33) Sweets Photoshoot - 21/11/17

I got thinking more about how I could represent happiness in the form of studio photography, and thought something that represents happiness for so many people is sweets and chocolate. I have a big collection of treats collected over many years from lots of different countries, so I decided to get these in the studio and shoot them paired with colourful backgrounds and different ordered and playful compositions. Before getting into the studio I grouped the different sweets in terms of colours and similar products / packaging, planning to pair up the colours with similar backdrops. My contact sheet from the shoot can be seen below.

The hardest part about the shoot was probably the lighting set up, because after that was sorted it was just placing the items down in the right place. I found it quite difficult getting the image bright enough while also not having to deal with reflections on the packaging of the sweets, so I used some barn doors to stop the light reflecting with worked effectively. Some photos of my studio set-up can be seen below.

So below are my finished images from the shoot, I finished up with around - different set ups which I'm really pleased with. I'm going to go on to use these in my zine mixed in with my other studio work as well as my 35mm pictures. I like the idea of having lots of different mixes of photography in one zine, drawing inspiration from the work of Wolfgang Tillmans which I've looked at recently.

Pink:

As you can see the majority of the pink sweets are more tailored towards girls, featuring toys such as Barbie and Hello Kitty on them, and the colours pink and red which feature in each frame also could suggest this. Another recurring theme in this set of pink images is love, with sweets being heart shaped and using the word 'kiss' on them. As well as this, fruit is also a prevalent theme in this grouping of sweets as you can see from the fruit flavoured candy and the strawberry and raspberry shaped packaged sweets. These concepts also point me towards my idea of happiness, because who isn't made to feel happy from love or fruit (well technically sweets) ? One of my favourite images from this set has to be the final photo, mostly due to the interesting objects within the composition, for instance the phone, fruit shaped sweets and the carton of 'Magic'. They're all really playful items and I can see how they would evoke happiness in the children eating / playing with them. I think the birds eye view for the photograph works really well because you can see each item individually while also seeing how it interacts with the rest of the objects in the image. Another of my favourite images from this pink set is the Hello Kitty grouped sweets. This is because it shows the variety of products that can be made in the image of one character.

Blue:

Similarly to the pink grouped sweets, the blue grouped sweets could be interpreted to be aimed more towards boys, with them featuring male characters and taking the form of cars, playing cards and spy kit. I wanted to keep the exposure of the image quite bright like the pink images to emphasise the playful nature of the shoot and keep the ambience of the photographs happy. My favourite image of the blue set has to be the photograph featuring the Donald Duck tube of sweets. I felt this composition is the least cluttered but the most pleasing to the viewer through the recognisable Disney character, vintage looking sweets and peculiar toy which contains sweets. There's no gaps in the placement of the sweets and I think draws the viewer in from the recognisable nature to the objects, or because they've never seen anything like it before.

Yellow:

I didn't have many sweets which fit with a yellow background as you can see, but the third image is still one of my ultimate favourites out of all the colour sets. I feel the colour yellow represents happiness through its bright and warm tones, and being related to the sun, energy and in this case food. I really love the composition of the last image, with the bubble gum ruler horizontally above the other four inquisitive sweets, as if they really are being measured in place. Bubblegum machines are an object that I always remember bringing me happiness as a child, so I had to include this in the image. I really like how the tones of red in the photograph compliment the yellow, for instance the lead to the microphone and the colour of the atomic fireball sweets. I also really love the way the microphone lead is placed, being curved down the frame of the image against the perfectly straight sweets, adding some disorder to the order of the photograph.

Red:

Red was the next background of choice for this group of sweets, featuring some Japanese sweets and classic sweets from the beach such as the 'All Day Breakfast' plates and the chips and gummy bacon. I thought I'd pair red with these sweets because the Japanese items are heart shaped or have red on the packaging, and the beach sweets also feature splashes of red within them. I found the plates of sweets quite difficult to photograph due to the plastic covering them, making the objects really reflective. I combatted this by using barn doors to stop the reflection from the light onto the sweets, and I feel it worked quite effectively. I like how there's still some reflection on the object because it shows its sealed, and that I didn't want to unseal any of them due to being 10-20+ years old!

Green:

Green was the final colour I used to group the sweets, and I think this set shows some of the most outrageous looking objects to be classed as sweets (for instance the sweet form cigarettes and what appears to be acid tabs), as well as some of the most playful (for example the rocket ships, gummy watch and currywurst). My favourite image from this set has to be the composition featuring the gummy watch, again because it shows the most compelling sweets to look at. I love the reflective and iridescent look of the green packet, paired with the floral themed Asian Botan Rice Candy and fruity machine with sweets in. I tried to play around with the placement of the sweets more in this shot too, with having some going out of the frame of the image which I like.

Overall I'm so pleased with how the shoot came out, and I love the clean studio feel to the images while they're also evoking feelings of happiness and having quite a playful nature to them. I think they'll stand out from my 35mm point and shoot work but compliment my other studio work such as the happiness manifesto steps, and I think it'll all come together well in my zine.

#photoshoot #obsessions