Connecting Essay 4

My Photograph

This is a photograph I captured from a birds eye point of view, angled down towards the ingredients and smoothie sitting on a wooden table. I situated the ingredients and measuring utensils around the right side of the frame and added a sprinkle of cinnamon to finish it off. To the left of the frame is the smoothie itself, which is the outcome of all these ingredients mixed together. I composed this piece so that it would be a clear recipe of a healthy drink, rather than just listing ingredients for something for somebody else to create - it looks far more creative and interesting as a photograph with text. I added the text in the empty space of the frame at the top left rather than overlapping with the subjects in the image as this avoids any interruption to the composition. I'd managed to apply the text to this picture through a website called befunky.com where I selected the type writer tool, and as I typed the words a faint white highlight would form with the text. When taking the photograph, I used natural daytime lighting for this piece as I had no lights to use at home, however the subjects could possibly look brighter and more emphasised if I'd used some lights or reflectors for this photograph.

Online Photograph

This is a photograph from online which is a visual recipe, portraying the ingredients and the outcome of the ingredients mixed together. There are multiple dishes in this piece and multiple ingredients, even if you don't need all of what's in the frame. The white wooden boards create a vintage feel to this piece, along with the floral printed tea towel. These textures and patterns add an artistic feel to the photograph, which could be emphasised by the point of this picture, as cooking is an art. The tea towel also contributes to the homely feel of the photograph, which is an effective prop in the piece as cooking is a home comfort. There is one cooking pot of this Apple and Pear Cous Cous in the top left hand side of the frame, and then some portions of it put into two bowls in the top and bottom right hand side of the frame. In the left middles is two pots of dried fruits and some seeds that can be added to the dish for a diverse consistency of flavours/textures in the mouth. These have also then been sprinkled around the pots, which looks appealing rather than messy. The combination of colours in this image work well together, as they are subtle tones of brown, beige and cream with pops of colour such as the red and green of the fruits and seeds. 

The Connection

There are many connections shared between my photograph and the online photograph. Firstly, both images are visual recipes, rather than photographing an outcome from different angles and putting the recipe on a website or blog, we have both added the recipe to the composition of the picture. This is a more creative idea that works well in my opinion. Both photographs have a gentle tone of colours as they are subtle instead of highly saturated. The colour of the background that we both used is similar, and also the most appropriate colour for advertising healthy food and drink. White is too plain and black is too harsh. The ingredients in both photographs are spread out across the frame in order to fill it to its best potential. There are more in the internet image, as there is less of a zoom on the composition. I zoomed in a lot in my photograph as there were less ingredients I needed to portray in the frame in comparison to the online picture. The colour of the background allows the subjects in the photographs to contrast and stand out, whilst being colours that still compliment one another. There are more subjects in the online photograph, which is somewhere that I could have improved on by adding more glasses of the orange and banana smoothie in the frame. I could have also used more fruits - cut them up and kept some whole - to advertise how to make more of the smoothie instead of just 200ml.