Yummy, Yummy, in my tummy
Reflection
Q1 How did you choose the specific types of food for each portrait? What is their significance?
I chose the specific types of food for each portrait because they were what I had on hand. Both the apple and the orange juice were basically the first thing I could find. They symbolize that a good photographer must be prepared to work with whatever he has and make any situation into art.
Q2 Consider the lighting in your photographs. What was the light source in each of your photos. What time of day? How did it affect the mood and atmosphere of the portraits?
The lighting is soft in the second photo and slightly harsher in the first. This is because it was around 9:45 AM when I took the second photo, while the first photo was under artificial lights at around 10:00 PM. It affects the mood by making the photos appear more dramatic than they are.
Q3 Think about the composition of your photos. Name the composition technique you used for each photo. Why did you choose to crop your photos as shown? Be specific!
For both photos I used rule of thirds. I cropped both photos so that the subject was on the line. I used rule of thirds because it centers your eyes on the subject.
Q4 How do the colors and color splash technique in your photographs contribute to the overall impact of the images? Why did you choose to mask the specific areas in color for each photo?
The colors in my photos contribute to the overall impact of the images by making the subject pop and immediately drawing you eyes to it. The color splash technique basically boosts the power of the color by putting a grayscale on everything else. I chose to mask specific areas in color for each photo because too much color in these kinds of photos would draw viewers eyes to other things than the subject, ruining the whole effect of the photo.
Q5 Consider the technical aspects of your photography, such as focus, depth of field, and exposure. How did you use these techniques to enhance your images?
I used focus in order to make the subject of the photos appear more vibrant, to better stand out against the multitude of other, albeit blurrier, shapes in the picture. I used depth of field to make the subject appear larger than it actually was through cropping. Finally I used exposure in order to make it appear that the light was behind the subject, making for a vibrant but non obstructive background.
Q6 What advice would you give to next year’s students for shooting food portraits?
#1. Plan ahead, when I did this project I did not plan ahead as well as I would have liked and had to wing it.
#2. Read instructions, I did not look at the instructions at first and almost submitted a photo of the wrong thing.
#3. Get food that will make for an interesting photo, an interesting subject is very important to a photo. If your subject is uninteresting, it’s like putting an olive on top of an ice cream sundae, it makes the whole thing unappetizing.