Sussex Photographer Bernie Greene scratching out a tune while trying not to fall off the roof

Crumpet

I was advised that if I wanted to get more readers then this was what I had to do.

What should the headline be?

This began as a simple concept and rapidly became more complex. Originally it was just to be a girl’s hand reaching for an apple. But then I had Jasmine get behind the apple just to see what it would look like and I liked it a lot better.

Here is a setup shot.

setup shot for girl reaching for apple

The SB24 to camera right at the back is snooted and pointing at the apple. The Vivitar 283 is behind the model pointing up at the wall. The Vivitar 285 is snooted and pointing at some A4 sheets of paper just in front of the girl’s face. I don’t remember the exact settings but the 283 was the main light and was at full power. The others were somewhat toned down.

So it was shot with the idea of being a full page magazine type layout, hence the large amount of white space at the top of the shot. What do you think would be an appropriate headline?

apple and bananas

Lit with two large softboxes one to the rear and the main one to camera left. Plus lots of processing to keep the fruit more or less natural looking while giving it centre stage over the wooden background.

Cheddar

I thought I’d start off with something different. I’ve never shot food before. It was a learning experience. Among other things next time I’ll know to make sure everything in the shot that isn’t part of the food doesn’t have a lot of distracting texture.

I started with what I thought would be simple. I love very strong and mature Cheddar cheese so this was a good excuse to go and buy some. This is a crumbly cheese rather than a creamy one and I wanted to show that.

I was in too much of a hurry with this. I washed the board before using it here but it wasn’t entirely dry and so the dampness shows up as darker than it would have if it were dry. But I don’t think it bad for a first attempt.

Here is a shot of the setup.

cheddar-setup

The camera was on the tripod. Behind the cheese is a mushroom softbox with a Vivitar 283 fired into it at full power triggered by a PT-04. The second light is a bare  SB-24 at 1/4 power fired at the ceiling behind the camera to provide some fill on the front of the cheese without removing it’s shadow completely.