p.1 #4 · Messing around with food/product/studio photography....
Your basic lighting strategy of back rim lighting to define overall shape is a good one and you did a nice job of rendering the 3D shape white-on-white objects with the reflections on them using the fill panels.
Compositionally it's a bit of a train wreck in the sense of the focal points being scattered randomly around. On a light neutral background field like you created with the tray the white objects like the cup and pitcher recede into it and the darker / colorful objects like the coffee in the cup, the cookies and the apple contrast and attract the eye. The problem is that the darker stuff pulls the eye three different directions all at the same time.
What I'd suggest given the content in that shot is:
1) Use a higher POV so more of the coffee in the cup is seen.
2) Arrange the cookies on the tray in the foreground close to the coffee cup so they are seen together not creating the sideways ping-pong.
3) The flowers add a nice additional story element, that it's perhaps a special occasion warranting dressing up the tray but you don't want them pulling attention off the focal points. So like the cookies find a way to unify them with the focal point of the coffee in the cup by putting flowers more directly behind from the POV of the camera so the viewer will see them OOF as context without being pulled off the main focal point and the message of cookies and coffee. At whether to put more focus on coffee or cookies that would depend if it was a shot to promote a comfy B&B, or an ad for cookies or coffee.
4) While you are thinking about the above suggestions eat the fruit. The fruit is a distraction for me because it adds a new color contrast element to the white / brown theme created with the coffee and cookies. My test for distractions is if it was removed would I miss it? I'd miss the cookies, and perhaps the flower, but not the fruit.
p.1 #5 · Messing around with food/product/studio photography....
cgardner wrote:
1) Use a higher POV so more of the coffee in the cup is seen.
2) Arrange the cookies on the tray in the foreground close to the coffee cup so they are seen together not creating the sideways ping-pong.
3) The flowers add a nice additional story element, that it's perhaps a special occasion warranting dressing up the tray but you don't want them pulling attention off the focal points. So like the cookies find a way to unify them with the focal point of the coffee in the cup by putting flowers more directly behind from the POV of the camera so the viewer will see them OOF as context without being pulled off the main focal point and the message of cookies and coffee. At whether to put more focus on coffee or cookies that would depend if it was a shot to promote a comfy B&B, or an ad for cookies or coffee.
4) While you are thinking about the above suggestions eat the fruit. The fruit is a distraction for me because it adds a new color contrast element to the white / brown theme created with the coffee and cookies. My test for distractions is if it was removed would I miss it? I'd miss the cookies, and perhaps the flower, but not the fruit.
From my point of view, this setup is focus on the atmosphere of the scene (leisure..), not any particular item. I'd suggest replacing the wooden plate with some table mat. And, I felt pressure from the black background. It'd be nice having a brighter and tinted background instead. Just make it like outdoor shot.
p.1 #8 · Messing around with food/product/studio photography....
Jon Uhler wrote:
I was going for a atmosphere of leisure....so I guess that worked on some level.
FWIW, when I see that type of shot in editorial layouts such as travel story they always have more appeal when there are some people seen in the shot in the background for context but enough OOF via selective DOF so as not to distract and become the primary focal point. In other words more or less how you positioned and rendered the fruit in the composition. Without the people for context to convey the leisure aspect (they are relaxing not the food) it reads more like a food shot in an advertisement or a cook book to me.
The people complete the answer to the question, "What's the story here?" Who is getting the tray, where and why? You can leave that to the imagination of the viewer as you did here, or provide the answer with the background context making it more of an environmental shot.
