Light the mood… dark and elegant.
The mood that I wanted to convey with this shot is one of simple elegance. I selected a large granite tile for the background, and the plate I actually made by chipping off the edges of a slate tile to create a shape that I wanted. I like the tone on tone textures that this created.
When I think about the lighting for a particular shot, I try to imagine what the ideal setting would be for serving and eating this dish. In this case having would definitely be dark and elegant with strong mood lighting. With this image in my head I opted to go for a single light source, small and directional. A single Alien Bee flash with a 20° grid spot seemed to do the trick best. I placed the light behind them to the right of my subject to cast strong shadows and maximize the texture of both the paper and the food.
Fish en Papillote initial lighting
Even with a grid spot in place I felt there was too much light in the shot so I used pieces of black foam core to block off light where I didn’t want it. It’s sort of a process of selective subtraction. I then added in one small gold reflector to bounce just a bit of warm light into the shadows.
Fish en Papillote final lighting
This series of shots shows the progression from the first test shot to the final image.
Fish en Papillote first test
Fish en Papillote subtracting light
Fish en Papillote final light
Credits:
Photo Credits: Photography by Rob Davidson
Food Styling by Linsey Bell
Assistants: Chris Hazard and Amber Scott
