2.

4 Tasty Compositions on Forks

A simple fruit salad looks much more interesting if you show the separate in-
gredients. A couple of fruits looks juicier if you have water splashing on them.
Why don’t we combine these two tricks? It is actually very easy!

ON FORKS

INGREDIENTS COSTS TIME

• Impulse lighting • Floral foam $0.35 • Preparation time
• Fruits • Syringe $4 30 minutes
• Fork • Shooting time
• Floral foam 20 minutes
• Wire/Needles
• Syringe
• Water

PREP SETUP LUCK

65% 30% 5%
60% 60% 60%

#ep_cookbook_flying DIFFICULTY
 THE CREATIVE PHOTOGRAPHY COOKBOOK 3

Prepare the Ingredients

We are going to need:

• Set of lights to shoot splashes (I used two SB-910 on-camera flashes);

• Camera;
• Tripod;
• Still life props (a fork and fruits);
• Long needles to fix the fruits;
• A block of wet foam (or a clip to fix the fork vertically);
• Syringes or a small water container to spray water;
• Shutter remote (convenient to have, but you can do without it).

Assembling the Set

Take some small fruits (they are easier to combine and look more impres-
sive in the shot) and put them in a “balancing” setup. It may be a good idea
to adjust fruits in search of a perfect angle before you fix them on the fork.
When you feel that you like the setup, put the fruits on the fork and fix them
together with long needles (you can use needles for acupuncture or even bits
of hard wire).

Check that everything is holding tightly together and stick the fork in the
block of wet foam. The block may look very light, but in practice, it is rather
stable.
4

Lighting
I used two flashes set to low pow-
er to light the set. One was inside
a strip box on the right as the main
light (1/16 power). Another one
was behind a large diffuser on the
left and a little bit to the front as a
fill-in light (1/32 power).

Over the set, at the front, I had a

piece of white cardboard paper
that reflected light on the fork and
created a subtle fleck of light below
the nibs.

I covered the green block of wet

foam with a white piece of paper to
 THE CREATIVE PHOTOGRAPHY COOKBOOK 5

eliminate any “untasty” reflections.

Set your exposure to flash synchronization (it depends on the model, but usu-
ally it is 1/160 or 1/250 seconds). Take a test shot to figure out the diameter of
the aperture without the risk of underexposing the image.

You must also make sure that no external light enters the frame (so shooting
with flashes off should give you a black screen). Focus on the main object
manually and put your camera into continuous shooting mode (or burst
mode) to take several shots in a row.
6

Take the Shot

Now comes the fun part! Do not forget
to water-proof your equipment, prepare
some towels and shoot the splashes in
short bursts.

If you use a syringe to spray the water,

you will get splashes with small drop-
lets, while a bigger container (but not
more than 1.7 fl oz) will give you bigger
splashes. Let’s go!
 THE CREATIVE PHOTOGRAPHY COOKBOOK 7

Post-Processing
Now you can pick the best shots and combine them. Put each photo in its
own separate layer and hide all unnecessary details with masks. If you had all
fruits adequately fixed, and their positions were not affected by water, this
will take just a couple of minutes. You can then polish the image a bit. Edit
away the needles and other supports you couldn’t hide, and adjust contrast
and brightness. And you’re done!

You can repeat this process, replacing fruits with grilled shrimp and water
with a thick sauce. See what food and sauce combinations you like best!
8
About the
Author

When I started to learn how to take a good photo, I lived in a small flat near
my University. I didn’t have any fancy lighting or a good camera for that mat-
ter. So I tried to make up for that with creativity and with stories I was telling.

Now, years later, I still think that ingenuity, curiosity, and desire to try new
things is a better investment than expensive gear.
That’s why all my experiments can be done from home. For many of them,
you will need a tripod, for some of them you will need a speedlight, but for
most of them, you are going to need only a camera or even a smartphone. And
a glue gun. Never underestimate a glue gun!

In this book I gathered years of my experience and dozens of techniques, tips,

and tricks. Now you can complete this journey a lot faster, try everything that
catches your eye and develop your own tricks to advance youк own unique
approach to still life photography.

You can follow me on Instagram and share your photos with me here:
@dinabelenko

Dina Belenko
The Creative Photography
Cookbook
SAMPLE

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