Anatomy of a Food Shot

As I promised in this post I'll analyze one of the shot I made for one of the latest recipes I posted in this blog. I'll try also to explain what was my workflow in devising and realizing the shot, which tecniques and instruments I used, in a hopefully clear language.

Composition and Styling
First time I did was to prepare the set. I already have thought to make a shot in some "rustic looking" style of the recipe ingredients, that could convey a sensation of fresheness and genuineness: the parsley stems were just plucked so I didn't have to fake things too much.
With these concept well fixed I searched through my cooking propos an old wooden chopping board upon which place the various ingredients. I went crazy to keep together the peppercorns and the salt crystals, because they were attracted by the gravity to the concave center of the board. It was essential to use a pair of tweezers, the ones also used by the philatelists to hold stamps (they have flat ends so they don't ruin what they hold).
The garlic instead should be showed both as a whole, both with one clove, just the clove would make identification difficult and anyway the shape of the whole garlic balanced with its circular shape the straight lines of the parsely stems on the opposite side of the shot.

Lighting
For this shot I wanted a soft but directional light that highlighted the details, textures and shapes of the various objects of the set. I choosed then for a continuos light which is less "cold" and "crisp" than flashes and in my humble opinion provides a natural quality similar to sunlight, at least with food.
To exalt details and textures I placed the light (a fluorescent head inside a 60x60 cm softbox) behind the chopping board, angled at about twenty degrees down, so it could light all the whole board but also to let some shadow so to give a tridimensional effect to the shot. Some carefully placed white foam panels helped me then to open up some of the darkest shadows.

Shooting Time!
Completed the set and the lighting now I had to find a proper framing for the shot, so i started to move around the set with the camera to find a good spot from where to shoot. At the end I settled for a frontal shot, pretty closed up but that could set the viewer the impression that the board would be right in front of him, but from a lower perspective, just like he would have seen it when he was a child.
I think that playing with perspective, stepping aside from the one we're accostumed to in everyday life, helps to make an image interesting for its slightly "unexpected" feeling.
The focal length I decided for was a classic 50mm, exactly because I wanted to keep the perspective close to the normal field of vision.
Then I have to choose one glass from the many I own (and I own too many of them, I confess), a glass that could give me warm colors and a great bokeh, the latter because I wanted to have a very limited depth of field.
After some quick tests I settled for the Schneider Kreuznach Xenon 50/1.9 (in m42 mount) that always impressed me for its bokeh that looks like a "painting": it would have worked beautifully to achieve the mood I searched for this shot.
Shooting against the main light I also needed a hood, to avoid flare, and a polarizer filter to control reflections from the wooden table, over whose the chopping board lied, and also help me to increase color saturation: the result is evident especially in the green of the parsley.

Post Production
When a shot is good from start postproduction is a breeze and just fun. In this case I had to increase a bit the sharpness (only in the small in focus zone), set the white point to correct some color cast given by the lighting (fluorescent "daylight" lights aren't neutral 5000k anyway) and setting a little the levels to increase contrast to have an image ready to be printed. The reason being I lately print almost every shot before publishing it on the web or elsewhere. It's very useful to find out any problem the computer screen, even the best calibrated one, could conceal.
And photos are to be touched and not just watched on screen anyway.