Bret Doss is one of our Board Members and has been a P52 member for 5+ years. He is now a full-time photographer in the Seattle area and brings us this assignment.

Assignment: Chocolate

Assigned November 18, Due December 2, 2017

The chocolate assignment in my p52 group was well received and very well executed, and it seems to be a favorite each year. My changeup is to add a little latitude, but with specific intentions.

Shoot Chocolate for a hypothetical Client Usage. Decide that client/usage first, before designing your shot. It can be a print ad for a chocolate product, an editorial image for an article about something to do with chocolate, a high-end stock image with unbranded chocolate, a lifestyle shot where chocolate is the hero, a recipe/cookbook/food magazine, a social media ‘cover/banner’ shot, a double truck magazine shot, and on and on.

The intention comes first, so tell us the intended usage of the shot and how you applied that to the design of your image.

If a recipe shot for a cookbook, will it be offset with text around it, or will there be text on the image, in a space you have made sure to provide. If for a cookbook cover, the same sort of thing. If a social media shot, get the image dimensions for the specific social media banner/cover, allow for profile picture overlaps, etc. as needed in your composition.

Choose an approach that you want to do for clients, or you plan to offer to clients and make this a shot for your portfolio and one that you can use when contacting/meeting a client to show that you have specifically done this kind of thing.

So if you really want to be selling social media packages, or you want to do editorial, whatever you WANT to be doing for clients, do that for a hypothetical client.

This assignment is also an opportunity to just think about a client that you want to pursue, and think about what you would show them. That client might not be related to chocolate of course, but use this as a book building assignment for the kind of work you want to do.

The only constraint here is that chocolate (in whatever form, even paint, fashion, or cosmetics) has to jump out as THE hero of the image.

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Big thanks to Bret for this great assignment.

PEOPLE

This may be more of a people as prop approach. Hands, lips, torso… most likely not a full person shot. However, one of the best images of chocolate we ever had was a woman covered in chocolate by photographer Sam Breach. You will see it discussed in the video above.

Put your creative caps on tight for this one.

STILL LIFE

A couple of very important things to think about:

• Chocolate is texture… how do we show texture? Back and side light.
• Chocolate will damage quite easily… be sure to handle it super carefully.
• Chocolate dust, broken edges, and fingerprints are all challenges no matter how hard we try to eliminate them
• Studio or area should be cool enough that the chocolate doesn’t melt
• White chocolate, brown and black chocolate have different reactions to light. Make sure to be vigilant if using both.
• Top backlight (softbox or scrim) is a great place to start.
• Props are good, but make sure they fit the nature of your shot
• Careful, delicate Photoshop work may be necessary to bring the chocolate to perfection

VIDEO CLIPS

This would be a food shoot. 30 seconds long, no more. Introduce a chocolate favorite, lots of action to show us how delicious it is. Appropriate music to make the spot whimsical, fun, serious, high-brow… whatever. You may need to learn some inexpensive ways to move the camera (rails, etc).

PHOTOSHOP TUTORIAL: MASKING ESSENTIALS

I can not find any good chocolate Tutorials for Photoshop, so I will do one this Friday (November 24 – watch for it).