Fruit Workshop

In this workshop we were given a brief that said to photograph the specified fruit or veg (my group were given apples) and any others we would like to do under both studio and natural lighting.

My group was in the area of the studio where the windows are so we set up our fruit by the windows to start the workshop. The windows had South light coming in through them, this had the problem that as it was late afternoon the light was not lasting and moved slowly so our set was constantly moving with it.

I also think we did not fully co-operate as a team, rather than working on making photographs collectively we started working as one photographer and three assistants. While another member of the team was working on her shots with one assistant I asked the fourth member to assist me with setting up another shot in a different area of the lighting; this seemed to cause tension in the group for some unknown reason however I continued shooting as I was not affecting the other members shoot and I wanted to experiment with my own ideas.

After the natural lighting had disappeared for the day we were unsure of what to do next as we could not shoot using window lighting any more, however as the studio groups were finishing a light became available for us to use, as my fruit set up was still laid out I asked if I could use the light first and the group members said yes; shooting with the studio light was much easier than with natural light as it wasn't moving away from my set: it stayed on the light stand and only moved when I moved it.

Personally I think the workshop was successful as I was introduced to shooting food, before this workshop I would not have been considering the "look" of the food and probably would not have thought about how it looks when purchasing it (this got us some funny looks when we were standing in the market stall closely inspecting all the fruits so we could purchase the "best looking")
 I think it was also successful because I worked in a group setting reasonably comfortably whereas before I would have been too nervous to be able to shoot with a clear head and I would have been panicking about what the other people were thinking.

However I do not think all of my outcomes where successful (some have focusing errors and others I do not think the composition works as well as I thought during the shoot. I have included the props to create a school like feel of "giving an apple to the teacher" as this is what I imagined during the shopping trip to buy the fruit. I think the mushroom shot and the first apple shot are successful because they are in focus and they show the product clearly, I think the lighting in the mushroom shot works well because it high lights both the textures from underneath and on top and draws the eye in. The two final apple outcomes I do not feel as though they were as successful because the focus is slightly out and this is highlighted by the shallow DoF in the first image. The second image I think my idea was a little too far fetched and needs expanding, also if I was going to shoot this again I would change the lighting to overhead lighting to remove the shadow as I think it is distracting.

Outcomes :