Ice-Cream Photography?

In my mind, I always wanted to make some photographs of Ice-creams. By just dreaming it, it is useless, action must take part in it ! If I do not take the first attempt, I will never learn how to shoot an Ice-cream. In this post, I will share some photos that I took during the weekend.

As a novice photographer, I need more time on styling and composing. If I use real Ice-cream, I will be wasting tons of money Ice-cream as it will melt very fast. I do not have confident to style it and shoot it in time.  In order reduce the cost, I replace with the "ice-cream" that will never melts: MESHED POTATOES! I learn this from reading books and articles online. 

It seems to be a almost perfect replacement. It will never melts, I can style it as a long as I want. although it is placed under the hot sun, it just wont melts. I can slowly compose and recompose anytime I want. There is only one thing to care about. The color will change after it exposed to the air for some time, but that is after an hour or more. 

Behind the scene, mixing up the meshed potatoes with color. We used 3 potatoes to make four scopes of "ice-creams". Total three colors, orange, yellow and green. One color each for the first three scoop, and a mixture of all three colors for the last scoop. TADA!! LIME, ORANGE & CORN flavor ice-cream!!!



Here comes the "ice-creams"!!! This is a test shot with only the camera and "ice-cream". To make it looks more real, chocolate topping were added.

All the photos were shoot outdoor. (Not a problem at all, as it wont melts)

Camera : D40x (I miss my very first DSLR~)
Lens:  Nikon kit lens, 18-105mm f3.5-5.6.
Others: Again, my favorite equipment, A4 papers as background and a piece of aluminium as a reflector. Last and not least, a very cute bowl for the "ice-creams".

Here are the final results of the "Ice-creams".

It does't look perfect but I'm quite happy with it as a first attempt. The progress if this experiment is very fun, and I've learn that, it is actually very good to shoot outdoor. Using the natural light, controlling it with reflector. In the future, I will add in diffuser for my shoot.

The largest problem I'm facing is how to style the "ice-cream" to make it more real. My crafting skills on the "ice-cream" is just not good enough. Second, the potatoes is just look too hard. Looks like I need to figure out how to make the potatoes melts in order to fake the faked ice-cream to look more real. Haihz.. complicated. I replaced the ice-cream with potatoes because it doesn't melts, in the same time, I want it to melt a little to looks real. Looks like, the best way is still shoot with a real ice-cream.

Before ending, I want to say thanks to my dear who is helping me all the way long and giving creative composition for the shots. Well actually some of the photos was taken by her!

Anyway, do leave a comments or suggestion. C & C are all welcome.

Thanks for reading.

Cheers,

Ting Jieh