This week on the menu, we have some meatballs and tomato sauce, mushrooms with feta stuffing and finally, for desert, some tasteful tarts. All prepared by Chiara Scipione of Italian Food with Style
On the photography side, the pictures in this blog post were taken using two lights, a main light positioned between 10 and 2 o’clock and a fill light at about 5 o’clock..
I wanted to make these meatballs and tomato sauce look really fresh. So I decided to use a white background and make it as bright as possible without clipping the highlights. Colourwise a touch of green to complement the red of the tomato sauce looked like an obvious choice. Chiara must know quite a bit about design (I guess Italians must be born with an innate sense of style) as she prepared exactly three bowls.
There is a rule of composition in the visual arts called the rule of odds. According to Wikipedia, “The rule of odds states that by framing the object of interest with an even number of surrounding objects, it becomes more comforting to the eye, thus creating a feeling of ease and pleasure.” Don’t you feel the sense of balance in the above image.
The lighting for the mushrooms stuffed with feta cheese was the same as in the photograph of the meatballs and tomato sauce. I set the three dishes in a diagonal, as it makes for a more dynamic composition. A touch of red and the repeated use of the rule of odds complete the set up. I quite like this photo.
And finally, some desert. In order to make the tarts look most appealing, I wanted to get some specular highlights on the jam, and I therefore put my main light as a back light.
A second light is used to fill the shadows and reveal the maximum amount of detail in the tarts. I get hungry just looking at this pic. Don’t you?
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