When I started the module, my first idea was to create still-life images of food, similar to those created by the Dutch masters a few hundred years ago. The whole point was that I wanted to create an image that would not only show the recipe and the dish but also its cultural context. For that thing I needed some props and even planned to go an buy some things I lacked from a local souvenir store. However, my initial attempts proved out to be 'soul-less' as I discovered during one of the webinars. Technically they were OK but in terms of emotion and connection to the cultural context, they looked set-up and dull. Here is a perfect example:
I later thought to use popular Bulgarian paintings for the basis of each image set up - there are a lot of painters who throughout the past two centuries started to document the rural life of Bulgarian peasants. However, that plan also failed since I needed a lot of props for the creation of such imagery.
To top it all, a few weeks before the hand-in date I got some kind of stomach flu. As a result, I was unable to eat or smell food and spent several days in bed on antibiotics being only able to sleep for prolonged periods of time. As the hand-in date approached, it dawned on me that I will not be able to carry out my initial plan to shoot still life images of cooked food. The first and obvious reason was because I couldn't stand the smell or appearance of food as it made me feel sick. The other was that I was running out of time to come up with amazing compositions OR cook that much food.
So I settled for taking pictures not of the cooked food but rather the ingredients used to cook it. Raw ingredients didn't make me that sick and what was even better - the compositions looked much more interesting (being heavily influenced on Irving Penn's works for Vogue) than my initial ideas.
Hence, that sudden illness proved out to be 'a blessing in disguise' as Michelle put it in out one to one session since it enabled me to unleash my creative potential and experiment - something I would have avoided if I was in shape.
This is my favourite image from the series (quite the shift in style compared to the previous one):
To top it all, a few weeks before the hand-in date I got some kind of stomach flu. As a result, I was unable to eat or smell food and spent several days in bed on antibiotics being only able to sleep for prolonged periods of time. As the hand-in date approached, it dawned on me that I will not be able to carry out my initial plan to shoot still life images of cooked food. The first and obvious reason was because I couldn't stand the smell or appearance of food as it made me feel sick. The other was that I was running out of time to come up with amazing compositions OR cook that much food.
So I settled for taking pictures not of the cooked food but rather the ingredients used to cook it. Raw ingredients didn't make me that sick and what was even better - the compositions looked much more interesting (being heavily influenced on Irving Penn's works for Vogue) than my initial ideas.
Hence, that sudden illness proved out to be 'a blessing in disguise' as Michelle put it in out one to one session since it enabled me to unleash my creative potential and experiment - something I would have avoided if I was in shape.
This is my favourite image from the series (quite the shift in style compared to the previous one):
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