articles - Page 16 of 29 - Nigel Goldsmith photography & film

Food photography for Marshfield Farm Ice Cream

With product and food photography it is essential that the serious photographer familiarises themselves with the item to be photographed before the shoot, and ice cream is NO exception. With a highly professional approach to my subject, I had to familiarise myself with several scoops of ice cream before I was anywhere near ready to proceed with the photography.

Marshfield Farm Ice Cream near Bath have just added some new flavours to their range and I was asked to photograph them. The new flavours include Sea Salt and Caramel, Luscious Lemon and Candy Floss.

The images are to be used for point of sale, press, public relations, trade journals and on social media. In the run up to the shoot, the client, art director and I discussed the new flavours, agreed a shooting plan and decided on props and settings for each of the pictures.

Marshfield Ice Cream Seasalt and Caramel

We chose props and locations that complemented the products without overpowering the shot. For the Lemon flavour we kept the palette simple and clean to reflect the fresh taste of this product. For the Sea Salt and Caramel we found some large pebbles and slates and a salt scoop that had a similar colour to the ice cream. The Candy Floss flavour was more playful and aimed at a younger market so we used brightly coloured props around the ice cream.

With a wide range of potential uses the high resolution files were often over 100MB in size, these images provided sufficient detail for most print applications and could be resized for lower resolution applications.

Sea Salt and Caramel – serving suggestion

Marshfield Ice Cream Candy Floss flavour

Marshfield Ice Cream – Blueberry Frozen Yoghurt

You can see more examples of my food photography in my food gallery

London Marathon 2015

I will be running the London Marathon in April for the Bath based charity, Rainforest Concern. This will be my third marathon and training doesn’t get easier. I hope to cross the finishing line within 4 hours but as most runners would agree crossing the start line is quite an achievement.

I am aiming to raise over £1000 for the charity, if you would like to sponsor me please visit my Just Giving page and I occasionally post about the slow progress of my training plan on Twitter @NigelGoldsmith.

London Marathon 2012

2 minute Photoshop trick – Paste Into

Photoshop is an incredibly powerful application but it can take a long time to master its many features. I have produced a number of short videos to help my students get to grips with some of the commonly used tools and controls. This short training video shows how the Paste Into function in Photoshop can be used to replace a selected area in a photograph with content taken from another picture.

More of my training videos can be found at www.nigelgoldsmithmedia.wordpress.com or if you would like to discuss bespoke Photoshop or photographic training send me an email to mail@nigelgoldsmith.co.uk

‘Saucy Jack’

The Marshfield Mummers continue an ancient tradition every year at 11am on Boxing Day. A short, three minute play is performed a number of times along the length of the High Street in Marshfield near Bath. The play has changed little over the centuries, it is only performed on Boxing Day with a single rehearsal earlier in the morning.

The image below is of ‘Saucy Jack’ who carries his family on his back. Other characters include King William, Tenpenny Nit, Beelzebub and Dr Fennix.

There are more images in this earlier post

'Saucy Jack' a character from the Marshfield Mummers Christmas play

‘Saucy Jack’ with his family on his back

The photo film – an alternative to web video

The value of web video

There is considerable research proving that online video can enhance the user experience and boost Google rankings but for many organisations the cost is way beyond their budget.

Online video should be of a high technical standard to retain the audience. A video crew typically has three or more skilled people to capture the image, record the sound, light the set, direct the process and put it all together in the editing suite. In contrast, a photo-film can be produced by one person.

What is a photo-film?

A photo film is a set of still images, carefully ordered into a series to create a slide show. A voiceover or soundtrack is combined with the images to produce an audio slide show. This is then published on familiar sits such as Vimeo or YouTube from where it can be embedded on websites, blogs or social media.

Like video the production is carefully planned, a script is written and a storyboarded is agreed. At a convenient time the images are taken or historic images might be digitised. A three minute photo-film can use between 50 and 100 images. The voiceover and ambient sound may be recorded during the visit or alternatively a voiceover artist can be hired. The media is then combined on standard video editing software and a ‘video’ is born.

Advantages of a photo-film

It is cheaper to produce than normal web video.
Involves a smaller crew which is less disruptive for the client.
As the sound is recorded separately it can be captured in a recording booth. This greatly improves the sound of the audio.
The images used to create the photo-film can also be supplied for other applications such as print or online publication.

Photo-film examples

Do get in touch if you would like to know more about photo-films or web video on mail@nigelgoldsmith.co.uk