How would you improve this?

[Arnor]

Hi Dennis,

Originally Posted by d2creative

Ok, here's the new one. After many hours of frustration.
I think some things are better, but i dunno... something still doesn't seem right. And again, I'm really just talking lighting here, not composition for this one... although i did make a couple small changes in that area.

To start with I want to make clear that this is something I have not done, i.e. set up a shot like this, so be aware of my advise - and please don't beat me up if you disagree, this is just my view as I look at the photo

To _me_ this photo looks much better than the first one, but like you say, it just doesn't look right. It looks flat and the focus of attention is not right. Personally I don't think it is the light, I think it's the composition. This is about the chips, but they are just a small part of the photo and only a few of them. The left if red, back is green/yellow and the right is white. Center is brown table with a few chips on it.

I'd get a really colorful Mexican bowl for the beans - the smooth, single color bowl keeps the red on the left and doesn't break it up at all. Upper left corner is black, lower right corner is white. I think there is too much control over the colors - they are not random at all. Simplify and focus: It's about the chips, put the focus on the chips. That may mean just a single chip or a pile of them.

The rice that flows out of the photo on the right keeps grabbing my attention. It seems to me that very light colors that bleed out of the photo tend to take the attention with them so you focus in on the rice and then your attention just kind of fades out of the photo. I.e. the rice leads the eye out of the photo, not into it. The pepper on the left leads into the photo but it points to the garlic head on the right, not to the chips. The corn also points stright to the garlic head and so does the spoon (?) between the bowl and the corn. The garlic head seems to be to be grabbing all the attention in the photo. I love garlic, but it's not the star of this show;)

I think I would take out those two garlic cloves out and put in more chips between the pepper and the garlic head, i.e. grow the chip pile backward or move the current pile a bit up. The lines in the table will then also lead into the pile drawing attention to it. Take a very good and close look at the natural lines you have in the photo and make them draw attention and focus on the subject.

Also beaware of narrowing the dof too much. I have a lot of cooking books and I _hate_ photos where the dof is about 1mm and the rest is total blurr and the only thing you see in pure, sharp focus on that (deliciously looking) plate of shrimp is the ugly eye of one of those critters. I've skipped more recipes than I care to recall because the photos were so narrowly focused that the dish looked like it had been stuffed through a food processor<g>

Anyway, sorry if I'm out of line, hope it helps, if not it's only worth the paper it's written on:)

Best regards,