Sam Teesdale – Work in progress

I originally intended to base my images and work around the relationship between dogs and humans, however, that story sadly fell through. My story now concerns a busy restaurant/takeaway, so I decided to take some test shots in my own kitchen.

The first image is a medium, side-profile shot, taken on a Canon EOS 1100d. It shows my subject cooking on a hob, without taking much notice of the photographer, as to achieve a more candid style of photography. The light from the kitchen was a very warm/mustard coloured one so it was necessary to alter the white balance to remove it. I did this because the kitchen I will be photographing will have bright white lights, so I wanted the image to closely suit the lighting I am anticipating in the takeaway restaurant.

My second image was a close-up of spices and oils on the kitchen worktop. I like this composition as the foreground includes heavily saturated bold objects, while the background contains blurred, captured movement. I used focus to my advantage, as the depth of field within the image draws the eye to the jars first, then later to the hand in the background. I also increased the contrast and saturation in post production, as to ensure that the colours and vibrancy leap out from the screen.

The final image was a mid close-up shot and although the composition could perhaps be more lively and action filled, it does nevertheless achieve a great depth of field and contrast between light and dark. Again, I altered the white balance in post production to remove the yellow tint and I increased the contrast to ensure that the composition had two distinct tones. Further curve adjustments are needed to lighten his hair and to remove the blue tint on the shutters behind.