Colin Chance Photographer UK based: Food, food and more food

Module: Digital Skills Acquisition Photography - Assignment Project 2

Assignment Brief:

Produce a double page spread for an editorial publication, representing a great British recipe created using natural light.

The final image will be an A3 DPS landscape image comprising of two single A4 images;

One A4 location still-life food image
One A4 location lifestyle food image

Reflection on brief:

The intent of the brief was to explore both photographic and Photoshop skills. In addition, and for me it also required making arrangements for the photoshoots with various restaurants to enable the image to be created, including the chef for the lifestyle image. The assignment in addition to the main brief would also provide experience with developing communication skills that is an essential element when working within the profession.

Decisions:
A varied range of traditional British foods came to mind when considering this assignment including all the top 10 most popular British dishes, but I narrowed this down to:

a starter - prawn cocktail,
two main courses, including; fish and chips and/or Christmas turkey dinner.

To give maximum potential to the editorial piece and be appealing to various publications in different markets with different clientele and wanting to include a local Newcastle element but not so obviously constrained to the North East of England, that it wouldn’t appeal to a wider audience.

The primary publication would therefore be for those magazine’s that would wish to run an editorial on "Chef’s in training" and the food that they could create, with this image being appropriate for a winter or December publication.

Arrangements were made with, Newcastle College, Chef's Academy, a training facility for apprentice Chef's. In addition to the primary purpose, the images could also be used by the college to promote the courses within its prospectus and/or on their web page (food images – secondary income from the original editorial) and/or food (turkey) supplier(s) magazine/journal together with trade organisations representing; Chef’s etc.

Results:

Please see the images below that were created using available light and were my very first attempts at food photography.

Please note that the "fish and chips" were created at a different restaurant and the other pictures were all created at the Chef's Academy. I would like to thank both the restaurant and the Chef's Academy for their help with this assignment.