Hungry?

Hi,
This is a quick picture I took of the meal my girlfriend made for us over the weekend. I was really trying to go for the "menu" look. I know some of the background is distracting but it wasn't staged at all.

As always, thoughts and comments appreciated.

http://blogs.warwick.ac.uk/images/ch...a-sm-wblur.jpg

Cheers,
Chris

Lovely shot! Love the gradual out of focus feeling. The one thing I would've done different is got the main subject in the lower left alittle more in the frame.

Other then that great shot,

Jared

Dear Chris,

The really good point about this photo is the colors. The yellows are bright, the reds are very rich, and the lighting is very nice. I am, however, bothered by the dof. It seems to fall off at the lower right corner, or something like that. On the rest of it, and this is very personal in taste so ignore if you want to, the lack of focus on the rest of the meal is disappointing. If the focus of the meal is all the elements, then have the dof take in all of the meal. And the front element is slightly cut off. I would just say (and this is just my opinion :D ) if the front element is the subject, concentrate on it, with dof and framing. I guess the trouble I am having is that your subject is slightly cut off, and the out of focus elements are distracting my attention :p . One thing you might do is look at some of the newer cook books, especially the lushly photographed ones. They have some very good examples of good food photography. All that being said (I hope I wasn't too long winded :rolleyes: ), I like this picture. Maybe you could do it again. I would love to see more.

Dzerzhinski

I recommend the CULINARIA series of cookbooks, not only good photography but great recipes too!

The only bad thing is that the publishers are going out of business and we are not likely to complete our friends' collection of all the books.

Chris,

I thought I had already commented on this, must be selinity (I mean senility) setting in!

I love the colours and what looks like a vegetrian dish thats been prepared. Girlfriend looks as if she's a good cook. Personalu I like the DOF but would expect it to be sharper if put into a cookbook.

Good shooting

This pic is close to perfect. The color is outstanding -- what film did you use? To me the dof isn't bad as long as you were trying to highlight the dish in the foreground, but either way it probably could have been increased just a tad.

Areas for improvement? Don't clip off of the foreground dish like you did or as least as much as you did. Maybe place the two foreground foods on a nice plate. I like the table and fork in the background but on the far left it looks like someone standing there in blue jeans? Obviously that needs to go.

This is a really powerful shot...

GB

I think that for me this picture would be better if I knew what everything was. I think technically the picture is well done (exposure, focus…) and the colors are very nice but it doesn’t strike me as a really great photo for some reason. The plate and whatever is on it in the background is a bit distracting for me. Maybe it would have been better if you took the photo from a higher angle and included the whole of whatever it is that is in the foreground. I do like the red, yellow and green layout though.

Greg

Thank you all for the comments!

I'm really pleased that you spotted the yellow item (stuffed buttenut squash with peppers and sweet potato, by the way) and beyond is out of focus; perhaps a bit too much. I was playing in Photoshop and the effect in this photo is artificial DOF. I'm really pleased that noone has suggested that it looks fake.

I agree with the comments about it being too out of focus. A few days away from the photo and I agree, I overdid the fake DOF; but it was more of an experiment anyway. Here is the photo with on-camera DOF. Better?

http://blogs.warwick.ac.uk/images/ch...rtea-small.jpg

Cheers,
Chris

Yum! :D Sounds good! I am glad the DOF problem wasn't a problem. But with the better one, the front subject is still cut off. I find it distracting. Good job with the photo.

Dzerzhinski