One Food Photography C&C

[RealityCaptured]

Hey everyone. I had some chocolate fondue on Sunday and decided to shoot a photo for my 365. I've tried food photography in the past, but when reviewing them I just never could see my goal in it. I'm looking to shoot a photo of food that looks like a photo of food you would come across in a magazine or on the wall of Subway or something. Just a shot that doesn't look like I simply took my p&s and took a picture of my lunch.

Maybe this shot will take more than my eyes. How does it look for composition, color, and quality? Is it more than a just a snap of a strawberry and apple? All C&C greatly appreciated, I would really like to shoot more food photography, but I just can't see it. Hopefully it's there... whatever "it" is

Lighting was natural light in the house.
Edited in LR3, noise reduced, red and green levels adjusted, slight contrast and clarity increase.

ISO 800
32mm
f/5
1/6 sec.
Handheld

 

[StevePPhoto]

looks good. I cant believe this was shot at f5 why did you chose such a small aperture

 

[RealityCaptured]

Thanks Steve. I wanted to go as low as I could without the two main pieces going out of focus. The light in the room was pretty low.

 

[Dan Padavona]

Looks good. That's pretty sharp for hand held at 1/6 sec, well done!

 

[tirediron]

C&C per req:

It's a start, but you have a long way to go (This may seem VERY nit-picky, however you did say you were after a professional result). First, the surface on which hte food rests should be level, and the background free of distractions. The sliced apples are good, the shiny, silver stuff further to the right, not so much.

Next, let's look at composition: The right-hand most edge of the bowl is cropped and shapes of the fruit are "fighting" with the shape of the bowl. Turn the apple slice around so that it's natural curve follows the rim of the bowl (or plate, whichever it is). The strawberry should not resting on the rim, but securely inside it and all of the subject should be in sharp focus, or at least all of the foreground. The way to shoot this, IMO, would have been medium aperture (f8 - 11) and long-ish (150mm-ish) glass.

Next the technical: The lighting is lacking. You need at least one more light/reflector centre, low to provide illumination on the side of the bowl and lower part of the strawberry. The application of the chocolate is rather messy and there is lots of on the edge of the bowl, as well as the fact that the strawberry leaves are wilted and limp.

Food photography is a VERY specialized and difficult discipline. A magazine-quality version of this image would probably take at least a half-day to shoot, require at least three lights and probably produce several hundred proof images from which to choose. You've done well enough with what you had.

Just my $00.02 worth - your mileage may vary.

~John

 

[bazooka]

I don't know much, if anything about food photography, but this shot doesn't work for me. The warm, hard light from what I'm guessing is a tungsten bulb is creating harsh specular highlights on the chocolate and the strawberry, the table, and the dish.

What's going on in the background?

As for arranging the fruit on the dish, I feel like they aren't "connected" in anyway. I would recommend simplifying and starting with just the strawberry or just the apple and put it on a plain surface. Glass creates problems of it's own that are more difficult to deal with than an opaque surface. Once you get a simplified shot that works, you can start adding more to it if it indeed adds to the photograph. You probably know by now though, that with photography, more is usually less, and less is usually more.