Coffee shoot.
This shoot was taken over two weeks, I needed 24 images and I wanted my photographs to look authentic, so I waited until anyone (who I live with) had a drink of coffee and I placed the coffee on whichever background I wanted, and I took a photograph of it. For certain shoots (such as: the takeaway coffe cup image) I had an idea, therefore I executed the idea that was planned. However, with the majority of the images I improvised, using backgrounds such as: coloured chopping boards, floors, banisters, tables and even a mug of ground coffee placed on a bowl of ground coffee capsules. I took some of the photos using a Canon EOS 4000d DSLR camera, changing the settings dependent on the angle, but I also used a range of different iPhones (whichever phone was to hand) such as: iPhone 12 Pro Max, iPhone Xr, iPhone 11 Pro Max and an iPhone 6s – using default settings for all.
Original Image.
For this image I purposely made it extremely ironic. I took a takeaway cup and stirrer (from a workplace before nation-wide lockdown) and have kept it until the shoot. I waited until a medical conference that I needed to partake in, which I knew would be virtual. On one of the breaks within the conference, I made a cappuccino and poured it into the takeaway cup and placed the stirrer at the edge (to look like it had been made in an office). I then placed it on the edge of my laptop (that was playing the conference) and used my camera and shallow shallow depth of field to take an image of the coffee. I centred the coffee in the middle of the frame, but purposely kept the blanket, keyboard and a part of my outfit (slippers and joggers) in the background. This image symbolises and related to the lives of many people across the world during this pandemic using virtual software like zoom, to communicate with a formal environment, whilst wearing extremely informal clothes – instead of being in an office wearing formal attire.
Original Image.
This image was taken in a rush shoot on my dad’s phone that I found on the kitchen counter - I needed to quickly take the image before the froth dissolved. I then saw on the side that my dad had been reading the “Sunday Times“ newspaper and I thought that this would make an amazing contextual photograph. Despite not having my camera at hand, I managed to achieve a shallow depth of field by focusing the touchscreen display on the centre of the coffee, using my finger to tap the screen. I think that the context of this image is very interesting due to the times that we are in. The coffee is placed on a newspaper; therefore, it could represent the times that we are in. due to The news has been a vital part of this pandemic, informing us throughout. Since we can’t go to a real coffee shop, it can relate to many people across the globe who are having to stay at home and not go for a drink of coffee in a real café because of the corona virus pandemic.
Developments.
For this development, firstly, I chose my individual favourites from each of the 24 shoots, and I added them into an album. Next, I opened Adobe Lightroom and selected the album that contained my favourite 24 images from my shoot. I then batch edited these images (on Adobe Lightroom) until they were all the same (square) shape. I then clicked through each one to double check that each mug was in the centre of the frame for each photograph (so the individual images weren’t too dissimilar). Finally, I opened photo shop on a computer (instead of an iPad because the Photoshop on iPad didn’t have this capability yet). I used the ‘Contact Sheet II’ function and set the layout to 6 x 4, to recreate Loftus’ composition. I am extremely happy with how this image turned out, I thought that I achieved my intention that each background looked different which individually could represent different locations, themes and moods. Although, I couldn’t go to a real coffee shop and make my coffee is look as professional as Loftus’ (due to COVID-19) – I still believe that I executed his concept well.