There is something about shooting bread that I find really appealing – the texture, the gorgeous colours, the randomness of its shape – just makes for a very interesting subject to shoot.

Today, I spent the day shooting breads. Simple propping, so the bread could do all the talking in the photos, and just added parchment paper with the odd knife and glass. Very graphic images resulted – here’s one from the shoot.

Baguette

The side lighting used in this shot helped to bring out the texture in the crust, and gave a nice shading to the right side of the baguette in the photo. The blue glass gave the shot closure. The glass is from Crate & Barrel, a new favorite spot for sourcing props.

We are continuing to enjoy our latest lens – well, more of a lens adapter than a true lens – the HTS 1.5 from Hasselblad. It provides all the shifting and tilting you could want in food photography. Allows the camera to stay above the subject, but lowered down so you can see more of the food while keeping a straight composition. Think of it this way – for the shot shown, if the camera is tilted, the blue glass in the background would be leaning out of the photograph. In this shot, we were able to keep the camera pretty level, but used the HTS to lower the lens so we’d see more of the bread as the focal point of the composition. Glass stays straight, and with the tilting on the lens, we have even more control over the point of focus. It’s a fantastic tool.