SHOOT: Studio Products #1

I decided to begin my experimentation into product and food photography by setting up my product table with my studio lights and experimenting with different ways to photograph food. I have spoken to Speedy about my idea and he has encouraged me to expand them and looking into consumerism and how it affects children. I decided to photograph four different foods; sweets to represent Hansel and Gretal, gingerbread to also represent Hansel and Gretal, a red apple to represent Snow White and a piece of cake to represent Red Riding Hood. I understand that some of these references will be better understood by different people who have different memories from fairytales.

My favourite image that I took on this occasion was the image of the gingerbread. I originally took photographs of the gingerbread (which were shaped like snowmen, how very festive) stood up next to each other in line, however this was neither creative nor practical and looked silly. I decided then to break the gingerbread into smaller pieces and stack them on top of each other. This gave a more neat feel and looked professional. My next experimentation on top of this is to recreate a gingerbread house which would represent the fairytale even more, however, I don't want to spoon feed the viewer so will hold some details back. Speedy referred to consumerism in his tutorial with me and suggested I looked into it further. After taking these photographs I have decided to need to read more into consumerism as a subject and how it can relate to my current project. I plan to look at the work of Disney advertisements and how they encourage children to want to visit Disneyland, and the work of other children's advertisement photographers and graphic designers to understand what they need to do to hit the target audience.

I also took photographs of the red apple, which was the first idea I had when it came to food photography. Everyone is familiar with get concept of Snow White being poisoned by the apple by the wicked Queen. I decided it would be a safe option to continue this idea to really get my message across, alongside other items of food and drink that relate to fairy tales, my next step is to read more Grimm fairytales and list food from them, even if the story is not as popular with the ones I have already explored.