this looks quite underexposed on my screen and the highlights on the front berry are quite bright. If you're using a flash, have you tried putting something in front of the flash to diffuse it a bit? Or bouncing the flash off a white wall or reflector? If it's sunlight, hanging a white sheet over your window can help.
I really like the texture in light and dark areas on the foreground strawberries. With a dark chocolate sauce it would have been better to have a lighter plate and table to offset it. Overall the image is a bit too dark but the highlights are still a little bright -- more exposure and less contrast would help.
This is a tough challenge to vote. I'm torn between "what are you trying to do here" and "what do I expect here". Further complicating matters is the question "what would I do here".
What I would expect would be a technically strong piece of eye-candy that would present the dessert in a way that I would want to at least sample it, if not order it. Along these lines I'm looking at technicals: backgrounds, distracting elements, exposure, sharpness. I'm also looking for creativity, imagination, and originality, which can make up for less than perfect technicals.
So, where does this leave me with your image?
Nice idea, but needs a little work. The lighting is a unbalanced, leaving the chocolate hidden in the shadows, except for where it's over exposed. Compositionally, I think this would have been more stronger if you had turned the plate maybe a quarter turn to the right and shot from a slightly higher perspective, allowing you to see past the berries and into the chocolate.
The red of the strawberries really pops off of the black dish. The color is vibrant and inviting - tempting the audience to take a bite. Lighting is good on the strawberries but the dark tones of the chocolate souffle gets lost on the plate. Lighting on that portion of the dessert is going to be a challenge because of the plate being a dark color - no high contrast to allow it to pop visually. Perhaps just a small light with tissue over it to diffuse the harsh light and shine it just on that portion of the cake would have sufficiently lit it enough to be clearly visible. Or perhaps tissue paper folded over twice on the pop up flash unit of the camera (again, to diffuse the light so that it is soft rather than harsh) would help illuminate the souffle. The last option is to use the select tool and feather to avoid hard edges on the bottom half of the souffle and either up the gamma a tick and/or boast contrast/brightness.
The darks and shadows are a little overpowering for this light source. A light or white plate might improve the overall tone without taking away from the subject.
i feel the image is too dark. if that was your intention, you got it! if not, maybe try white foam bard on the side opposite of the light. it works as an excellent reflector. sharpness and depth of field is nice though! as well as your white balance. spot on!
Add photograph to your favorites
Add photographer to your favorites
Photographer found comment helpful.
