Ode to Cherries

Oh cherries. What can I say. For some people watermelon is the quintessential summer fruit. For others it's strawberries. For me, its cherries.

You can bake them in a pie or cobbler. You can make hand pies. You can make jam. 

But, my truly favorite way to enjoy ripe, summer cherries is strait out of the bowl (preferably while sitting under an umbrella on the beach).

Bokeh Panoramas

I recently heard of a technique on the Two Hoziers podcast that the podcast hosts initially called "faux medium format." The basic premise is that the photographer can create images with impossibly shallow depth of field by using a telephoto lens and stitching together multiple images. The photographer is able to increase the field of view from a telephoto angle to a wide angle while maintaining optical qualities of the telephoto lens.

Since that initial discovery of the technique I have also heard the technique called "The Brenizer Method" or "bokeh panoramas." I am particularly fond of the "bokeh panorama" moniker for the technique because it seems to be the most descriptive. Bokeh refers to the creamy out of focus portion of the image that is created by very wide apertures on certain lenses.

Technique

Using a tripod for support, stabilization, and maintenance of the nodal point, the photographer captures a sequence of overlapping images. Care must be taken during capture to ensure the same exposure and focus are maintained throughout the sequence. The photographer captures the entire scene he or she wishes to appear in the final image.

These three images are original capture frames from the creation of the final "Cookies" image above.

Once the series of images has been captured the photographer uses Photoshop or specialized panoramic software to stitch together the multiple images into one large image. To ensure that the stitched image appears visually cohesive the photographer must correct the individual image files for lens distortion and vignetting prior to stitching.

Content

Panoramic stitching is a common technique used by landscape photographers to increase the field of view and the effective resolution of the final image. The Brenizer Method is most often used by portrait photographers to achieve impossibly shallow depth of field portraits, and to create very high resolution images. 

My goal with this image series was to create a series of still life images that employ this use of both a wide field of view and a very shallow depth of field. To my knowledge, this technique is not commonly used for food photography or still life photography and I wanted to explore what was possible. The images I create will be tablescape sets of food with a shallow depth of field, only the “hero” item in sharp focus with the rest of the image falling out of focus. 

Overall, what I learned most from this process, besides the ability to technically create the images, is that many images do not benefit from this method. The technique very significantly reduces the depth of field in the frame. Sometimes that reduction helps to focus viewer attention on the "hero" item, but sometimes the area in focus is just too small and it becomes distracting to the viewer. I created several tableaus that simply did not work.

Will I do this in the future? The short answer is maybe. For now, I'm happy with more traditional image capture techniques for most of my food photography.

This post is part of the On Our Plates blog circle. Please check out Jana's yummy pasta post and follow the circle to see lots of great food photography and recipes.

Kumquats

When I was growing up my great uncle had a kumquat tree in his yard. Every year we would spend Christmas day at his house. Winter is when kumquats are in season, so every Christmas day we had the pleasure of picking and eating loads of kumquats fresh from the tree.

Despite their winter season, kumquats always remind me of summer. Something about the freshness and juiciness of citrus makes my mouth water and me want to go swimming.

Mocha Cake

First, I have to admit that this isn't the cake I was going to photograph. The cake I wanted to photograph is Great Dane Baking Company's Blue Velvet Cake. It is a luscious cake with swirls of perfectly white buttercream. It's beautiful. But...the day I went to get one all the cakes in the case had slight imperfections in the icing. The sides had bumped into something. And that just wouldn't do. So I grabbed this beauty, the Mocha Cake.

See my "helper" peeking in behind the cake.

This cake is layers of chocolate cake with a light and fluffy mocha mousse. The top is drizzled with melting chocolate and the edges are lined with chocolate pieces.

As with many food shots I had a vision in my mind of what I wanted to show the viewer. I waned to show off my new cake stand, but I also wanted a deep moody feel to the image.

This capture shows the details of the cake decoration, but wasn't the mood or angle I was looking for.

A cut shot of the cake. I realized too late that I would have preferred for the cake to be positioned on the plate the other way (frosting toward camera right).

Final shot: the keeper. This image shows the mood and detail that I wanted. While the cake is not shown in whole, I think the light falloff in the shadows adds depth and dimension to the shot.

What do you think? Which is your favorite?

This post is part of the On Our Plate series. Please check out Aerie Photography's Teriyaki Salmon!

Fruit: a series of still lifes

My preference for food photography is to work with natural light. I have a huge north-facing picture window in my dining room that is perfect for great, natural food shots.

My challenge for these photographs was to emulate the Renaissance still life paintings using electronic flash.

I love the shape of these and the texture of the fruit inside.

I love the glow in the tip of the stem in the whole fig.

These make me want to make a home-made Bolognese red-wine sauce.

There are so many great varieties of apple available today. My favorites are pink ladies, but galas are great, too. Nothing beats granny smith for pies.

I'm not a wine drinker, so I was lucky to have an open bottle available leftover from a delicious chicken picatta I made the evening before.

Head of garlic. I love the imperfection in the clove.