Mediterranean style by Aurélien Jacak | The food shot | How to be a Professional Photographer forum: lessons, tips and tricks

Hi everyone,

This is my submission for this weekly assignment on “food photography”, which I have called “Mediterranean style”!

I will try and give you as many details as possible on the techniques I have used so that you can have enough info to discuss and also in order to share my experience (which is crucial in our profession!). I will probably not be able to take part in the hangout as I live in France and the time difference will not be manageable for me.

For this shoot, I used two light sources: one softbox placed behind a sheet (in the background) to simulate sunlight through a window, and another one placed at the left rear side of the “stage”, with both flashes set at 1/8th power. (Afterwards, I told myself I should have increased the power of the flash behind the sheet…).

I put a slightly inclined reflector at the front right side which is mainly used to light the subject on the front and to reduce shadows from the plate and the melon. At the beginning, I inclined it a bit too much and this created a bad reflection on the melon which would have been hard to correct digitally.

In order to improve the lighting on the ham and the superior side of the melon, I used a handheld pocket mirror as it is a way to finely balance the lights.

Picture taken at 75 mm (50 X 1.5 on D90)  f2.8 1/100th

Thanks for your comment. Here in France we generally eat this as a starter course. It's very Meditarrenean as the ham is from Spain and the melon from the south of France. The taste is great with both elements together.