Some food pictures for a friend

[Msteelio91]

Friend of mine is starting an all-natural food business and wanted some pictures of her food.

All CC welcome!

Honey & Yogurt 2 by Matthew_Steele, on Flickr

Honey & Yogurt by Matthew_Steele, on Flickr

Food1 by Matthew_Steele, on Flickr

Peppers by Matthew_Steele, on Flickr

 

[pjaye]

The first ones need a better background. The black is distracting.

 

[KmH]

Better quality light and light direction will make a huge difference, as will understand about the 'family of angles' so you can avoid hot spots like the ones on the peppers.
This is the product and shiny things (like peppers) lighting bible, which is why it's in it's 4th edition:
Light Science and Magic: An Introduction to Photographic Lighting

 

[dannylightning]

the first 2 are not doing anything for me. the 3rd one is pretty good, I really like the last one though.

 

[Msteelio91]

The first ones need a better background. The black is distracting.

Fair point, I was working in her apartment so I didn't really have too many options on that front. I thought that looked better than a couch lol.

Better quality light and light direction will make a huge difference, as will understand about the 'family of angles' so you can avoid hot spots like the ones on the peppers.
This is the product and shiny things (like peppers) lighting bible, which is why it's in it's 4th edition:
Light Science and Magic: An Introduction to Photographic Lighting

Yeah I really need to delve deeper into lighting and get a real feel for it. These shots were taken using the SB800 that Lew very generously lent me for a while. On the hotshoe since I didn't have any other stands or hands.

the first 2 are not doing anything for me. the 3rd one is pretty good, I really like the last one though.

Fair enough, the last one is my favorite as well. I really thing the first two could have benefited from a more interesting subject in the green dish as well. It's tough making yogurt look good haha

 

[mmaria]

- the last one is my favorite but it needs more light from the left
- the carrots pict also
- fingertips are on the glass
- why did you tilt the first two?
- wrong bg for the first two
- wrong table for the first two don't choose multiple patterns all over the picture (table, that wooden thing-don't know English word, bg)

Clean, fresh and simple are the must in food.... anyway, jmo

 

[snowbear120 51]

I do prefer the second over the first one, though the green dish (yogurt?) is out of focus. I would have used a smaller aperture to get all of the subject items in focus. I won't repeat what's already been said.

 

[sleist]

The shot with the carrots has the most potential, but the composition is not well balanced.
You allowed the raised portion of the cutting board to dictate the location of the food and were left with an unflattering arrangement as a result. These also seem soft to me. I haven't check the exif, but if these were hand held shots, then perhaps the shutter was a bit too slow. Either that or slightly missed focus, but the softness seems too uniform for missed focus.

The 4th one is OK, but in this case the arrangement is forced and contrived which detracts.

Given the recent discussion on "horizons", I would have leveled #1 a bit. The tilt is not complimentary in this example.

#2 has the best compositionally, but it suffers from the same softness. I might have applied some mild vignette to reduce the impact of the background.

 

[sleist]

I might have done something like this with #2: