28 DIGITAL CAMERA^ OCTOBER 2019 http://www.digitalcameraworld.com
A rainy-day
project
Charlie Marshall creates
a fun food still-life setood is something we all need and
enjoy. If you also want to create
a feast for your eyes and you’ve
got an hour to spare, why not
try this food photography project?
For this simple setup, I used a watermelon
and turned it into an umbrella, but there are
no rules or limitations: the more creative
you can be the better. Although I wanted
to use the black watermelon pips as the
rain drops, the pips in that particular melon
were pretty small. I ended up sourcing
some pomegranate seeds as the water
drops, which worked just as effectively.
You can be flexible with how you set up
your camera. I handheld mine and shot at
f/7.1, 1/100 sec, ISO 200; but as you are
shooting on a flat plane if you want to
decrease the aperture to a wider setting you
can do so without affecting the end result.
If you want to get serious about food
photography or feel like you need a bit of
inspiration for your own project, check out
the work of photographer Dina Belenko
(featured before in previous issues of Digital
Camera) at http://thingswithstories.tilda.ws.F
6 | FOODJames^ ArtaiusCapture a fun foodie frame
2
The right light
Find an effective backdrop
for your food to sit against
and place it next to a soft
light source. I used a large
window. Position your food
on the card being careful
not to make marks on it.
(You can clean these up in
Photoshop if necessary.)1
Cut it up
Start by cutting up your
food. To make the umbrella,
I chopped a circle from the
melon, then sliced it in half.
For the umbrella handle,
I used the end green skin
part and cut a J shape. You
may need to have a few
goes at this to get it right!3
Shoot and edit
Take the image from a bird’s
eye view. I used Lightroom
for editing; under the Edit
tab, I went to the Curves
Lift Shadows Preset, then
added a heavy vignette to
frame the main focal point.
I also tweaked Contrast,
Shadows and Clarity.Charlie^ Marshall