P#22: A Mouthwatering Photograph of Tomato Soup

Investment Pays Off

John Siskin: I had a food stylist for this tomato soup shot. I usually don't. Most clients won't spend the money on a food stylist because they're interested in saving a lot of money on their advertising and on the photography. But that's the stuff that drives customers in the front door.

This was one shot where I had the food stylist and it really made a tremendous difference -- not just because she's good at designing shape, but because she had all of the supplies and all of the accessories to go with it. (click the image for a larger version)

If you asked me to shoot tomato soup by myself, by myself I wouldn't have all this other stuff available. It's really wonderful from a commercial point of view to work with somebody who brings a couple of cases of stuff to shoot tomato soup.

In this case, I have one big light source to the side. Then I have a light source further back. The light source to the side is not that big. It's probably a soft box that's 2x2 foot or somewhere near that.

The light that's further back is a bigger light source, but it has a gel on it to make it warm. That's why all the light in the background seems so nice and slightly warm. It's probably a half or a quarter orange gel.

This was a lot of fun to do. The way the lens captured the tomato soup was really pretty. The term "bokeh" gets used a lot and it's a difficult term because nobody has really defined the difference between good bokeh and bad bokeh. Heck, I may even be pronouncing it improperly.

This shot is a great example of why it's so important to watch how your lens is capturing the out-of-focus area of your image. Not just because you have short depth of field to focus the eye in one area, but also the quality of that short depth of field and the quality of the image behind it.

In Conclusion

Sometimes a little extra work and investment can go a long way in advertising photographs. John Siskin may have had the help of a food stylist to make this tomato soup picture more appealing, but the beauty of the shot was all about equipment and technique.