If you're interested in
photographing food
, this lesson is a terrific place to get started. John Beckett is a seasoned commercial photography veteran. His work appears in numerous high profile advertising campaigns and celebrity portrait spreads. The key to his success is simplicity, and he shares that approach with you in this lesson. |
Figure 2 | Modifying Sunlight I selected a spot and began building a set. I started off using two saw horses and a slab of marble that would serve as a work surface and an attractive looking background to compliment the rest of the shot. [figures 2, 3 & 4] |
Figure 3 |
Figure 4 |
Figure 5 | It would have been possible to shoot in the shadow areas of the patio, but that would have meant using reflectors or artificial lighting, and would not have given the look I wanted for the shot. The best area was at the edge of the patio where I could use the patio roof beams to help anchor the LitePanel attached to auto poles. [figure 5] |
Figure 6 |
Figure 7 |
I then set up a second LitePanel frame on the other side of the marble surface and attached the white reflective fabric (silver on the other side) to bounce indirect light back into the set. [figure 8] |
Figure 8 |
Figure 10 |
Figure 11 |
If you're going to call yourself a "photographer", it's important to understand f/stops, shutter speeds and depth of field. Learning how to use a light meter is not as difficult as you might think, and it can be of great help in the process. If you can get your hands on one, especially an old one with rotating dials, you can see the relationship between various combinations of shutter speed and aperture settings in ways that will be helpful to your creative process. When metering, I usually take my primary reading with the dome of the meter pointed back towards the camera position. I then factor in the depth of shadows or brightness of highlights that I'm looking to get and then dial in an exposure setting based on that. [figure 12] |
Figure 12 |
Figure 13 | Many photographers use carefully calculated ratios of light in setting up shots. That isn't my approach. For me, there's a "feeling" to each shot's lighting that formulas can't account for. I took a few test frames to determine the best exposure settings. After adding some more "juice" and studying the images, I made minor adjustments to the composition. [figures 13, 14 & 15] |
Figure 14 |
Figure 15 |
Figure 16 | There were key points of composition that need to be changed. At first, I had the focus of the shot more on the oranges in the bowl (circle #1) and the knife (circle #3). All these elements take the eye away from the key features of the glassware. In tabletop photography it is important to be aware of the intersection of elements within a composition. On set, we refer to them as "tangents". That may not fit the exact definition of the word, but it's understood on a shoot to mean that the lines of one object are touching another in an uncomfortable manner. In this case, it was the edge of the glasses touching as indicated by circle #2. [figures 16 & 17] |
Figure 18 | I shifted the front glass to camera left to give a slight overlap, which eliminated the tangent/tension. I then shifted the point of focus to the rim of the rear glass. [figure 18] |
Figure 19 | A strong composition is free of "static" areas. In the same way way artists do with their paintings, the photographer composes a frame wherein the viewer can move through the photograph from one element to another in a smooth and relaxed manner. A static-free image provides a "release point" or avenue to follow back into the image until everything has been taken in and the viewer is ready to move on. This viewing process should happen so effortlessly that the viewer isn't even aware it's happening. [figure 19] |
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