I made crappy muffins for breakfast and after eating about half a dozen decided it was a good opportunity to practice some of the photography tips I've been reading about. Amos gave me a great book on photographing food for Christmas - Plate to Pixel by Helene Dujardin. So far I've read the chapter on natural light so that's what I was thinking about. You'll see that I haven't gotten to the Food Styling chapter yet.
I started with this. In the pan, showing the action of cooking. Natural light, from the side, not directly on the subject.
Then moved on to the muffins themselves. I started by diffusing the light by hanging a white sheet over the window where the sun was streaming in. The shadows were still stronger than I wanted to I bounced some light back on to them from an aluminum cookie sheet held just off screen on the right. But... brown on brown. Doesn't make me want to eat them.
Tried a fabric background. Made me dizzy.
Ok, simple background, focus on the lighting. Boring.
Experimented with props. Maybe I over-compensated. Pretty busy. Muffins seem insignificant.
I thought I was done so I took down the sheet and found the strong light of the direct sun was pretty interesting so I played around with using it for side lighting.
Finally, just to see what happened I used it for backlighting. I like how the muffins really stand out in these images, but they aren't boring like the other one that only had muffins in it.
I like the strength of the backlighting a lot. I also like the strong side lighting but think it's a bit harsh. Seems like there might be a way to get the strong shadows of the direct sun but somehow soften it a bit. Not sure, but maybe the next chapter will give me a clue.
Love, Elise
2 comments:
I think they are all beautiful. I even like the brown on brown. What kind of muffins were they?
Pear ginger. Should have been good, but needed more ginger. Also got too healthy and cut the butter and sugar to an unpleasant degree.
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