buon appetito, part II

The story behind the image:

Rome's Campo dei Fiori (which translates to field of flowers) is a noisy and vibrant flower and vegetable market dating back to the 1800’s. For the photographer, it's the perfect spot for capturing the beautiful fresh produce Italy is renowned for.

Insider's tip: for the best pizza by the weight, go to Forno Campo dei Fiori - it's right on the square, and it's delicious.

When shooting in a market, understanding depth of field can be very useful.

Depth of field is in simple terms how much of a scene is in focus. Shooting in aperture priority mode makes it easy to control depth of field. The smaller the number, eg f2.8, the wider the aperture and the less depth of field there is in the shot. Which means that the main subject can be sharp, and the background (in our case the busy market) can be blurred. This is also a fairly standard setting for portraits where we normally want our subject in focus but the surroundings blurred so as to not be distracting.

This image below has a reasonably shallow depth of field. The garlic is in focus, and the produce behind is blurred.

If you are using a compact point-and-shoot camera it can be hard to control aperture/depth of field. Most automatic cameras try to get everything in sharp focus. To get around this you have some options - first, try to get as much distance between your subject and the background; second, try settings on your camera such as portrait or macro; third, zoom in on your subject.

Don't forget to shoot some scenes of the market itself to give some context to your produce shots. Also, try getting a shot with prices (make sure you always get shots with the local currency in the local language for authenticity).

Enjoy!

Photoshop post-production:
Levels layer to increase contrast.

Equipment and settings used:
Camera - Canon EOS 5D
Settings - f2.8, 1/200s, ISO 200, auto white balance, neutral picture style, shot in RAW
Lens - Canon EF 24-70mm f2.8L USM LENS
Focal length: 70mm

Happy shooting from Lisa and Dianne at Capture Italy.

http://www.captureitaly.com/

buon appetito!

The story behind the image:

Photographing food can be a lovely way to capture the essence of a country, particularly Italy where food is such an important part of the culture. On our last visit Dianne and I joined a cooking class on the Amalfi coast and not only had a wonderful time making the food, we also thoroughly enjoyed shooting the action in the kitchen.

We made crocchette (using the potatoes in the scales above):

We made gnocchi:

We also made a classic local dessert, Delizia Al Limone:
(consider shooting the different stages of a dish)

When shooting in a working kitchen you'll find your backgrounds quite busy/distracting/messy/not all that attractive so you need to be aware of that when composing your images. You'll have to either zoom in and get close-ups of the food (as in the images above), or you make the most of the background and include the kitchen and some of the chefs (as in the images below).

The best part of the class was eating the wonderful food we had prepared:

At various times during the class Dianne and I were torn between wanting to learn how to make these delicious recipes and wanting to capture the images in front of us. This will always be the photographer's dilemma - being in the moment or capturing the moment. Have you also had that experience? We would love to hear your stories...

Photoshop post-production for scales image:
Levels layer to increase contrast.

Equipment and settings used:
Camera - Canon EOS 5D
Settings - f2.8, 1/800s, ISO 800, auto white balance, neutral picture style, shot in RAW
Lens - Canon EF 24-70mm f2.8L USM LENS
Focal length: 70mm

Happy shooting and buon appetito, from Lisa and Dianne at Capture Italy.