Research
Home made cup cakes
Michael Hall
Michael Hall
This image is nice as it fits well with the title. The image is less about the end product and there is a bigger importance placed on the making. Due to this I think this design would work really well in a children’s cooking book. I also really like the imperfection of the photograph. The icing’s texture is really nice as it’s not been modeled for the shot and same with the messy spoon in it. Also the messy cake case is a nice touch. The vibrant colour that’s in the images is really nice as it draws the attention to the shot. This is also a reason of why I believe it would be perfect for a children’s recipe book, as it adds a fun quality to it. This is much more appealing that just a dull cake.
Cut orange with knife James Ross
This image is effective because it has a very shallow depth of field so the key focus is only on the orange. This is effective as your eye only view the orange so it’s easier on the eye. This is also effective as it has been framed with quite old fashioned homely objects. For example the wooden knife is dated as is the chopping board. Te wood is also a nice touch adding to the homely feel about it. The wooden base that has been chosen here is effective as it is a very monochrome base to place the orange on. Therefore the orange is much more vibrant and juicier looking. The chopped pips that are placed just in front of the orange is clearly been staged that way as is the orange and the angle the orange was laid out and only one half is visible. Yet it has all been staged in a natural way so it doesn’t look awkward. However this image could be improved in my opinion by adding more detail to the orange on the same level the knife has detail, as the orange is a bleached out and over exposed or has been edited too much in Photoshop. For me food is much more appealing if it is juicy with texture.
Emma Innocenti
I really like this image as the food has bee shot in context which adds effect. For example popcorn is a cinema food therefore it’s nice that the lady is wearing 3D glasses (which originated from cinema and is only wore there) and also the velvet curtain also associated with shows. It’s also different because the food has been photographed with people which adds a new dynamic to the image, as they could have just photographed the popcorn in a cinema bucket. I think this way is much more creative. I like the composition of the image how the popcorn is falling but it only falls half way down the shot. I also like how the lady is not completely in the centre and is at an angle so you can see her sticking her tongue out to catch the popcorn. Composition is definitely this photographs strength.
Examples of recipe cards
I like the use of columns here and coloured text boxes to find information quickly and efficiently. I think this is important because when cooking you will loose you’re place in the text and the paragraphed method helps know where you are. I think this is a simple design that works well. I like the white background as sometimes text can not stand out as much in a coloured background as it’s harder to get right. I also think the picture is effective and big enough to notice when flicking through a cook book trying to find the page you lost. It’s informitive in a simplistic way. This works.
This picture isn't as eye catching as the plate is too busy compared to Jamie’s simple dough on a wooden chopping board. I also feel there was too many links on the recipe card on this one that it’s hard to read the recipe. I can see why the editor included this but for me it’s cluttered and doesn’t work. Also putting the ingredients in hyperlinks at the side makes it really hard to see where the ingredients are. I really don’t like this lay out.
My work
I really like the textures in this image as the icing is really glossy. I also like the way the tea towels textures has really been picked up. I achieved this by using the macro setting on my camera and used manual focus so the skittles were really in focus. A shallow depth of field has also been employed here. I did this so focus was only on what I wanted the eye to see. When I considered the back ground I wanted it to be clear so I positioned the angle and got closer up so no clutter was in the background or the sides of the shot. However from taking this image and getting some parts overly exposed I need to be aware of this and perhaps shoot to underexpose digitally and bring out the detail in Photoshop. However I think I only just get away with this in this context as it makes the sweets look like they are glistening, adding new texture to them. This was a happy accident though and I need to be aware of it in future.
I feel composition in this image is its strongest point. I’ve set out 4 coasters, one for each cake, and placed candles in the cake so there is lots of repetitive vertical and horizontal lines making it a little more interesting to look at. I also like the how the candles fill negative space, which wouldn’t work in all photographs but it is effective here. However the image is a bit overexposed in this image and from it I have learnt to try not to over expose. Yet I found it challenging to expose so the candles were appearing to glow but also not to over expose and loose detail. However I think the focus is good on this. I used shallow depth of field again for the same reasons as before, which was helped to be create with the macro setting on my camera. The weakest point of this photograph is the background clutter and the coldness of the table ending. This image would work a lot better on an infinitive line, as this ruins a potentially good thing.
I’m really happy with this image as it is the only one that wasn’t over exposed. I also like how using a lower aperture than what a light meter would suggest creates this glowing effect on the candle you don’t usually see with your eye. However Again I really don’t like the back ground but feel that an infinitive line wouldn’t work that well with this. Therefore maybe I could blur the background in Photoshop and mute it down, possibly by trying the background in black and white and the foreground kept in colour. However this wouldn’t be traditional to food photography so it may be down to taste of whether it would be effective. To improve I should experiment with Photoshop but still keep the images natural and not Photoshop the image too much. I really like the idea of the composition in this photograph. Although it may not work on a cook book level I really like the idea and feel it worked best with my idea of how I made the cake and the baked cake in one photograph. However on the other hand this may work really well in a cook book as it’s different and people like to see things they haven’t seen before, maybe this would encourage them to cook it?
What I tried to create was actually baking the cake in the final image in one shot. So I added flour and some egg shells to experiment again. I’m not entirely happy with the end result, however much I liked the idea. Therefore the end result I will not use this image. I also need to practice taking note of what’s in the background and controlling it when doing food photography.
This is terribly exposed and it bleaches out the feather’s detail and the background could be a lot better as the edge of the table is in sight. However I really love the composition. Again this may not be best for a cook book, but I like how for once the cakes are blurry. However more creative cook books such as Marie Claire may include this type of style. I also like how the flour sprinkled on the eggs, a key aspect to making cake. Overall this is a bad image technically speaking, however I feel it is a really good idea that may just need more nurturing. Maybe it doesn’t work with cake and would work better with colourful ingredients such as plums for a plum pie.
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