Barely Concealed Narcissism

Note: If you’re keeping track at home, you may notice that my original plan of February: Self-Sacrifice has gone awry. Not because I don’t want to explore self-sacrifice…but because I simply forgot I had changed my mind last minute before writing my original plan. I had decided to move self-indulgence to May because of our upcoming trip to Italy. So here it is now, instead. I’m sure I’ll find time for that self-sacrifice…

Anyway, taking into consideration that February’s main events were comprised of Valentine’s Day and Presidents Day, I decided this month’s challenge would revolve around food (no, not for Presidents Day). Specifically, food photography has always interested me. So I worked to explore how to take good shots of food.

The first thing I noticed was that shooting food was very similar to shooting people. You wanted to highlight the subject and keep the background out of focus. For that reason, I decided to stick to my 50mm f/1.8 lens: very small depth of field andthe ability to shoot in low light.

I soon realized that, like all photography, having the right light really was the key here. And having low light was a huge disadvantage. The problem, of course, is that I’m at work during most of the day and there isn’t much light when I get home. Considering I don’t have much artificial light in the apartment, I decided it was time to start using my flash more often.

To counteract the harsh shadows and shine from shots taken with the flash, I opted for a DIY style Chinese food take-out carton diffuser. I got a frosted carton from The Container Store for a couple bucks and strapped it to my flash. A quick test:

Even subtly, the diffuser made a difference. I learned quickly, however, that I simply could not make the flash work to my advantage.

So I stuck to natural and/or [artificial] room lighting.

All in all, I learned a few things here. First off, natural light is always best. Hands down. Secondly, I need to work harder on making my flash work for me. I know there is a bit of math involved here, but I can never remember or figure it out, so I always give it up and leave it at home. I’d like to work past that.

Most importantly, however, I reaffirmed that I love my roommate’s cooking.

Tags: challenge, february, food, self-indulgence

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 28th, 2009 at 7:11 pm and is filed under Monthly Challenge, Photography, Portfolio. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.