Still Life #2- Food

This weekend I created still life shots using fruits and veggies with unique textures and bright colors. I discovered there is a lot to think about when using food as a subject. It's important to decide what kind of shots you're going to take before cutting anything and it's best to choose foods that don't brown easily.

Before shooting I read through my camera manual again, taking notes and jotting down quick tips. I'm getting comfortable understanding what ISO settings to use under what conditions but today I had trouble with the focus setup. My camera was set to "Program" mode but as I was playing around I did something to adjust the "Focus Lock" setting.  I didn't realize I had done this until I started shooting and couldn't get the camera to focus. I went back through the manual and think it had something to do with having the "AE Lock" set to Off but this is something I'll need to address with my teacher next week because I'm not exactly sure I fixed it.

To setup my still life I chose to use a large bay window in our house to provide the natural light. I started shooting around noon. One thing that was difficult was finding an angle to shoot that didn't cast a shadow on the subject. I used a tripod for this shoot because I intended to shoot extremely close. The tripod was helpful although it was difficult positioning it to get the angle I wanted- hopefully with more practice setting up the tripod will be less cumbersome.

Below are the images that were shot. I wanted to crop in close so that the texture and details of the fruit were crisp and exaggerated. The image seemed to look exactly the same with the ISO set to 200 or 800 although after opening in Photoshop I realized 800 was not necessary. When zoomed in on the ISO800 shots you'll notice the image is a bit grainy.

I used most of the following adjustments to create the finished photos:

• Increase exposure to +.95
• Increased blacks from 5 to 10
• Increased brightness from 50-56
• Increased contrast from 25-45
• Increased clarity to +7
• Decreased Vibrance to -5
• Decreased saturation to -4
• Increased Tone Curve very slightly
• Increased Sharpening from 25 to 30
• Shadows decreased tint to -16
• Decreased Red hue to -30
• Decreased Green hue to -5
• Increased Green saturation to +15
• Increased Blue to +11
• Increased Blue Saturation to +23

After these adjustments the Kiwi image looked like this:

To enhance the kiwi texture and give it a slimy-wet look I created a duplicate layer in Photoshop and applied a "Plastic Wrap" filter which made the photo look like this:

Next I moved the "slimy" layer to the bottom and began erasing (eraser at 48%) the original image to let some of the highlights from the plastic wrap filter show through. The end result was pretty neat:

This technique seemed to work well to achieve the look of a freshly cut piece of fruit so I edited the following photos using the same process and plastic wrap filter.

 

Before Editing

 After Editing

Digital Photography - Week 1

So I've had my Nikon for almost a year now but haven't actually sat down to read through the manual. I think part of it's my "jump-in-and-figure-things-out-as-you-go" personality, which tends to work when I put together furniture (most of the time), but I'm realizing now this strategy will not work if I want to become a better photographer.

Ryan and I met in the photo studio and started testing my camera with an old Nikon flash of his. It took a while to figure out the right settings and white balance but we finally got it. For one of my first projects I wanted to setup a still life using my old pointe shoes. Ballet is a huge part of my life. I danced since I was 4 years old and spent four years with the Rochester City Ballet in high school. Although I don't practice much anymore it has shaped me into the person I am and will always be one of my true passions in life.

We set the shoes in the light box and tried different ISO and F stop settings. I can't seem to remember what each combination does to the overall effect but I hope with practice and constant referencing it will come to mind more naturally. After about an hour of shooting the pointe shoes we opened Photoshop and starting adjusting the images. It's amazing how many effects you can get with a click of the mouse. However, my goal is to take photos that do not need much manipulation in the end. I'd like to use Photoshop as a tool to enhance the photos rather than change them entirely.

So this is what I learned after Week 1:

• F-Stop: AKA the "aperature" determines how much light hits the sensor. The aperature setting works the opposite of what you would think- the higher the number the less light is let in. The lower the number the more light is let in. This little graphic helps me visualize this better:

• ISO- ISO determines the film speed and how sensitive the image sensor is to the amount of light being let in. The lower the ISO the less sensitive, the higher the ISO the more sensitive.
• Lastly- I learned I need to get to know my camera. This means reading and re-reading the manual.  

Below is a before and after shot of one of the photos I took in the studio. I used the following tools in the Photoshop Raw Editing program:

• Curve Adjustment
• Saturation
• Hue/Saturation
• Photo Filter --> Cooling filter/low density

Unfortunately I didn't track the specific changes or settings this time around but will begin doing that moving forward. It will be nice to look back and see what I did to achieve the final result and will help if I want to recreate an image in the future.

BEFORE EDITING

AFTER EDITING