ITS ALIVE!

am not a negative person to work with, i just feel all opinions are valid... in our case the loudest voices had the greater say.....

but all in all we have produced a piece of work which works well - for the assignment given.

i am including the image here....

there are some images which are of a sub-standard quality - which, i am hoping, one of the other group members will add.. to give some semblance of progression within our practice. i was also hoping that helen, or moira, as they had the images, would place the practice session on the blog... it seems the images have been deleted.

to summerise - for a brief which i wasnt happy producing and i am glad to have gotten it over in the time alloted, the group worked relatively well....

seems the women took to the fore - was this due to the shoot being culinary, my refusal to engage with a dead creature or the bossy nature of womankind exploding in a fit of creative pique??????

N.B. I CANNOT UPLOAD THE IMAGE FROM DISC AS THE COMPUTER WILL NOT ALLOW ME TO CONVERT A TIFF FILE INTO A JPG - WHICH ARE THE ONLY FILES THIS MACHINE ACCEPTS.....

fishy

Heres some fishy photots that I like. These two especially because of how light and airy they feel with the white, aswel as the way they look ready to eat, making the food even more appetising. I also like the idea of having our fish lying on some green veg maybe.
and here are some none fish photos. I perticularly like this one because of the white rectangular plate against the black background, aswel as the shallow depth of field. and like before with the idea of having the fish lying on top of vegetubles:
helz x

dear helz;

i'm nonetooplussed at being associated with death.

the design student doesnt seem up for this... i.e. lack of

response to moira's pleas for interaction.....

if we do this on our tod then it's a sad day for....uni life....

regards

disillusioned.

IS THERE ANY HOPE.....?

DEAR MOIRA AND HELEN (AND DESIGN STUDENT) - IS IT POSSIBLE AT ALL TO CHANGE THE STILL-LIFE PRODUCE WE HAVE TO PHOTOGRAPH?

FRUIT SEEMS MUCH MORE AESTHETICALLY PLEASING.

AND WHY HASN'T HELEN ADDED ANY INFO?

FOR PRACTICAL LESSON WE HAVE TO BRING ITEMS IN TO PHOTOGRAPH. THIS WILL BE AKIN TO LAST SESSION WE DID... THOUGH I HOPE THAT WE ACTUALLY HAVE A BETTER IDEA OF WHAT WE WANT TO CREATE WITH THE STILL-LIFE IMAGERY.

KINDEST REGARDS,

JONATHAN

spanish still-life painting (via linda mann).

these old spanish masters are worth studying (www.spanishstill-lifepainting.com) - if only for the fact that they acknowledge the interplay of light and dark/shadow and shade within their picture creation - adding extra depth and tonality to an image. infact, one would imagine still-life to be absurdly dull. it is the obverse of that...

the spanish school it is not

the simplicity of these items, especially the apple, works wonders, visually, under one basic light source. helen decided to place a black cloth, moira's coat, under the snoot light, i placed an apple upon it and clicked shutter. if we could actually isolate our items to be added to the image, in such a fashion i think our ad campaign would be very strident/bold. as you can see the bread and bananas don't work nearly as well - i think this is due to the scene being cluttered.

provisions

food of the masses

various configurations of dismay

Ideas

i see... the vase of fish is interesting visually until i realise it's a vase of fish... then it becomes a vase of death. it's impossible to make fish visually arresting - without those lifeless eyes cursing one... can't we do apple slices suspended over a plate? with a dollop of syrup underneath it? i'm no good at this exploitative nonsense.

this image was taken from the book: food - by clarissa dickson wright. it is a basic idea of how we, as a group, could present the product (that i am not too happy about photographing).

food design - edited by paco asenio. excellent minimalist style.

taken from the book: food design edited by paco asensio. again - strident and bold layout to capture the eye.

this was added as an example of food photography. it is a basically lit scene - with the ingredients of the soup to the fore. the background is dark, emphasising the foodstuffs (as yet to be prepared).

the old denotation and connotation argument re-surfaces here (if you can recall first year theory tutorials?)

this isn't an image i am happy to attempt to emulate.

we - myself, moira and helen have just tried to photograph bread, an apple and a bunch of bananas... suffice to say that imagery such as this, brigthly lit with a dark background, wasn't to our liking.

though, on a plus side, a black material added to the surface of the shoot i.e. placing materials upon a crumpled coat, semed to work extremely well.

all we need now do is correct lighting and make the fish the centre of attention.

i like this image we chose to add. the colours of the vegetables are quite bold. though, yet again, the lighting is hardly the stuff of high-art/fine art.

i think, i am speaking for myself, i cannot speak for my group, that we have done food/still-life pictures to rival this.

if the design student was to add a recipe to the product ad, along the side of the dish we are promoting, then this would create a more homely feel to the image - akin to something one would find in a sunday supplement(?)

how do i upload images?

the nutritional value of fish is second to none - or so the meat industry informs us. i will add a cynical aside to this - as i am a non-meat-eating carnivore. my other group members are quite happy to do this shoot. i do not feel so easy with dead flesh.

having, as a youth, gone fishing with my peers only to cast out a line, without a hook, without bait, i am quite happy to interact on such a venture but be totally disassociated from the product we are detailing.

things to do.....

food is the theme of our still-life shoot.

we have been informed that we must utilize fish.

as someone who doesn't eat meat this may be a problem.

today - myself and moira met up to create a blog post -

a scrapbook of sorts. this will consist of imagery and general

research concerned with our given assignment.

moira has decided to style the shoot and i have been given the task of photographing the lay-out of produce.

we have a practice session today - i brought a long bread rools to photograph (the same bread rolls used for the fashion exercise - famous bread rolls, indeed!).

i have several books beside me. they are: 'food design'- edited by paco asenio; 'egyptian soups' - john feeney; 'manual of nutrition' - ministry of agriculture, fisheries and food and 'food' - clarissa dickson wright.

i now have to scan the various pages of the books we have chosen to research and add them to this blog.