Wanna Hear a Joke?::Soup::January 31

From GCFL.net:

Big Fish
Received from Jonathan Skinner

A class was taken on a fishing boat for a field trip, and
the teacher, in an attempt to lessen fears of big fish,
stated, "There are no fish big enough to swallow people."

"But how about the fish that swallowed Jonah I learned about
in Sunday school?" asked one little boy.

"You can't believe everything you're told," responded the
teacher.

"I'll ask Jonah when I get to heaven," he replied.

"What if Jonah didn't go to heaven?" prodded his teacher.

"Then you ask him," was the reply.

OH! I forgot to show you my soup pic.



It is tricky to shoot food! The colors have to be just right, and it's hard to tell where the focal point should be. I think this soup is just right, though. Except for the little bit of carrot on the side. Oh well.

It is also difficult to photograph food because it doesn't have a built in focal point like people and animals do. You can't just look deeply into the cookie's eyes, focus and click. So what *do* you focus on?!

I didn't realize any of these problems until I started trying to photograph food.

I wish that I would have kept the bad examples so that I could show them to you also. Envision this, if you can: no vegies showing, so it was just a mass of broth; the light turning the broth's color just a hint of green. Yuck. Not quite what I was going for.

Today's practice was grilled cheese:


I also took some pics of my tuna sandwich, but quickly deleted the pasty-whitish/pinkish grossness. I'll have to try that one on another day when I've got a few more tricks up my sleeve.

Here are the tips and tricks I've learned so far:

Try to find your subject's focal point. Turn the dish around and around, looking at it from all angles. Get down a little lower, like when you photograph a baby and see if that helps.

Get the lighting right. Lighting will change the subtle shades of color. Even flash will do that, so try to use a warm, natural light, or if you need to use flash, play with the intensity of it, maybe putting your hand in front of it, like I did with the doll. Even the shadow on the grilled cheese detracts a little from the pic; when I try again, I'll try to avoid that.

Pay attention to the background. I put the bowl of soup on that placemat because it felt more earthy & homey, just what I felt a vegetable soup needed. I also put it in the white bowl, because I've read that colored dishes will sometimes distort the color of the food in the dish, making it appear unappetizing.

Make the food look delish. With the soup, I rested the spoon on a dumpling in the bottom of the bowl, which pushed the vegetables up just a little to make the soup appear to be loaded with vegies. With the grilled cheese, I looked at the whole sandwich first, then pulled the halves apart a bit, making the cheese pull apart a little. I like the effect, and even think that the cheese strands act a little as leading lines, leading the eye back and forth between the halves.

Throughout this month, I'm going to focus a lot on food. I think there are lots of tricks I'll be able to learn by study and practice.
January is OVER, can you believe it? I hope that you enjoy this last day of January.