The negative space in food photography

The 'negative space' in art is the room around the subject, which is sometimes called 'positive space' then. The room around the subject in food photography is often filled by props and side elements. And the props and side elements can become subjects on their own supporting the main subject - the food. In general one would not call this negative space, because it is filled with 'side' subjects, although it is possible that this background and side elements work as negative space in some way. More obvious is the negative space, when it seems to be 'empty' too.

The best known negative space in food photography is when you photograph food against a sheer white background, like it is done in the following image:



© All rights reserved, Thorsten Kraska, 2011

This kind of negative space is suited for many publications, because one can isolate the food easily from the background and can use the food in many different ways without being determined by a maybe distracting background. You will find such photos in many stock photo collections.

The negative space, especially when it takes more room in the composition as the food does, can be used to emphasize on contrasts, structures, textures or to bring the attention to certain characteristics of the food.




© All rights reserved, Thorsten Kraska, 2011

In the above photo I have used a light blue color in the negative space which makes a 1st order color triangle with the red and yellow of the peaches. It is not a true color triangle, because the colors are 'broken', but the blue negative space brings the attention more to colors. Together with a soft backlight you get the impression of smoothness and silkyness of the fruit. And the colors still remain a fresh impression.




© All rights reserved, Thorsten Kraska, 2011

Another example with a negative space and color contrast. In this image some melon seeds were placed beside the water melon. With such a empty space every little element gets more attention like here the seeds. This effect is based on a 'room contrast' (small-to-big-contrast). And although the seeds just take a very small portion of the image, their meaning is enmphasized by the negative space. When there would be more side elements here the meaning of the seeds would be reduced.




© All rights reserved, Thorsten Kraska, 2011

In the above photo with the red apple the negative space is used to emphasize on the structures on the apple surface. See how the more or less strucure-less background brings your attention to the different structures of the apples. And to use a dark background helps here to make the apple the 'brightest' spot in the photo, which makes it easier to highlight even little color differences and textures.




© All rights reserved, Thorsten Kraska, 2011

In this monochromatic photo of an avocado the background introduces a different structure. One can use the structure contrast to hightlight the structure of the subject (avocado) more. To pronounce this more I have used a structural light from left which creates more shadows so that the texture of the avocado is seen better.




© All rights reserved, Thorsten Kraska, 2011

There are transistions from an 'empty' negative space to a more filled negative space as you see it in the above two photos. To maintain the feeling of an empty space the coffee pot and cup in the back were kept out of focus. With a defined focal plain on the food and a more shallow depth of field one can separate the subject (food, here cake) from the rest of the photo and so one create a kind of negative space too.

One can find many different ways to use the negative space in food photography. And here are some more examples from the Food Photography Club (a discussion group on Flickr). Please click on the link to see the photo:


Untitled (by seven spoons • tara) - a very reduce composition with a graphical setting. Beside the great use of the graphical patterns (circle of the food against squares of the background) a color contrast of broken red, green and blue is used.
Blackcurrants (by zapxpxau) - the basket is used to frame here the blackcurrants with in the frame. The grass is giving the impression of fresh picked fruit.
Apple core (by sunshinemomsblog) - also an example of color contrast using first order colors of red, blue and yellow. The negative space is also giving the impression of the apple core left behind, because the negative space is an empty space too.
Couscous agli Agrumi - Citrus Couscous (by Alessandro Guerani) - a very strong color contrast. The yellow and purple are strong colors in contrast to the green. The large area (negative spave) the green is taking here brings the green into a good balance to the two stronger colors yellow and purple.
Cheese souffle (by Souvlaki For The Soul) - great use of bruigthness contrast. The souffle is the brigthest spot in tis composoition whereas the rest of the photo is based on darker notes and is also out of focus. It creates a very rustic atmosphere.
distinctive characters (by Melina Hammer) - a monochromatic setting with a plain two colored background. This setting is focussing strongly on the wonderful structures and textures of the mushroom.
enjoy 0019-153.jpg (by skrockodile (www.cookbookcatchall.blogspot.com)) - this caviar shot is almost a black & white image. Only the script is remaining of a color image. Here we have a two-fold negative space. The caviar in the box is working as negative space for the caviar on the spoon. And the white background is a negative space for the bow. This minimalistic setting is emphasizing the exclusiveness of the caviar.
Chocolate brownies w dulce de leche (by DarioMilano Food Styling & Photography) - a monochromatic setting which creates a lot of tension by placing the food far off center. The lines of the brownies are counter acted by the wooden lines. And the the dark shadows are separatring the food from the background.

If you browse through the above mentioned flickr group 'Food Photography Club' you will find many more examples on the use of negative space in food photography.


If you like this post, you make alos like to read:
High and Low Key Food Photography
How close to the food should one get in food photos
The breakfast shot
Post Processing in my Food Photography

Post Processing in my Food Photography

I'm frequently asked, if I do post process my digital photos. Of cause I do! It is part of the whole photography process. For me "post processing" is the part which is comparable to "film development & print" in analog photography. Post processing is the fine tuning in digital food photography and for me integral part of it.

In the following I will give a brief overview about the post processing steps in my photography.



White Balance / Color Balance
Although I check the white balance frequently throughout a shooting using a grey card and manual white balance of my camera, there are cases where a little correction is needed or where I would like to emphasize a certain color mood.
I check every of my photos for white balance, even if the white balance doesn't need to be adjusted. It has become a routine operation for me in post processing. And with that routine I have trained over time my eye for slight variations in color mood, color hues and white balance.
To do this properly a color calibrated monitor is essential. A detailed thread on this topic can be found in the Food Photography Club of Flickr (Tips, Tricks & Opinions: Monitor Calibration).
A good white balance is always based on a proper setting of the white balance of your camera. When you have a digital SLR use the manual setting(s) and follow the manual. For manual white balance you will need a grey card (or when you don't have one a white sheet of paper instead) as reference for the manual white balance setting. If you don't have a digital SLR or your camera is just offering some pre-settings, use the one which comes closest to a neutal white. If you can't decide which setting works best on the little LCD screen of your camera, try different pre-settings. So you have different choices for the post processing later. For post processing it is very helpful to have something "white" in the photo as reference for your white balance adjustments. I often have used a very small piece of white paper and placed it somewhere in the photo where I could easily clone it out later after I have adjusted the white balance.
If you are interested in some more information, I suggest the following links:

• The "true" color - about white balance and color mood
• Tips, Tricks and Opinions: White Balance and Color Cast
• For Beginners: White Balance, the basics and how to handle it easily

"Sharpening"
A properly focussed photo is the basis of a good photo. With "sharpening" or "re-sharpening" I do not mean to sharpen an otherwise blurry photo and to repair it in some way. I would suggest to do it the hard way: DELETE every blurry photo. The worst thing that could happen to me is to rouine a good composition by wrong focussing and to get a blurry photo.

With a perfect focussed photo you can go into the further steps of post processing which are doing more or less the same as you know them from analog photography when you develop your films or doing prints in the darkroom. I don't want to get in the more technical details here, but in film photography the chemical processes involved enhance the sharpness of photos. A phenomenon which is often described as "unsharp maskening" and makes use of differences in toning of neighbour areas of your negative or during print development. Software products like photoshop are offering a digital tool to mimic this effect called unsharp maskening. It can be found in the filter section under the different sharpening tools.
For food photography I like the tool "highpass filter" often more, because it seems to enhance the overall contrasts and dimensionality of the photo. Especially for photos, where you need just a slight sharpening this works great. You will find it in the filter section under other filters.
In photos where I have large colored areas which should not be sharpened and other areas with fine structures which should be sharpened I also use the unsharp maskening method in the luminance channel of the photo. For this you have to switch from RGB-mode to the LAB-mode first. Then select the LAB-brigthness from channel section of your photo. After doing this you use a slight soft-focus of a- and b-channels (Gauss effect). With that you get good defintion in the fine structures without sharpening the colored areas too much.
For my post processing I often use the high pass filter with a pixel radius less than 5. The luminance method is more complex and you need some more fine tuning here. I often start with a setting for the unsharp maskening of the luminance of pixel radius of 1.0, a strength of 200% and a threshold of 2. For the soft-focus effect according to Gauss I start with 0.5 pixel radius for a- and b-channel.

Although I have used the expression sharpening in this section, one has the say, that it is not a sharpening (in the wordest true sense) but a method to enhance the contrast in your photo so that they appear "sharper". What I have said so far is based on my experiences for digital uses. For hard print you could use the same tools, but the tools are used differently.

Is there a case, where sharpening of a photo is a must? Yes. Any time you reduce image size in pixels or reduce data to make image smaller in storage size, you should re-resharpen your photos to maintain their status in sharpness. All my photos of medium size I posted here or on flickr are re-sharpened after size reduction.



Retouching
Sometimes, when I have overseen a mark, fleck or stain, I try to clone it out. I have to admit, that I do this only for very small areas, where it can easily be done. The reason: I'm too lazy to spend too much time for this kind of post processing. And you can do it much easier, when you plan your shooting and do the arrangements very carefully. But accidents can happen and when it can easily be done, I do it.



Other
Sometimes I play around with contrasts, gamma values or color saturations. But I have to say, that I don't use them frequently. Or when I use them I use them very carefully. Changes to the original levels seldom exceed 5%. And when I used them in post processing a variation in contrast, gamma values or saturation was part of the whole process. Example: When I would like to have enhanced contrast but can not get the effect by lighting, exposure and aperture I take into account if I could get that effect by post processing.



Gereneral discussions on post processing
Here are two links to threads on post processing you might be interested in to read:

• Tips, Tricks and Opinions: Post Processing
• Photo Manipulation and Purism

An apple a day...

... keeps the doctor away, I know. But it is also giving me the chance to talk about food photography and conceptional ideas. I have bought two different apple varieties on our local market (Belle de Boskoop, Braeburn). I started with a still using Boskoop apples.



(1)

© All rights reserved, Thorsten Kraska, 2010

The basic idea was to use a random looking arrangement of Boskoop apples, but using one single center apple as the focal point. From the apples I used one which combines the most typical characteristics of the batch. Around this center apple I arrange different ones showing different chrarctristics, e.g. different color (a deep red or bright red in upper right, a green one in upper left or an orange one in lower left). To make the single center apple the dominant point in this photo, no other apple is touching this one and around it is some free space. And I used a very shallow Depth of Field (80mm/f 2.8 tilt-shift lens, with an extreme tilting of about 10° to reduce Depth of field even more).



(2)

© All rights reserved, Thorsten Kraska, 2010

In this second shot I used a slightly lower angle and a closer view to emphazise the ascending diagonal line more. Although this diagonal is also used in the upper one, the tighter cropping and lower angle is forcing it more. Especially because the three apples in upper left making a line in same direction. And the three apple cropped on far right are doing the same. Although I didn't change the arrangement, the effect is bgetting obvious here by just two little changes.



(3)

© All rights reserved, Thorsten Kraska, 2010

In this photo, using Braeburn Apples, I have used a similar idea, but varied it. First, the apples are looking more or less the same. But the center (single) apple is used too. I used a slightly wider Depth of Field (and no tilting) at 70mm/F 3.5. I wanted a very bright impression so I used a fill light from lower left and from left side with the main light (natural light from a window) from upper right. The apple in lower right gets another fill light from lower right to reduce shadows here.
Composition wise I have used the descending diagonal line here mainly created by the only two apples which are not cropped. The upper right I filled with apples, so that they build a kind of triangular shape, where the diagonal line is one side. At first there was no apple in lower left. I introduced one to break an otherwise too stiff composition.



(4)

© All rights reserved, Thorsten Kraska, 2010

Here I have forced the diagonal line as the main element. The line is created by the two apples like in the other and the apples in upper left and lower right corner. But the two apples behind the line are now emphazising the diagonal again. This is mainly do to the fact that I have removed the other apple in uupper right and the one on left side. And I changed the lighting. Just a very reduced fill light from lower left, the apples in upper left were shaded a bit, so that the center apple is the brightes spot in this photo. The effect is enhanced, because of the focal plain being on this apple. And you can see here the effect of the fill light on lower right apple. Whereas the apple is showing shadows here, in the former one the shadows are reduced obviousely. With a more hard light from upper right as compared to the smooth light before, there are some good shadows which are supporting the diagonal line.


So with two apple varieties and different ideas you can vary your composition and play with different elements in your photo: color, element characteristics (color, structure, shape), light, arrangment, angle, depth of field. Sometimes not much is required to change the composition and the effect it will have on the viewer.

...on the process
Between the first two photos and the last two photos was a time of one week, where I thought about how to change the setting or what to make different. The main idea was how to structure the photo (arrange the apples). In the first two I was using the ascending diagonal line, but the "many" apples cover the diagonal line a bit. In the last two I have tried to make this line more obvious. I also like the differences between the two diagonal line and how viewer's react to it. The diagonal line from lower left to upper right (ascending line) create a feeling of going upwards, going away into the back, moving away. The diagonal line from upper left to lower right (descending) is often associated with a movement towards the viewer, going downward. Often this line has an "inviting" character and in food photography it could be associated with "serving something to the viewer". I think especially in the 3rd shot with the brighter apple in focus this is to recognize (at least for me)


If you like this, you may like this one too:

Christmas Fun Project: Ginger Bread Ravioli (Lebkuchen-Ravioli)

© All rights reserved, Thorsten Kraska, 2009

I found the recipe for Ginger Bread Ravioli (Lebkuchenravioli) a few years ago and thought that this would be the perfect recipe for some christmas fun. Actually it is a recipe for jam filled gingerbread cookies, but with a bit of fantasty you could turn it into an Italien look alike Pasta Dish. The gingerbread cookies are based on a dough for typical German Lebkuchen. You will need some special ingredients, which might be difficult to get where you live, but these are making these cookies so special. Before we start the fun, here the recipe and all you need for the fun.


Lebkuchen-Ravioli (Ginger Bread Ravioli)
(for about 20 raviolis)

...for the ravioli dough
350g honey
100g sugar
100g butter
1 egg (medium-size)
1 tablespoon dutch cocao powder (unsweetend)
2 teaspoons ginger bread seasoning (see note)
600g all purpose flour
5g salts of harthorn
2g potash
3 tablespoons milk


...for the dried fruit filling
dried fruit (e.g. prunes, cranberries, apricots, figs, dates)
walnuts
Chop dried fruit and walnuts into small pieces and mix them together


...for the dried fruit filling
marzipan (marchpane, almond paste
raisins
rum
Soak raisins in rum. Take two or three soaked raisins and wrap them in a little piece of marchpane


...for the jam filling
strawberry jam or any other jam you like
Use about 1/2 teaspoon for filling


...for the nougat filling
solid nougat, cut into small cubes
Form the cubes into little balls for the filling



...for the Italian Pasta Dish Idea
green food coloring
red food coloring
raspberry jam
coconut flakes
white chocolate
marzipan



Notes
Ginger bread seasoning: In Germany you can get this seasoning during advent. I always use a commercial product. The one I use contains cinnamon, coriander, aniseed, allspice, cloves, star-anise, cardamon, ginger, and vanilla. The ginger bread seasoning might be difficult to get, but it is worthwhile to try it, because to get the right mixture of spices is difficult.
Potash and salts of hartshorn are the typical baking agent in christmas bakery. They work a little like baking powder or soda, but are very different though. They add a typical taste, create a different texture and they don't loos there baking characteristics during th elong resiting time. When you dissolve potash in milk a strong smell will occur, which is typical.
For the filling there are no amounts given. Use as much or less as you like.


Directions
Mix honey, butter and sugar in a pot and heat over low heat until sugar is dissolved completely. Remove from heat and let cool down slightly. In a bowl mix flour, cocoa, ginger bread spice mixture. Add honey mixture to flour and mix using the dough hook. Add egg and mix again. Dissolve salts of hartshorn in 2 tablespoons of milk in a small bowl. In a second small bowl dissolve potash in 1 tablespoon milk. Add first salts of hartshorn mixture to dough and mix well. Than add potash mixture and mix well. Wrap dough into cling film and set aside for at least 24 hours at room temperature.

On the next day: preheat oven 180°C. Line out baking tray with parchment paper. Dust the work space with some flour and knead the dough a few times. If the dough is too sticky add a little more of flour. Divide dough into smaller parts you can handle easily. Roll out the dough very thinly (about 2mm). Dust the dough with flour from time to time as you would do it with pasta dough to prevent it from stick to workspace. The dough should be elastic, but dry. Halve dough. On one part mark squares of about 5cm. On each square place some filling. Now cover it with the second half of the dough and press slightly with your fingers in between the fillings to mark the ravioli. Cut out the ravioli with a knife.

For each ravioli cookie: press the edges slightly together with your fingers. Seal the edges by pressing a fork into the edges. Place ravioli on baking tray and bake for about 12 minutes until ravioli a slightly browned. Remove from oven and let cool completely on cooling rack. Keep them in an airtight container. They will get better with time, but I guess they will not stay that long.

Why don't you try to present ginger bread ravioli like a pasta dish? Here is the idea (and take a look at the photos below). Colour small coconut flakes with some drops of green food coloring to represent chopped herbs. Color marzipan with red food coloring. Roll small pieces of red colored marzipan into little balls to represent cherry tomatoes (for the stems I have used real stems from cherry tomartoes). Scrap pieces from white chocolate to make "parmesan cheese". Put some raspberry jam as tomato sauce on a pasta plate. Sprinkle some green coconut flakes over sauce. Place some gingerbread raviolie on the plate. Sprinkle with some white chocolate. At last place the marzipan tomatoes around the ravioli. Ready to serve ginger bread ravioli.




...and now to the xmas fun project with photos



© All rights reserved, Thorsten Kraska, 2009

On this photo you can see the dough rolled out, squares are marked and fillings placed on the dough. In front a nougat cube, behind marzipan ball, left to it strawberry jam and behind you can also see the dried fruit filling. If you click on the photo you will be re-directed to the photo on flickr, where the single fillings are marked.




© All rights reserved, Thorsten Kraska, 2009

Close up shot of ginger bread ravioli. You can see the the mark of the fork to seal the ravioli. Close the ravioli carefully and avoid air pockets.




© All rights reserved, Thorsten Kraska, 2009

Serving idea: you can see the marchepan (marzipan) tomato, the white chocolate to represent cheese and the colored coconut flakes.




© All rights reserved, Thorsten Kraska, 2009

Close up shot of serving gingerbread ravioli as an Italian Pasta Dish.




© All rights reserved, Thorsten Kraska, 2009

Close up shot of a gingerbread ravioli with marzipan filling, topped with some jam, white chocolate and some green coconut flakes. The photo at the beginning of this post is a close up shot of gingerbread ravioli with strawberry jam filling.




Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!
Here another fun shot. There is always the big question: will we have snow on christmas eve? With these Lebkuchen-Ravioli you can have snow any time you like.



© All rights reserved, Thorsten Kraska, 2009

German Classic: Marbled Cake

© All rights reserved, Thorsten Kraska, 2009

Maybe marbled cake is "The" classic German Cake. At least for me. I can not think of any birthday, anniversary or other family celebration without marbled cake made in a bundt cake form. And for all grown up in the 60s and 70s it is connected to one cook book "Backen macht Freude", the Dr. Oetker baking book, first published in 1960 and still available. The recipes in this book are foolproofed and I still rely on it when it comes to baking, although I have my own variations. The original front cover was Marbled Cake and browsing through the book always brings up childhood memories.


Marbled Cake
(for one bundt cake form)

300 g butter (softened)
285 g sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla flavor
1 tablespoon rum
1 dash salt
5 eggs

375 g all purpose flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
2 tablespoons milk

20 g Dutch Cocoa Powder
20 g sugar
3 tablespoons milk

Grease a suited bundt cake form. Preheat oven to 180°C.

Mix Dutch Cocoa powder, 20 sugar and 3 tablespoons milk until sugar and cocoa powder are dissilved. The mixture should be homogenous.

In a large bowl mix butter to make it creamy. Add sugar and a dash salt and mix on hight speed until sugar is well blended. Now add one egg after the other. After adding one egg mix for about one minute on medium to high speed. Which each egg the batter will get softer and more creamy. Aater you have added the fifth egg, add rum and vanilla flavor and mix again.

Mix flour and baking powder. Sieve half of flour mixture onto butter batter and mix until blended. Don't overmix. Add 2 tablespoons milk and mix. Sieve rest of flour mixture onto batter and mix again.

Fill 2/3 of batter into bundt cake form.

To the rest of the batter add dutch cocoa powder mixture and mix until blended. Fill cocoa batter onto the other batter. By using a fork and a spiral move through the batter swirl the dark bater into the light batter to get the typical marbled cake structure.

Bake in the oven for 50 to 60 minutes or until cake is done. Cake is done when a tooth pick comes out clean. When the cake gets to dark on top you can cover it with baking paper.

When cake is done, let cool for about 10 minutes in baking form. Then let cool completely on cooling rack. Before serving dust the cake with powder sugar generousely.



© All rights reserved, Thorsten Kraska, 2009


Backen macht Freude
German Baking Today
This book was published first in 1960 by Dr. Oetker and has been used in my family until then. And I guess this is the case in most German families. Meanwhile you can get it in English too called "German Baking Today". The recipes in the newer editions are still the same. For those interested in food photography a comparision of the original edition of 1960 and the latest one is highly inetersting. The photographic sytyle has changed completely (obviousely). I still can remeber most of the colored photographs from the original edition. To save space two or more different recipes were shown in one photograph.


Variation of form and size
You can try this cake in different baking forms, like a loaf pan form form. Or make it as little single cakes in a muffin pan.



© All rights reserved, Thorsten Kraska, 2009



© All rights reserved, Thorsten Kraska, 2009

Taste of childhood: peaches

The variety of peaches or any other fruit you can get on local markets seems to get bigger and bigger. Not only yellow and white fleshed peaches, but also all different shapes like what is called here in Germany "vineyard peaches":



© All rights reserved, Thorsten Kraska, 2009

This more flat shaped peaches have a thicker peel. I haven't seen them the last years, but now they seem to be almost anywhere. While I was walking over the market last week, I saw a more orange to yellow colored peach variety with a very intense flavor. It reminded me at once to the flavor of peaches known in my childhood. Very sweet, very fruity. I have bought some and immediately after coming home I have to test them. And the flavor was just as I remember it from my childhood. Even the little bitterness of the peel was there. I love this taste and I hope that these peaches will become so popular as the vineyard peaches are nore.



© All rights reserved, Thorsten Kraska, 2009

Soon after these photos were made, I made peach jam out of these wonderful peaches.

Introducing "My2Penn'orth"

Does this world really needs another blog?
No!
But I like to have my own.
Well then, every blog needs a name. I thought about it for a while, but everything I came up with was just blah-blah, sounded overblown, was boring or was used by another one. Today someone told me, that I have to give my twopenn'orth to everything. Well, right. That's it. That's the end of the story and the start of this blog.
Don't worry! I will mainly talk about things I like to blog about and that is food photography and sometimes food.
So, with no further delay, here are my two twopenn'orth. If you like it, tell others about it. If you don't like it, help me to make it better.