This week I had a few ideas of how to photograph fruit and make it interesting but I knew I wanted to include my kids. Telling little parts of our family's story is why I am doing this project in the first place. The kids spent most of the weekend at Grandma's house and we are rarely home during the week while the sun is up so I only had a small window on Sunday afternoon.
My initial idea was to place 3 bowls of fruit in front of Landon and shoot from above to capture a new perspective on him eating, sorting and/or dumping. Landon loves to mix things, dump things from bowl to bowl and also loves eating fruit so I figured it would be a fun angle. I did take a few photos like that but them also experimented with other angles as well - I got some wide angle shots, close up shots, from both sides.
This image was my favorite because it highlights his little fingers as well as reminds me how he took the fruit that was separated into different bowls and combined them into one. As I said, he loves mixing and experimenting with things. He is definitely a kinethetic learner and isn't afraid to make a mess! This kid will do big things in life...if we can keep him focused and out of trouble. HAHA!
A note about my settings and setup (shot in manual mode).
I choose my 35mm lens since I was shooting in a tight space - around our dining room table in the kitchen.
It was around 5pm and the sun was setting and light was coming in through the windows (I had the blinds open). I had the overhead lights turned off so that there would be less shadows and difficult lighting.
Because there wasn't a ton of light I increased the ISO to 800 because my camera does pretty well at that value without introducing a lot of grain. I try my best to never go above this number but it isn't always possible with indoor/night photography.
I wanted more of the fruit in focus with still some blur so i set the f-stop at 3.5. This lens is pretty sharp at that aperture.
The shutter speed was a tad slow since I was photographing a 2 year old but since he was seated at the table I knew he wouldn't be moving too much so I was comfortable with that value. I probably could have sped the SS to 1/200 and increased the ISO to 1000 or 1250. You can see that the falling blueberry is blurry but the rest of the fruit and his hand are in focus so I think it works pretty well.
I don't love the shadow that is reflecting on his arm from his fingers and find it a tad distracting but that's what happens in the evening with long shadows. :)
If you would like to join me this year and complete your own Project 52, download my prompt guide and follow along.