Waitrose Food Magazine: On the Screen i (capture and workflow)

Client: Waitrose Food Magazine and Stablemate

Waitrose and Partners is a British supermarket brand founded in 1904, who's selling point is not only quality, but range. According to an annual "Which" survey, Waitrose was voted the best UK supermarket, beating harsh competition like Lidl, Aldi and Marks anSpencers. 

Waitrose is a retailer that have approached their customer base through multiple different media, and the same success can be claimed by their award winning monthly magazine. It features the "country's best food writers" and has been celebrated for its award winning design". 

Task: Supply 7 images to be used in an article centred around fresh produce and recipes, in the march edition of the magazine. 

The pictures will need to encompass the quality and variety of Waitrose and their magazine, and also will also involve seasonal food that introduces the beginning of Spring. 

Middle Spread: The middle spread is the first part of the task we will be shooting. 

It can either show a table spread or an outdoor market. 

Problems: I have been struggling with the poor lighting during the last few days, as it has been very grey. This has meant I am researching to attempt to do my shoot in an outdoor market as the light will be more abundant than inside may house.

Borough Market:

I plan to go to Borough Market on Saturday to take some pictures of some fresh ingredients. There are many overlaps between the food at Maltby Street and the food sold in Waitrose, as Maltby Street is a high quality market that only sells the freshest best ingredients and food.

As the magazine issue and article aims to introduce spring, I would like to include ingredients that colourful, but without using exotic fruits and vegetables from other countries. With the middle spread I would like to remind people that despite being confined due to corona, there is a lot of colour and flavour to be found on our doorstep (seen below). 

Inspiration: 

A less conventional example of Food Photography, which has formed part of my inspiration for back spread is by Graphic Designer Vadim Umbriaco (shown below).

I will use this as inspiration for my three detailed shots

Below are my two favourite pictures of fresh vegetables, as options for the middle spread.

In the end I decided to use the purple picture above for one of the smaller macro pictures

I wanted to use the following picture for the middle spread however it doesn't really work well with the thin shape of the space on the Indesign template.

I took multiple pictures of a table spread of many different types of fish, and was able to use a strong light source which belonged to the owner of the fishmongers.

In design templates: 

After trying the picture above in the template for the front cover I decided that the fish to the left of the octopus is too grotesque (with the eye) for a front cover. 

I therefore decided to use the right side of the picture as it is a much better fit for the template. 

There is still an issue with this as the word Waitrose is sitting on the octopus.

As advised by Matthew I will use the content aware fit tool to extend the black space on the top part of the picture.

I chose this picture for the hero shot of the model, however after talking to Matthew I understood that there is no indication of food or a market other than than the words above the model. This picture needs to include food if it was to be used. 

I plan to reshoot this asap as the deadline approaches

The pictures above are  my chosen three for the three detailed macro shots. 

The picture of the meat on the far right is from a shoot I did in my kitchen, of fresh produce from borough market. Despite the picture being of meat, it still fits well with the other two in my opinion as it clearly shows fresh produce, in combination with the chard (middle) and the cauliflower (left). 

The meat picture (right)  is specifically influenced by Graphic Designer Vadim Umbriaco  (seen below again for reference) example of food photography with a clean black background.

Above are the middle spread and also the back spread final selected images 

They have been edited and optimised for the indesign templates on capture one

Above is the picture I chose from the reshoot I did in borough market. I like the variety of colours, and I think it shows the theme of spring well.

As can be seen in the above screenshot I have organised my shoots using the star system that Capture One offers. 

I used photoshop in order to extend the top of the image to give me more space. This was vital to ensure that the Waitrose brand name didn't compete for space with the top of the octopus. I ticked the content aware fit box so that the software could extend the picture based on what was already there. I am very happy to have learned this skill in photoshop.

Limitations: 

> Lighting: English weather played a big part in limiting the days I could succesfully shoot. I overcame this by checking the weather forecast, and shooting in areas where the light came from other sources than just the sun.

> Covid: The pandemic means that people don't want you to come up close. I overcame this barrier by using my mum as the subject. I also wore a facemask when entering borough market as it allowed me to move freely without being stopped by security.