decided I wanted to bring more colour into it that would make it look more delightful to eat so I increased the hue and saturation and slightly increased the brightness and contrast by doing this it made the picture brighter. I also cropped the image but I prefer the size of the first image because in my opinion the newly edited photo looks too squashed, the last thing I did to edit the photo was I used the clone stamp to wipe out any imperfections in the image that I didn’t want.
My penultimate photo I took because I wanted to add more comedy to my photos as they don’t all have to be so serious you can add a bit off humour to them as the target audience is students. This photo is the first photo that I took portrait and the reason for this is I could concentrate more on Charlie and not the surrounding if I took it landscape. The photo was taken just above Charlie’s shoulders this way I could get more of picture being Charlie himself. I put a focus on Charlie because he is the focal point of the image. By putting a focus on the figure of Charlie it instantly draws your eye to him which is what I wanted, this means that also my depth of field is narrow because the foreground of my image is focused and the background is soft. The light in this photo is all natural as if I used artificial it would of turned out to saturated.
I didn’t do that much editing on this picture because I didn’t think it needed it, the first thing I did was cropped it to a smaller size and I also used the spot healing tool to blend in any imperfections that were originally on the photo and the last thing I did was increase the brightness and contrast slightly to give the effect that is shown in the bottom photo.
My last photo I am analysing is in the runs for my favourite picture that I have taken in this project. I took this photo landscape on my tripod positioned nearly on line with the food the reason for this is because it gives a bird’s eye view in a way also I made my vector at the back of the image focusing more at the ingredients in the background which makes it my focal point for the image as it is the clearest part of the image. The depth of the field is also narrow as the background of the image is sharp whereas the foreground is blurred which is what makes it a narrow depth of field. The light that brightens up the food is artificial light as well as natural because it gives the food a warm glow.
The photo however I didn’t edit because it had all the colours I wanted the only thing I could go back into Photoshop and do is use the clone stamp to get rid of the object in the top right hand corner.