Based on a local cafe called Cafe Patisserie.

THE CAFE

This cafe’s audience is aimed at the young and middle aged Bradford community. Bradford is made up of British Whites and British Asians, this cafe intends to connect both communities through food and coffee. Many business professionals in the area use this cafe as well as many people around Bradford.

So from this I am aiming for my café to be work centralised, providing the customer a place to work, eat and drink. The theme of my café would be an office café theme. Through the office theme the café could be able to hold conferences and meetings Aimed at business professionals, so I should be localised to town. Advertising will be strong, effective and to the point as business professionals may not have the time to sit and think about what they want. I have named my café Monopoly to tie into the business theme.

PRIMARY SHOOT For my primary shoot I went to a waffle tent at the Cambridge Market and took pictures of the food. Here are some of the results. Overall I think this shoot gave me an idea of what I definitely wasn’t wanting for my images. A yellow overcast. I did attempt to white balance the tungsten lighting but it just made the image overly blue. It also encouraged me to look at what works and what doesn’t work in food photography and how to make the image look as appealing as possible. For this shoot I took the idea of taking pictures of the cook from Marcus Nilsson’s work.

This image is my favourite image food-wise as it shows someone eating a waffle which encourages the viewer to relate with it more and may fit in better with the more modern trends of food photography. The food doesn't look as appetising as I would want and I feel that if the whole dish was in focus it would have made a better image as your eye doesn't go directly to the images focus point, instead it goes from the furthest ball of icecrean to the knife, fork and hands. If all the ice cream was in focus then would make the image more appealing, as your eye would feel more satisfied following leading lines that are in focus.

BISCUITS (and cappuccino)AND COFFEE SHOOT PLAN MOODBOARD

The plan for my shoot was to take inspiration from each photograph on my biscuits and coffee moodboard . I quite like the idea of having the contrasting shadows of the first image, and shooting directly above to try and fit a lot within the image which would help if I’d be adding props such as notepads, screwed up piece of papers, pens, and the coffee. I quite like the idea of attempting the spilt coffee effect of the next image with purely coffee beans. I chose the next image as I would like to see if I can transcript it and incorporate the transcripted image into my work. I was considering using cream in my shoot to make a cappuccino but I realised that cream would melt in the studio lighting so I looked for alternatives, I researched and found that shaving foam is generally used instead so tried it within this shoot. We were not allowed to bring liquids into the studio so I decided to use coffee beans instead, another way I could of gone around it would be to make a gelatine mould of coffee in a cup which would look like liquid coffee, but then it wouldn’t be as malluable so would leave me ‘stuck’ to one way of showing coffee.

SHOOT 1 : COOKIES

I quite enjoyed this shoot and realised throughout that the simpler the image with composition and props the more powerful the image. I used both high key and low key situations. The high key was lit with an overhead softbox which gave virtually no shadows and an even amount of light. The low key scenes were lit with a snoot which gave a higher concentration of light which gives extreme contrasting shadows which really worked with making the food look powerful, which would reflect on the portrayal of the brand. Throughout the shoot I was concerned about leaving negative space so I didn’t have any problems when it came to using the image during the design process. The best bit was working with the studio equipment and finally coming to the realisation of what types of situation and composition works with the food to make it look the most appealing. The bit I would do again is I would of reshoot the cookies and cream in the low key setting as I didn’t manage to make the food physically appealing.

This is one of my final images I liked this image from the shoot as it looks like someone has been working hard and then decided to take a bite from of their cookie. I quite like how you can see the reflection in the spoon, and there's cream almost dripping of it onto the cookie. The composition is rule of thirds. It was lit in the high key scene, so it was lit with an overhead soft box so there is little to no shadows.

This is also one of my final images. This is were the negative space could potentially be made a banner for the coffee company as the text would be able to go into the negative space. I quite like how the sprinkles of chocolate have been formed over the background. I also like the way all the subject is in focus as every detail stands out, as much as it would in reality such as the ‘melting’ cream on the cookies.

Final Image: This I feel is a quite powerful and effective image as the snoot has caused high contrast within the images which makes you focus on the subject. What I also quite like is that the shadows have disguised the fact that there was chocolate sprinkles stuck on the side of the cup. Which I kept in mind for the next coffee specific shoot. Every little detail can make or break an image in food photography, its almost like putting make up on a model and making sure everything is perfect to the last eyelash. Composition is rule of thirds and the negative space was left there in order to use it for my menu design.

SHOOT 2 : COFFEE SPECIFIC

Overall this shoot went a lot better, I felt more confident using the equipment and new what results to expect lighting and editing wise. So this time I could play around more with the food to try and exhaust all possibilities of angles and formations of the coffee beans. My favourite part was just feeling confident when using the subject and playing with the lighting in order to get it right. Also understanding and using the light meter, to work out which camera settings were best suited to the environments. Again in this shoot attention to little details like coffee dust marks on the cup slipped me up a bit, but I was able to edit them out, also during the shoot I could of improved on is that I generally have my camera on continuous shoot mode so if I hold the shutter down longer the more images it takes, but being in the studio and using flash triggers, obviously they couldn’t keep up with the camera’s shooting mode so there's lots of blank dark shots on the contact sheet. So it would be best if next time I change my camera to single shot mode next time in the studio.

Final Image: I could imagine this picture being used in a food magazine, it follows the more modern trend of the whole subject being in focus from a directly above angle. I took it so only three quarters of the coffee cup was shown to make the subject more interesting rather than just another picture of just another coffee cup from the same above angle. The image is composition is rule of thirds to make the simple subject seem more interesting. While editing I brought the clarity out more on the image and made it more vibrant so the coffee beans had more of an impact on the viewer. The negative space is there just in case I used the image as part of the menu, but I also feels the negative space balances out the image so it isn't just filled with half of the subject. Shot in the high key setting shadow in the corner due to be leaning over the subject in order to take the image and getting in the way of the light, which will be something to look out for next time I shoot at a similar angle.

Final Image: I like this image due to the colour contrast of the white coffee mug, the background and the coffee beans. I edited the cup and removed the dust particles inside it and removed dust from the black surface. I also like the way the coffee has spilt upon the surface and how every bean looks like it belongs there. That’s another thing about using food, you have to try and make sure every little piece is in the right place in order to make the whole image look good. The subject runs through the centre of the image and the composition of the mug is rule of thirds.

Final Image: The key reason why this image is in my finals is because I quite like how the coffee beans look like they flow in this image. Again I had to edit out the dust marks inside the cup. Compisition in rule of thirds. It was lit in the low key scene with a snoot so there are deep shadows in the background while the spotlight is directly in front of the subject making them stand out the most.

Final Image: This image was inspired by Isabella Cassini’s work of the smashed cereal bowl. I overlapped and masked to images in order to get the coffee beans falling and the point of impact with the coffee beans within the mug. The impact and the beans falling everywhere makes the subject dramatic and powerful. This was set in the high key scene where the softbox was directly above the subject. Ideally this image would not have any subject blur and the falling and impacting coffee beans would be sharp and in focus, but this was not possible as the flash speed wasn’t fast enough and if I sped up the cameras shutter speed the image would of come up blank as then the flash would of exposed after the image would have been taken. Composition is centred.

Salad shoot plan

The plan for this shoot was to replicate the technique where toothpicks are used to make the subject look like its floating. The toothpicks are edited out post process in order to create this effect

http://www.diyphotography.net/create-wonderful-sliced-fruit-images/

SHOOT 3 : SALAD

Ok this shoot went terribly. I didn’t have any toothpick so I whittled down some stirrers to compensate. But then those ended up being too big to edit out. I also tried the high key scene side lit with a softbox, which may have been a mistake as I was not used to the set up, another note for the futre maybe that I try one new thing at a time so I can develop each induvidual component to the best of my ability. If I was to reshoot salad I would get some pre packaged salad and organise, shape and shoot that instead. Here is one of my examples that kind of worked:-

EVALUATION

Overall I enjoyed working with food as you could experiment and get a bit messy and I quite like the results of the shoots. But near the end of the project the shoots felt like they were getting monotonous as there is only so much you can do, but with humans or animals even landscapes you get more variety in the types of expressions or character that come across the picture. Whereas food sometimes felt like you were photographing a pen at different angles in order to try and make it ‘interesting’. If I was to redo the project, I will try and keep it the subjects simple and try not to overcomplicate with new techniques like I did with the salad shoot. Professional Printing wise I may of chosen the wrong profile for ProAm, as all the magenta in the images have been printed as a green tone. And not sized one of the images properly. Moral of the story triple check before printing! The design part of the project was interesting, I really didn’t enjoy using InDesign but after getting use to the program (clicking all the buttons until something happened) I’ve got used to it. And I may even grow to like it eventually. It was nice to finally know, understand and implement the design cycle within my work. If I was to do the design cycle again I would of got that out of the way first in order to know what I wanted for my brand before starting on the photographic aspect of it. For example if I knew I wanted my menu to be low key I would have made sure all my images were low key (i.e. I would of done the salad shoot completely differently). Menu Eval.: I’m happy with the overall design and layout of the menu, the only downside is the salad menu as its high key while the rest of the menu is low key, it stops the flow and consistency of the whole design. Splash Page Eval: I enjoyed making the splash page as it was simple and not as time consuming as the menu design.