Click the above image to view a larger version at my online portfolio. © 2009 David Kliger, All Rights Reserved.

Intro

The rich, contrasting colors of the dark purple blackberries against an illuminated spring green surface make for an image that jumps off the page.

Nutrition

As with all fruit, blackberries are a great source of low-fat fuel; 79% of their calories are from carbohydrates, 10% from fats, and 11% from protein (Nutrition Data)

Manganese helps our body absorb their energy.  Its dietary fiber helps our body eliminate fat and regulate use of sugars. Vitamin C helps make connective tissue and membranes. Folate helps make new cells. And vitamin K helps build healthy bones and blood. (Duyff)

Prop Styling

The simple grid arrangement allows us to contemplate the character of each individual berry and well as their unity. The simple grid arrangement across the spring green illuminated cutting board touches upon the patterns of blackberries.

The blackberry itself is an aggregate fruit; a grid of small drupelets wrapped into an ellipse.  They are grown on thorny brambles, composed of a tangle of thick arching stems. (Huxley)

Shown preceding preparation, the symmetrical cleanliness and dark purple color group the berries together. This suggests their potential use in recipes taking advantage of its sweet, succulent character. Its continued patterning beyond the frame expresses abundance, potentially useful for food packaging and many other design applications.

Camera Angle

My Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro USM lens helped me bring out the detail of the berries and gave me plenty of room to move around the strobe lights. I used the smallest aperture to bring out the abundant range of textures. Looking straight down emphasized the pattern arrangement by minimizing the separation of foreground, middle ground and background.

Lighting

I placed the blackberries on a textured glass cutting board with a spring green gel underneath. The berries have a dark purple color, so they need lots of light. As with all fruit it has a delicate skin and high water content, which provides its luminous quality. So, it really benefits from wrapping light all the way around it.

First, a Broncolor Unilight with a beauty dish and diffuser attachment gave me bright, soft, light with a sunlit feel. I placed the light above the subject at some distance and slightly behind. This gave me the defining, darker green reflection instead of a shadow. It clearly defines the tiny, textural surfaces of the blanket of blackberries. The ripple texture of the glass cutting board is picked up with soft, specular highlights.  To ground the berries in bright, uniform light

I added a second Broncolor Unilight strobe with a standard reflector centered below my glass table with an added layer of milky white Plexiglas. I angled the light downward into convex white sweep paper.

Conclusion

The sundrenched play of light across the moist surfaces of the berries and glass cutting board brought out their freshness and extended the studio environment closer to nature. The clearly defined shapes with its contrasting spring green ground gave it a quick, intimate read and scalability suitable for sustainable, commercial applications including advertising and food packaging, as well as cookbooks.

Bibliography

Duyff, Roberta Larson. American Dietetic Association Complete Food and Nutrition Guide, 3rd Edition. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2006.

Huxley, A. New RHS Dictionary of Gardening. Macmillan, 1992.

Nutrition Data. Nutrient Search Tool. 2011. Conde Nast Digital. 30 July 2011 <http://nutritiondata.self.com/>.

Click on the above image for a larger view at my online portfolio. © 2009 David Kliger, All Rights Reserved.

Introduction

Just one Swiss Chard leaf fills the frame, grounded in the vitality of the luminous, spring green cutting surface. We connect with its rich, red veins as it reminds us of its abundant contribution to our health.

Nutritional Content

Swiss chard is a good source of vitamins A, C, K; B-complex vitamins; most minerals; dietary fiber and protein. (Nutrition Data) This plentiful variety of nutrients sustains many of our bodily processes. Its antioxidant properties are from Vitamins A and C, Selenium and Magnesium. Its B-complex vitamins, manganese and phosphorus helps our body produce energy. Calcium and manganese build stronger bones. Vitamin K, Iron, Potassium and Copper give us healthier blood. Dietary fiber assists our digestion. Finally, Protein and Zinc help rebuild and repair body cells.  (Duyff)

Taste and Use

Swiss chard and all dark green leafy vegetables are hardy, and can be eaten raw for their bitter, spicy flavors. Many cooking techniques can be applied to soften the leaves and stems, lessen bitterness, and add harmony and depth to recipes. (Sung)

Food and Prop Styling

The mist of “morning dew” water across the leaf accentuates its freshness. Its broad shape, peak of freshness, arched contour and curved outline play well with the camera. I found just one shape to be a more powerful symbol than combining several leaves.

I give it an energetic, summery base, I placed the leaf on a white, translucent, polypropylene cutting board with a spring green gel underneath and layered tabletop of a diffuse, white sheet of Plexiglas on ¼” glass.

Lighting

To bring out it’s crinkly, curved, dark green surface I used one Broncolor Unilight strobe with a beauty dish and diffuser attachment above and behind to the viewer’s left. To bring out its translucency, I centered a second Broncolor Unilight with a standard reflector under the table, angled to illuminate the base with bright, even light.

Camera Angle

The maximum depth of field here was essential to bring out the richness of the surface texture across its earthy, undulating contours. The camera angle both looks down and in front, revealing the bowed shape. Here, my Canon EF 50mm f/1.2 lens was just right.

Conclusion

The simple, iconographic leaf shape and luminous, spring green background carries rich messages of health, nutrition, and sustainable energy from the Earth and Sun. It is easily scalable for a range of sustainable, commercial applications, including food packaging and cookbooks.

Bibliography

Duyff, Roberta Larson. American Dietetic Association Complete Food and Nutrition Guide, 3rd Edition. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2006.

Herbst, Sharon Tyler Herbst and Ron. The Deluxe Food Lover’s Companion. Hauppauge: Barron’s Educational Series, Inc., 2009.

Nutrition Data. Nutrient Search Tool. 2011. Conde Nast Digital. 30 July 2011 <http://nutritiondata.self.com/>.

Sung, Esther. “A Visual Guide to Cooking Greens.” 2011. Epicurious. Conde Nast Digital. <www.epicurious.com>.

Click image above for link to larger view at my online portfolio. © 2009 David Kliger, All Rights Reserved.

I began my food photography portfolio with an exploration of unprepared, whole foods. As a Vegetarian for 25 years of both cooked and raw foods, I am inspired by their life-giving properties. Here, they tell the story of their aliveness and connection to the Earth.

Nutrition and Use

Nuts are a very concentrated source of energy. (Duyff) And hazelnuts are no exception, with their 81% fat content. (Nutrition Data) They help placate hunger by making us feel full, as it takes fats longer to leave our stomach than carbohydrates and proteins. As an ingredient, fat carries flavor. They also bring a smooth and creamy texture to foods. (Duyff) So, these sweet, rich, nuts are used in a great variety of confections, as well as in savory foods such as salads and main dishes. (Herbst)

Harvesting and Styling

Harvested from the hazel tree, hazelnuts are grown commercially in moderate climates around the world. (Herbst) Both its outer hard shell and inner seed have a wood grain pattern. The seed’s delicate skin easily breaks off, showing the creamy center. Here, I placed them on an Architec end grain wood cutting board to draw out their orchard roots.

Camera Angle

With my Canon EF 180mm f/3.5L Macro USM lens, I scale our handful of nuts to show a focused moment before preparation. The depth of field brings out the abundant range of textures.

Lighting

Positioned above and to the left, my Broncolor Unilite 1600 with an umbrella attachment gives me the diffuse light I sought to bring out the volume and texture of the nuts and the cutting board wood grain, all without without glare. The strong shadows create separation with the cutting board and emphasize the nut shapes, allowing them to pop from their similar-patterned background.

Conclusion

Here we have a simple, intimate read of the qualities of this versatile nut. This food photography and lighting style is a valuable resource for sustainable commercial food presentations such as packaging, cookbooks, advertising, and editorial.

Bibliography

Duyff, Roberta Larson. American Dietetic Association Complete Food and Nutrition Guide, 3rd Edition. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2006.

Herbst, Sharon Tyler Herbst and Ron. The Deluxe Food Lover’s Companion. Hauppauge: Barron’s Educational Series, Inc., 2009.

Nutrition Data. Nutrient Search Tool. 2011. Conde Nast Digital. 30 July 2011 <http://nutritiondata.self.com/>.

Why expansion into photography?

In short, so I can become a complete digital artist.

I began to explore our connection to the earth with my fine art and I would now like to use photography to develop a visual language of sustainability and aliveness for commercial markets.

I can have more control over my own destiny by creating my own photography imagery with a story and meaning that solves visual communication needs for art directors.

How does photography relate to your previous retouching and fine art?

With my fine art montages, I explored the spiritual levels of meaning with our relationship with the earth. Through these experimental montages, I had the chance to explore new forms, textures and spatial relationships.

This opened the development of my retouching skills of bringing to life the visual directions of art directors. Over the years, the breadth and depth of imagery I have has helped me develop my awareness of what defines captivating photography.

How does photography complement your other digital skills?

I have spent much of my energy this past year giving myself a strong structure with my equipment, digital asset management system, expanded retouching skills, and connections with other Photographers through ASMP. Essentially, this allows me to be a professional creative. My expansion with digital photography and its visual tools allows me to expand into expressions of meaning and building relationships.

Studio photography allows me to shoot concepts in one shot when this is the easiest route. Or, when a project is better completed in layers in Photoshop, I can shoot the layers myself. In short, I push it in-camera and then push it some more in Photoshop as the image gets prepared for its intended media.

What can you say with your new studio photography that you haven’t been able to do before?

I am attracted to starting with nothing and ending up with an emotionally captivating image that is created with light, has rich texture and color and has layers of meaning.

As a Retoucher, I am the hand through which Art Directors visually speak using the photographic material I am supplied. Now, I can offer a visual voice for building relationships.

Why food?

Food presents itself as my photographic specialty path of least resistance for a number of reasons.

It has been a personal interest of mine for a long time. A few years ago, my Sister attracted me to raw food. The experience of eating a well-harmonized raw meal gives me a joyful experience of nourishment and aliveness. For about a couple of years now, I have been giving raw food cooking demonstrations to my spiritual group, Science of Spirituality.

Now, I want to offer the experience of vicariously eating various foods through photography. We have an obvious, deep-seated attraction to these accessible forms because we eat them. We have a complex relationship with our food that involves social layers of meaning, pleasure, nourishment, and nutrition. We are what we eat. I want to explore food as colors and color harmony that we eat, and food textures, forms, and their connection to the earth.

Broadly speaking, I want develop a language of sustainability, explore the green economy, our connection to the earth through our food, and do commercial exploration with the five elements. It gives me transferable skills for potential expansion into areas such as product, beauty and landscape.

We’ll see where this all leads.

Any interest in returning to fine art?

While my commercial work is my focus right now, I would like to bring fine art back into my life on a more consistent basis. I have projects on my data drive that I have been developing. I have found having both outlets expands my creativity because they open each other up.

Through the micro world of food, I would like to further explore the connections to nature’s global processes of the five elements. Also, I would like to explore the timelessness of our soul through photography on an individual and universal level.

Anything else wanting to come out that has been welling up?

Photography includes light as its material – which is barely physical, and surface textures – which describe our physical world as we see it. I want to explore the contrast of these two extremes as I move forward.

As I grow and develop with my work, I strive to bring out a heightened awareness of an energetic presence enlivening the forms of our world.