Beauty on the Inside: The patterns on the inside of fruit and vegetables
The pattern inside a Pak Choi
A simple project to get back into the swing of things after two weeks away!
A lot of photography, especially creative still-life photography, can become very technical. A mastery of composition and lighting skills, along with post-production techniques, is essential. Much of my work requires all these skills, plus a creative imagination, a desire to do things differently, and a drive to create images.
I wanted this particular project to have visual simplicity. I see so much art (both photographic and not) that is very busy and overloads the viewer. There is absolutely a place for this kind of lavish, extravagant work, but I want to present something more distilled.
This project about the inner-beauty of fruits and vegetables, showing the patterns inside when cut open does exactly that. The natural mechanisms which shape a pak choi or a tomato are immensely complex, but by presenting them with simplicity we can appreciate them in a focussed way.
The inside of a tomato (obviously!)
A clementine, sliced in half
Techniques:
These still-life photographs of fruits and vegetables may have a simple aesthetic, but there is still plenty of technique going into capturing them.
It’s all about getting highlights and shadows where you want them. For this simple but playful look, I wanted a nice clean shadow, so this meant using only one light. The source itself was a strobe with a slightly-larger-than-usual reflector. This kept the light specular, meaning nice shiny highlights on the wet parts of the fruit — especially the orange and the tomato — but a shadow that has just the beginnings of a feather to it. The perfect shadow to feel defined but not be distracting from the main subject.
When editing I decided to replace the background digitally in photoshop. The original backgrounds were paper, and they had a little too much texture for what I wanted to achieve with these shots.
And finally, a pomegranate
Like what you see? I am a professional still-life photographer (food, drinks, products) based in South London. Click here to see the rest of my portfolio!
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Like your fruit and veg? Check out:
Barbies wearing vegetable outfits
Thanks for reading!