Shoot Four - Work Diary

In this shoot I wanted to portray a simple vegetable (pepper), and make my images abstract so the viewer would question what it was exactly they were looking at, I followed the style of Edward Weston and I took inspiration from his images whereby he shot his images close-up in a studio, and usually in black and white. However, I also took inspiration from Nadege Meriau as in her images she makes people question what they are looking at, I found her images extremely inspiring and they helped me work towards my final images- mainly, her photographs of pumpkins helped me with my angling when shooting my images, as she takes photographs from various angles, getting close to the vegetable. I photographed these images in the studio, with various lights including the soft box, and back lights. In addition I used a table top, a white background, a light meter and a tripod to photograph my images.

Overall, I am happy with this shoot as I believe I achieved what I set out to do by showing nature in a different, and abstract way, I converted all my images into black and white on photoshop in order to highlight the different tones within the image, as the orange pepper itself was too bright, I also brought down the curves to make the images appear more masculine. 

Best image from this shoot:

This image is my favourite from this shoot, the pepper almost appears as though it is a leg of meat, with the bone sticking out at the end; however, the pepper seeds conflict the viewers mind as meat doesn't have seeds on it? The different tones within the image highlight the shine of the fruits juice, which enhances the image's effect further and adds more tone and texture within this image as a whole. The pepper seeds contrast the wetter look of the skin, as they appear dry, I am happy with the different textures which come through in my image. The camera settings I used to photograph this image are: ISO 200, F 8, and a shutter speed of 1/125, I used these camera settings due to the light meter reading saying these best fitting the lighting arrangement. 

Worst image from this shoot:

The above image is one of my least favourite images of this shoot, I would have converted this into black and white on photoshop if I was using this image, however I wanted to show the pepper in it's full colour here. I believe this image isn't as strong as some of my others due to the fact it's not quite as abstract as many of my other images; therefore it doesn't meet the aim of my shoot. I do not believe I captured as much texture as I could have don't in this image, I should have zoomed in further to really enhance the peppers inside skin, and show the grooves. I used the light meter in order to determine my camera settings, I shot this image on the following camera settings: ISO 200, F 8, and a shutter speed of 1/125. 

Progression:

In a future shoot I would like to explore this further, by experimenting with various lighting (low key lighting), and different backdrops, and fruits in order to perfect the overall outcome of my images. I would also like to vary the angles at which I photograph my images in order to shoot images from within the fruit, not just from the outside of it.