Apples and Oranges, Lemons and Pears
Week 19 - Divided (original) by
morganthecat, on Flickr
Week 19 - Divided (alternative) by
morganthecat, on Flickr
What:
Two fruits divided in half to reveal insides you would not expect to see.
Indeed the two shots divide my opinion as to which works best so for this week only I am presenting two shots:
Original - better balance of colours, but not so clearly differentiate the fruits involved. My use of liquify on the orange was a bit ham fisted (particularly in the segments towards the camera), but on the pear, the flesh of the lemon nicely follows the contours of the pear. Lighting is spot on.
Alternative - better demonstrates the contrast in the juxtaposition, but not so pleasing on the eye. More adept use of liquify on the apple but should have spent some more time on the pear to ensure the orange segments mirror the contours of the pear. Missed a trick on the lighting of the orange in the re-shoot (see below).
Why:
I like the idea of subverting both text and visual imagery.
Taken from the rhyme "Oranges and lemons say the bells of St Clements" is a reference to two possible churches both of which are located north of the River Thames.
"Apples and pears" is well known cockney rhyming slang for stairs, but whilst there is a strong association between the East End and cockneys, one of the most famous references to cockney culture is "The Lambeth Walk" which is a London Borough south of the River Thames.
References to areas of London either side of the river is a further divide.
How:
I cut the fruit in half and then inserted cocktail sticks in the back to place it in the upright position. I tried to do this so that the apple and orange were positioned the same, and similarly for the pear and lemon.
I then shot the apple and pear in a light tent, before placing the orange and lemon in the same respective positions. The idea here is that the light falling (including any shadows) would be broadly the same which will make the final image more convincing (of course, I forgot to adjust the cocktails sticks in the orange and lemon when I switched positions so that they would now mirror the angles of the pear and apple respectively).
Lighting for the light tent was as follows:
1. YN460-II (1/16 power) with built-in diffuser flipped down to soften the light, shot through the DIY light tent from the left and positioned slightly in front of the subject - lights both the subject and blows out the background;
2. YN460-II (1/8 power) with built-in diffuser flipped down to soften the light, shot through the DIY light tent from the right and positioned slightly in front of the subject - lights both the subject and blows out the background.
I will explain the PP process I used in the alternative shot as I developed some improvements from what was done the first time.
I took my citrus and pomaceous fruit shots and in CS3 placed the 'pomaceous' layer as my top layer and duplicated the 'citrus' layer underneath. I applied a layer mask to the 'pomaceous' layer and then using the Magic Wand tool and the eraser I removed the flesh of the 'pomaceous' layer. I took my first citrus layer and erased all but the lemon. I selected this 'lemon' layer and using the free transform tool I skewed and scaled until the lemon pretty much filled the space left from deleting the flesh of the apple in the top layer. I then applied the liquify filter which meant transferring the 'lemon' layer into a new window - using as large a brush as I could and making small adjustments at a time, I moved the lemon flesh in new directions to better mirror the shape of the cut apple. As this is all happening in another window, I would make a few adjustments at a time before importing back into the stacked layers so that I could see how I was doing. It was laborious but I don't know of a better way to do this. Once the lemon flesh fitted the 'hole' left from deleting the flesh of the apple in the top layer, I selected the top 'pomaceous' layer and using the eraser and history brush with a small brush size (30), soft edge (~25%) and 30% flow, worked on getting a better edge where the apple skin met the lemon flesh.
The same principle was applied to the orange and the pear using the duplicated 'citrus' layer, except this time I brushed back in the pear flesh up to the orange segments rather than extending the orange pith up to the edge of the pear skin. This is because using the liquify filter to extend the pith to the top of the pear did not look satisfactory (too much distortion).
Learnt:
The Return of the Learn - this week was about building on my recent learning regarding layer masks, and applying the Liquify technique that I saw demonstrated at a recent club night by Gavin Hoey.
Improvement:
Composition. Particularly in the second shot, the fruit would have benefited from being turned in more so that we could see more of the contrasting skin of the pomaceous fruit. A lot of food photography relies on 'props' to enhance the main subject eg cutlery - placement of the knife in the photo may have added an extra element.
Lighting. Pretty good, though I forgot that I had removed a part segment of the orange on the left hand side.This meant when I shot the citrus fruit for the second shot I got a shadow (actually helps a little) across the face of the orange but also no clean 'pith edge' to work with which has resulted in a soft look when I have blended the edge of the orange into the flesh of the pear. I think I have controlled balancing the lighting well given the competing demands of the hi-key look versus the potential for blown highlights in the reflections on the juicy flesh of the citrus fruit.
Background. I'm not comfortable shooting hi-key, my palette is generally much darker. I feel the highly reflective flesh of the citrus fruit versus the delicate tones of the skin of the pomaceous fruit may have benefitted from a different background which in turn would have allowed me to explore alternative lighting options.