In the scorching summer, what if you don't want to go out in the scorching sun and give up photography creation?
You can try the new gameplay that we are going to introduce today: at home, without leaving home, use fruits and vegetables to shoot creative abstract masterpieces.
They can not only be used for eating, but also for shooting creative films~
Fruits and vegetables not only enrich your stomach, but their own microstructure and texture are also excellent materials for you to create large pieces. You can easily create works like this:
Kiwi, isn't it very beautiful?
And all you need to do is some small preliminary preparations, combined with some simple shooting techniques.
1. Equipment preparation
- Macro lens: convenient for displaying the microstructure of fruit and vegetable slices
- Tripod: When taking macro shots, the depth of field is extremely shallow, and using a tripod can avoid focus shift
- Towel (or tissue): Clean up splashing juice and vegetable juice at any time, as well as wipe your hands‐ — Don't dirty the equipment, baby
- Knife and cutting board: used for slicing fruits and vegetables
If you have very thin glass sheets at home (the kind used in the laboratory is better), you can use them to create“ Juice sensation” Make your work look more vivid and enticing.
As shown in the figure below, place a clean thin glass slice on top of a strawberry slice and gently press it down. Part of the flesh is flattened and juice seeps out, making the picture appear more vivid:
Another important function of thin glass sheets is to provide a transparent load-bearing platform for easy lighting.
When you are shooting thin slices of fruits and vegetables, you can place the slices on a glass slide and shine light from bottom to top. The backlit position will make the flesh fibers appear more textured:
You can also do the opposite. When the light source is located above, you can shoot from bottom to top through a glass sheet and still capture the texture of backlighting:
In addition, it is best to prepare a clean and flat white cutting board (or porcelain plate) as the shooting background. Place the cutting board by the window and use natural lighting to prepare for the shoot~
2. Material processing
“ Which type of fruit and vegetable is most suitable for shooting abstract works? ” For this question, I need to answer,“ Whatever you have on hand is most suitable; The key is to combine the characteristics of fruits and vegetables themselves.
Some fruits and vegetables have regular patterns and patterns on the surface, such as the one on the surface of strawberries; Seed” The patterns on the surface of cantaloupe and the lines on the onion skin can be photographed in close-up:
Close up of the surface of cantaloupe and onion
Some fruits and vegetables are best sliced thinly to showcase the charm of their internal microstructure, with the most typical being kiwi lemon and orange.
The flesh fibers that grow radially along the central axis can capture the audience's attention very intuitively.
If you have a color filter or other auxiliary tools that can change the color of the light, you can also find a dark room and use different colored lights for slicing; Coloring;.
Note that it is best not to slice all of your subjects at once, and it is necessary to shoot immediately after slicing, otherwise your slices will shrink and darken due to oxidation, affecting the shooting effect.
Onions are also suitable for cutting and shooting close-up shots, but there is no need to slice them thinly. Just cut and shoot the cross-section. Choose purple skinned onions instead of white skinned ones, as the texture will be clearer.
Take a cross-section and you will get a series of concentric circles; If you take a longitudinal section, you will get a photo like this:
The gameplay of scallions is much more complex and diverse.
When shooting a cross-section, you will get concentric circles, but due to the lack of color differentiation, the image effect is not good. You can change the gameplay by cutting the scallion into a small section and then stretching it apart to capture the tower like structure on the side:
You can also mix onions in different forms; Ring” Put the cross-sections together and make the picture more interesting through differences:
You can also convert to black and white in post production, adjust the contrast, and create a surreal feeling while further emphasizing the pattern texture:
As long as you try more and observe carefully, you will always find something worthwhile in the material at hand. Even if the attempt fails, there is no harm to it; — Just eat it and it's okay!
