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A year in pictures ~ Week 7 of 52, Seasonal Fruit and Vegetables

Worth viewing on the lighbox - hit L to see if you agree ;-)

This was always scheduled for the week of Valentine's day, trying to keep with seasonal fruit and veg, but also where possible pop them into an appropriate calendar context. After the event I realised that this is the first image of the batch to be shot in landscape format, and this could cause issues for print consistency if I decide to go down that road. I may have to revisit it when I get a chance. In the meantime, I wanted to play with shaped bokeh, something that I've seen done a number of times, and I've been itching to try for myself. It is a lot of fun, but I went in guessing the size of the cutout, and I must have tried six or seven times before getting it the way I'd wanted!

As for the fruit - it is up there with my absolute favourites. I love the smell, the taste just screams tropics and is about as close to a natural sweet as it's possible to get. It's magical that a fruit that can appear to be wrinkled, dryed out and not very exciting can reveal such nectar once it's been broken open. The contents of the opened fruit lasted about 30 seconds after I thought I'd nailed the shot! I'm so enthused by the fruit in fact, that it would be easy to imagine that it had got its name from filling the eater with a fruity passion, but in reality it gets its name from the flower of the genus Passiflora or passion flower. The name is supposed to have originated from the symbolic association of various parts of the flower to the Passion of Christ before the Crucifixion. I find that kind of etymology quite fascinating. (If you're not familiar with it, the flower is extremely beautiful, we also have a non edible species that is grown in gardens here in the UK).

ISO100, f1.8 @ 1/125s. 50mm prime with heart shaped cutout on front of lens. I used a softbox with a purple gel to set the scene, a string of small LED lights for the bokeh, and a snooted flash on minimum power as the keylight on the fruits. The open aperture is great for creating lovely bokeh, but hard to get the point of focus spot on. I think viewed full size it works ok, but in the smaller version I'm not happy with the clarity of the seeds on the near fruit.

A last minute dash to finish The Assignment after a change of deadline! The brief was to try and capture mood and emotion using a range of techniques (light, mono conversion etc), and to interpret a song, album or movie title. I hope this has a dreamy feel to some extent - that was the aim of the blue light!

I used an off camera flash with a blue gel in a softbox high camera right, with a honeycombed bare flash to fill the center of the image with a warmer tone.

A year in pictures ~ Week 6 of 52, Seasonal Fruit and Vegetables

aka Panning the Parsnip

Another wonderful seasonal winter vegetable, parsnips abound through the coldest months of the year, and you just know that they're good and fresh because they look and feel great and you can store them for longer than at other times of the year. They speak earthyness to me, and it's not rare to see them in the most amazing convoluted and knobbly shapes. Whether you enjoy them roasted alongside other seasonal veg, or chopped into a warming casserole, they are one root crop that I associate very firmly with the hearty, wholesome fare of the season. Another favourite of mine is to team them with slightly tart cooking apples to make a memorable soup.

Apparently, the parsnip is even more laden with vitamins and minerals than its close relative the carrot - and has particularly high levels of potassium - so I'm guessing that it helps you see in all kinds of places :D

The colour of this vegetable is understated, and I wondered whether it might suit a soft image, with a pastel palette. I've been enjoying my experiments with photos that move away from the heavy dark backgrounds that I'd come to rely on, so I'm keen to keep pushing in that direction. Ever since the DSLR Skills course module on panning techniques, my great friend Sarah and I have often joked about panning various things, so I decided that I'd pay tribute to it by trying to 'pan the parsnip'. I created a background with pastel blue acrylic paints, interspersed with patches of darker blues and russets to pick out the browns in the parsnip, in the hope that as I panned, those colours would streak and soften in a pleasing manner. In the end I rather like the resulting hues, and the softness of the overall image, I can see it working as a printed image in the range, which ultimately is what I'm aiming to achieve.

ISO100 f3.2 @ 1/4s. The lighting for this one is relatively simple, a desk spot lamp lighting the background and parsnip body, an LED torch to highlight the top of subject (when I was setting it up I thought of it as a 'hair light' - I know that sounds crazy for a parsnip, but such is the way my mind works :P).

A year in pictures ~ Week 5 of 52, Seasonal Fruit and Vegetables

And so to the divisive veges. I know that kale isn't to everyone's taste, though my departed, beloved bunny Humphrey wouldn't have been able to understand that one little bit. Kale was his favourite by a long way, and he'd gobble it up as fast as he could, getting it securely into his belly before anyone had a chance to confiscate it. It is of course packed with healthy vitality, but I know that it wasn't my favourite to eat. That is, until I was out for lunch with a good friend, and we were served with the most delicious kale and horseradish soup. Ever since then I've been a convert - and I'm afraid that I love the soup so much that my kale doesn't get a look in elsewhere!

Photographically, I wanted to experiment with this vege and try to present it in an original way. It can be absolutely beautiful when it catches the light, and I thought it would be fun to play with it as though it really wasn't a veg at all. In my mind's eye I could visualise a necklace, or bracelet made out of the beautiful green leaves - like a natural sculpture or ruffle. I decided that it would be best teamed with purples and blues, so selected a ring for the mandatory nod to bokeh, and a deep purple Yves St Lauren nail varnish.

ISO100 f2.8 @ 1/50s. Softbox to camera top left, gelled speedlite onto white background through white brolly. Reflector camera right to fill shadows. Minor white balance adjustment to emphasise the blues, and unsharp mask on the parts of the image in sharp focus.