Comments on: Food stylist/photographer in the making?

By: John Dalton

John Dalton — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 04:22:44 +0000

I look forward to the results of your fudge challenge!

Emily has the right idea re: lamps – I’ve used our bedside table lamps before, when I needed extra light

By: Emily

Emily — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 06:53:42 +0000

Those are (without a doubt) delicious and I want several of them now. If only I had the resources here to make them.
As for the photography, I can only make an observation. Your kitchen is very dim. You should find additional lights around the house or even purchase a lamp for future shots. Just an idea. John obviously has way more of a clue than me.

By: linda

linda — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 03:58:37 +0000

Thanks for the photography tips, John! I think they’ll help. I actually have a few of what are probably very good fudge recipes, but I’ve only tried making fudge once. That was last August for a road trip we went on and it’s not that the fudge didn’t taste good, it’s just it was not the correct consistency. We ended up calling it “faux fudge” – it tasted like fudge, but it didn’t feel like fudge, if you know what I mean. I will not be beaten, though, so I’m going to take your request as a challenge and have another attempt. I’ll report back with (hopefully better) photos and details.

And thanks for pointing out the broken links. My technical assistant (yes, Chris, who is actually more like my technical director) and I are working on the problem.

By: John Dalton

John Dalton — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 11:56:08 +0000

They look yummy! Preparing things the night before and having a pre-dawn cooking session is a pretty tricky idea, too

(oh, the photo links are broken: I found pictures here: http://thefruitsofmylabour.com/gallery/v/baking_and_cooking/)

I’m no photography expert, and I’ve been trying to learn too. But I’ve been doing a few adult-ed courses down here, and trying to experiment a bit more, so that I think I’m starting to approach “enthusiastic amateur” status. Here are my thoughts – probably *far* too much detail, but you asked

The camera was probably a bit close on the flash shot, so that the muffins in the front are reflecting all the light. The rule I’ve heard is that shots with flash should try and have the subjects all be as close to equal distance from the flash as possible, otherwise there’s a huge contrast between the well lit and poorly lit subjects. Still, I think I like this photo better Have you tried cropping it to remove some of the glare down the bottom?

I think the colours in the second photo are nicer because it’s using natural light, but unfortunately it’s a little blurry. Your gallery software says the shutter speed was 0.59 seconds for this shot, which is too slow to get a clear picture when you’re holding the camera by hand. You could have tried a mini tripod, or just stuck the camera on top of something. I find the time-delay option handy in those situations too. Alternatively, you could have tried to increase ambient light (turn on more lights!) or see if you can increase the ISO speed (buried in a menu somewhere probably). That would let you have a shorter exposure time, which would help get a sharper picture.

You don’t want to zoom in in low light conditions if you can avoid it.. zooming in reduces the amount of light you get, which makes these problems even harder to deal with.

Anyway, that’s enough from me!

P.S. Don’t suppose you have any good fudge recipes?