Peter Gowdy Toronto Ontario
I'm taking a course in Food Photography at George Brown College. Each week we've been given a certain assignment.
Colour I attmpted to get the primary colours involved. The results are quite colourful!
Texture Initially I thought I would have the ingredients for a ham and cheese sandwich on a cutting board. I quickly bailed on that idea and went with the bread only. On our break I got a frozen coffee thing from Starbucks, and suggest there is texture in there somewhere.
Liquid I decided to use Perrier after my initial completely natural thought to photograph beer. I got some interesting results, but did not pay enough attention to the background.
Not Food 1 The assignment was "Food that you don't think of as food". And Guy (our instructor) didn't mean brocolli or whatever food you don't like. I like brocolli. So on the morning of class I headed down to Chinatown and perused some unusual food. I picked out some chicken feet. I came home and scanned the internet for some chicken feet recipes. I found many references to black bean sauce, and saw some menus with Bok Choi. The results speak for themselves, both cooked and uncooked. Danger ... some people might find the images unsettling!
Not Food 2 When many of us got to George Brown on the Saturday of Thanksgiving weekend, the classroom was locked. There was no class. The images from Not Food 1 above were taken on my dining room table. On October 16, the class for Not Food actually took place. We bugged Guy a little for not mentioning that there was no class the previous Saturday. On this day, I headed to the St. Lawrence Market for a new subject. Pickled Octopus was chosen. I'm quite pleased with the results.
Labels The assignment was to pick an actual product that has a food photo on the label, and reproduce that photo. I chose two products: President's Choice Roasted Tomato Salad Dressing and D'Angelo Apple Melody Juice (did they mean 'medley'?).
Sushi There was no assignment. We were just told to 'shoot want you want'. I love sushi, and have done a couple of sushi shots before. I bought a prepackaged tray from Loblaws, and think it worked out well.
Home 1 Part 2 of the course was cancelled. So I'm taking my show home.
Easter Cards Part 2 of the course was scheduled finally. Our first assignment was to photograph chocolates and other festive items for purposes of creating Easter cards.
Beer and Recipe Photos A double-length class. First up was beer. Bottles and glasses were sprayed with matte lacquer, then sprayed with a glycerine/water mixture for the condensation look. I wasn't really inspired by the recipe photo project, but think I did okay on the second one.
Pancakes and Steak Another double-length class. Guy hinted that it would be 'editorial' photography. I approached the pancakes accordingly. I tried to add a bit of blue morning light to some of the pancake shots, and think I overdid it. I think I got some nice ones though. We did steak in the second half. We were going to simulate a bbq with crinkled coloured platic sheets and tin foil. I was highly skeptical! The results seem to indicate that this ruse worked! The steak was 'seared' with a small butane torch, and kebob skewers were heated and were used to create the grill marks. I also snapped a shot of Lisa's fruit setup.
Pizza and Ice Cream and stuff Our final class. We did pizza and ice cream, two dificult subjects. We knew we'd be dealing with frozen mini pizzas, which isn't as nice as a pizza we could have made ourselves. This isn't a cooking course. I think we captured a good feeling. For ice cream you can either shoot the real thing, or use a concoction of lard and flour that looks like ice cream. We chose the real thing. I also got some interesting shots of some of the accesory food.
