Shoot the ingredients for a salad (your recipe) on a white background. Keep the shot very tightly framed. We need a little white space at the foreground for some type.

Regional magazine wants a one page article shot for their upcoming issue.

Specifics:

• magazine is 8×10.5″ tall
• full bleed image, with recipe text over image
• prefer to put text on the bottom area of the image, but NOT a deal killer
• they want the shot on white (a stylistic format they use)
• prefer something simple like a salad or desert
• whimsical or fun is fine
• this is an ingredients shot, not a prepared food shot

Keep in mind that this is a rather great shot to make your style stand out. It is your art direction and styling, so do it with all the tricks and stuff that you feel appropriate.

If will need a recipe to shoot:

Recipe.com

All Recipes

Food Network (Salads)

Real Simple (Salads)

You do NOT have to put the type on the image, just make sure there is room for it. If you wish to do the recipe on the image, that is also fine, but again, it is not a requirement.

White surfaces:
Tile (Home Depot)
Fome Core
Butcher Paper
Poster board
White laminate
White furniture top
White Plex
Masonite painted white

… and I am sure there are countless other white surfaces.

Surface of the image is to remain white. That tells us that the light must be somewhat overhead or to the side of the image and there should be no (or nearly no) fall off on the front of the image.

Many times that is achieved by using a scrim over the top of the set to provide even, smooth light, and adding stylistic lights from the side or behind.

Natural light shooters can accomplish this by shooting in open shade, or very close to a window with lots of white cards to go around the set – keeping the light within the set and on the subject.

Here are a few sites with some ideas:

Shooting Macro on White (studio heavy)

Shooting on a white surface with natural window light.

A basic “lightbox” out of fome core. You can do this with strobes as well. Consider making this with a piece of shower curtain over the top, and put your strobe behind the shower curtain (2-3ft). The top light and the sides would create a very open and clean light.

A few ideas to also think about:

Daylight balanced Fluorescent bulbs (curly ones) at 100 watts. In close behind a scrim they can add some nice fill or highlights. A bare one in a clip on Home Depot shop light reflector could be flagged or cookied to produce interesting highlights. A flag is something that blocks part of the light, and a cookie is a shape cut out of a flag to allow some light to pass.

Consider a piece of black poster board with a window frame (four panes) cut out of it in the middle. This could be used very close to the set to add some interesting highlight/shadow with the curly bulb behind it. Softer edges are from bulb in close – sharper edges from bulb moving away from the cookie.

Simple salads to simple desserts… this is NOT prepared food, but ingredients. What is going to go into the prepared dish.

Our Flickr Page for this assignment.

Previous Assignment (2011) and Critique:

Posts at Flickr Lighting Essentials Group (2011 edition)

In this post I show you one of my recent “improvs” with a handfull of seashells.

The point is to narrow the scope of the project to a confined area / time allocation. This increases focus. Your energy level stays high and you are pushed by the constraints of the situation.

Read the article at Essentials for Photographers and let me know what your improvisational plans will be.

A photograph of someone using a cellphone for a local communications company point of purchase display and matching brochure.

This is what the art director gave you for the job:

Click to make larger.

And yeah, this is exactly the kinds of things you can get. I have gotten layouts that looked like gorgeous illustrations and layouts on napkins. This is an example of the latter style… a quick ‘idea’ scribbled down during a hurried meeting.

Your assignment is to shoot an image to this layout. A POP (point-of-purchase) display is a large, poster sized image that you would see in stores and kiosks. Oversized images with text and graphics are used to bring people into a brick and mortar store and also to help market to them while they are shopping.

The client:

A local distributor of cell phones and online data service.

Usage:

In store POP for each of their three locations. Six months then they go to a different campaign.

Budget:

Model
MUA
Hair

Location: Studio or On Location.

Overall brief: Keep the background interesting, but not busy. We want to feature the cellphone and the person using it. This is a happy photograph as we want people to be happy to use our services.

BID:

Do a simple bid and include it in your Flickr Description.

Keep these items in mind:

Usage.
Model Fees.
MUA Fees.
Location.
Time.
Image preparation.

Sell me on your professionalism.
Sell me on your preparation.
Sell me on your thoroughness.

Keep your format as simple as possible, as this is an emailed bid.

So: Image and Bid. On the Flickr page here.

Due: February 28 by 7:30 PM MST.
Show: Wednesday February 29, 7:30 PM MST (see show page)

TAG 2012p52assignment7

________________

From last year:

Critique: Please go to the Flickr page to follow along with the crit. Note that some of the images may NOT be there at this point.

Here is the audio critique we did on the bids last year:

Books at Amazon:

Next time a happy medium… both were not the ideal way I would like to have done them.

I hope the folks who like light will take a few moments to view the book. I am hoping for some early deliveries so I can go through it myself.

Hope you enjoy it if you decide to purchase.

From the publisher:

Lighting Essentials: Lighting for Texture, Contrast, and Dimension in Digital Photography

by Don Giannatti

AVAILABLE MAY 2012

The core goal of photography is representing subjects that have depth and texture in a medium that inherently lacks both those qualities, and this book shows the best way to rise to that challenge: through the careful application and capture of lighting. It demonstrates how to accentuate or minimize textures, add or subtract highlights, and create or combat shadows to showcase the subjects in the best way and create the illusion of a third dimension in the images. Exploring techniques for lighting portraits, still-life subjects, nature images, and architectural shots, both studio and location lighting are covered in detail. The book teaches photographers how to study their subjects—with all of the textures, colors, shapes, and surfaces they have—then visualize the image as a finished photograph before the photography actually begins. With chapters that thoroughly cover the science of lighting and visualization, photographers can apply that knowledge and successfully create artful images.

I have posted the Speedlight Gear page and you will find it under the About button on the nav link. Full disclosure – the links include my affiliate code, so I do make a tiny percentage from Amazon on your purchases. It is not added to your price, but taken from the Amazon part of the transaction.

I will add some more professional level gear ideas as soon as I get a chance. Let me know if you all would like to see some ‘package’ ideas as well as the one-offs.

Thanks

We will be doing the same as the regular Project 52 on some assignments – others will vary quite a bit.

For this assignment, an art buyer has asked to see some of your best chocolate shots for a possible chance at a regional ad for chocolate importer. She is not clear about the parameters of the gig, but it will be a multi shot project meant to inspire more sales in the region you are in.

This is a wonderful opportunity of course, but your chocolate shots are a little low.

You must shoot some creative for this presentation – which is two weeks from tomorrow, February 21. You are obviously excited about that possibility.

Here is what I need to see. 2-3 shots based on the assignment to produce elegant and extremely yummy chocolate shots.

Each of you have a style and a genre of shooting that is YOURS – do it that way. If you are a people shooter do people and chocolate. If you are a still life shooter, do it that way. It is meant to be a portfolio shot for you and something you can show our faux art buyer.

Also include the setup shots and a shot ‘creative’ document.

What did you want to accomplish?

How did you accomplish it?

What challenges did you meet and how did you overcome them?

I will get you more info on where we are going to put those images for critique this coming weekend.

Our first critique will be February 21th, 6:30 PST. The European time and date will be announced shortly.

Please – when you are uploading, note whether you are domestic US or European/Asia so I can get an idea of what our audience participation will be. Of course, you are all welcome to either.

You have the assignment and the documents from the email Newsletter… questions and comments in the comment section below.

Chocolate… and they are featuring chocolate candies, pie, cake, ice cream, and specialties. Chocolate.

It’s that simple… and that hard.

Oh, and the finished art work is a square… that is predetermined by their menu, so no options there. Final image is to be a SQUARE.

There may be type on it, but that is not an issue now… just make the shot so freekin’ chocolaty that we feel a need to brush after looking at it.

If you are a people shooter, shoot people with chocolate. If you are a still life shooter, shoot still life. Kids, or landscape or environmental… whatever YOUR personal interest is, shoot that. This is where you let YOUR style and vision direct the end product.

Here is last year’s Chocolate submissions.

(Note: all chocolate left over should be packaged very nicely and sent straight away to me… heh)

More information coming this week. Start planning but do not shoot until you have seen the additional materials coming this Thursday (February 9).

Here’s a very interesting resource. I am not responsible for any late night runs to the supermarket in search of chocolate after linking this page… you are on your own.

A nice blog of chocolate photographs.

Another page of chocolate photographs.

tag your image: p52chocolate2012

Flickr Page

{Photograph on the front of the page by Steve Collins.}

You will be getting an email titled: “P52 Pro News and Assignments” in case you want to add it to your spam filter.

After you signed up, you received an email from me with instructions on signing up for the newsletter.

Most did, but a few are missing. If you did NOT receive that email from me, with a link to the MailChimp Newsletter signup, contact me ASAP. I mean like – today!

The first newsletter goes out later today and I want everyone on it.

There are a few very important things we must look at for this group, and getting the info to you is paramount for timely and valuable feedback.

So – if you didn’t get the signup email, contact me today.

And – watch for the beginning of a whole new way of thinking about photography and business and the whole package.

See ya later.

You can see some additional videos from YouTube here.

http://blog.photoshelter.com/2012/01/rant-i-love-photography/

Yep. What he said. Me, too. I love photography.

I lost my grandfather about a year ago. The last time I saw him was for a very short visit on New Years Day, 2011 – he passed away in February 2011. That day, my grandfather gave my son a wooden school bus that he had made for him and I snapped a few photos. Disgusting overhead, flickering florescent lights, not stellar composition – but I wouldn’t trade these photos for anything.

I love photography.