Debrief

This is quick summary of how my assignments went this semester.

The Food

The food shots were really a work in progress. I started with photographing the food with all these ideas in my head and explored some of this in the first check point and found that some worked better then others.

As I worked more and more with natural lighting I found that I captured the images that I had in my head much easier. Knowing how the light would fall onto the subject made it easier to compose the shoot in my mind before I had even bought the food product. Some of the harder thing that I found was the background - what should be in the background or how much background should be in the shot. Also, what colour and how will this accompany the subject. One thing I would change is that I now wish I photographed all the food shots on the Hasselblads. Out of the seven food shots that I had to produce, I photographed four on the Hasselblad and I think the colour and the detail of the images are much stronger. I would have liked to re-shoot the other food shots on the Hasselblad if I had the time.

A quick summary of the work. I think that there some really strong images out of the seven that I photographed, but my favourite is the photograph of the asparagus' on the plate. This shot is very theatrical to me - giving the asparagus a life on its own.

Restaurant

I found this the hardest part of the assignment, but with the best learning curve. It was not that easy to work with the client as I was hoping it would be. I had to reschedule a shoot three times and even when we got to do the shoot the the chef/owner was in a hurry.

On the other hand I got work with another chef / owner, who took the time to make sure that everything was in order. He even took the time to pull every chair and tuck in the table cloth so it all matched. I found that working with the someone that gives you the time to be creative are much happier with the results because the results are better. This shoot showed the best of the place because the chef /owner cared enough to help make this happen.

I am not completely satisfied about my interior shots. I think I will need to improve some of the angles and composition of the shots. The plated food shots are strong and have the feel of something out of a cook book about them. I had some trouble with the background in the restaurant and would like to work on this in the future, but and over all good job done.

I liked all the portraits that were produced for this assignment. I believe that I managed to capture a real piece of the chefs character. On the done side, I would like to work more on the light techniques and produce stronger portraits.

In concluding, I believe that I have produced a strong and informative body of photographs. By giving the viewer a taste of the type of restaurants that are here in Canberra. It would be far to say that I need to push myself more and explore new and more creative ways to show the 'emotion' of the food and places that I will be photographing in the future.

AIPP

The AIPP talk was good, but it was really about individual attention to the people with their prints that the person was going to enter into the awards. I got some good feedback on the images that I was looking to put in.

The different view point of the architecture was favoured. The landscape image was strongest image. The portrait was liked - the gaze of the subject, the opened zipper and the texture of the unshaven face all worked well. This image was picked as the best or strongest to put into the AIPP wards.

Hilary Wordhaugh

Hilary is a portrait photographer. It came to me that I can understand why she is very good at the job that she does. It is that her images are very nice and beautiful, as she quotes so herself. She can talk to people and I think that is why she gets the great images out of her subjects. Hilary spoke a little on her business side, but not to much. Hilary also gave a demonstration on how a portrait shoot would work and spoke about why she would mainly talk to the kids and get the best out of the kids because mum and dad are the ones paying for the images. One good point that I got out of this was that Hilary shows her clients the size of the images on her wall in her studio with a projector and the difference of a 5x7 image on the wall to a 40x60 image, so she can sell the large prints. Hilary is also a good sales lady, getting her clients into the 'yes' mood so when it comes to buying big prints then it 'yes'.

Geoff Comfort

Geoff was talking about the way he run his business and how this may help you in your business.
He was really good in giving open advice about the way he has set up his business. Things like, have you done a budget? In that budget, have included everything that you would live off and also determined what life style you would like? This will impact the way you cost jobs and work out the cost of the running of the business.

Geoff also went into the way in which he costs a job and the thing to think about when you are writing your job quote or working out the pricing for your business.