Ginger root

[Mike Buckley]

Another photo displaying food in a context we don't normally experience or at least don't notice.

I like to flavor olive oil by lightly browning a slice or two of ginger root in it. The ginger is then discarded before any other food is added to the oil. This piece is about 1/16" at the thickest. It was photographed about two hours after being cut by design, so the holes occurred as the ginger slightly dried during that time.

The magnification ratio is about 1:1.25, which means the physical scene is about 25% larger than the camera's sensor. Conversely, the sensor is about 80% the size of the physical scene.

Some wonky color in the lower left corner of the background occurred when I downsized the image for display here; it's not in the original full-size file.

Please click the image to review the details at a larger size.

Setup
The tabletop (not included in the image) and background are a single sheet of translucent vellum lit from behind the background by a medium continuous-light lamp fitted with a blue gel facing toward the subject and camera. The background was changed to brown during post-processing. The subject was directly lit by a small continuous-light lamp above it and was indirectly lit by light reflected from the tabletop. The lamp and tabletop were no more than an inch from the subject, so the shadows are very soft.

[madcrow]

Again brilliant work with top class lighting. From now on, every time I look at food I will think, possible image.

[NorthernFocus]

Excellent detail, Mike.

[bnnrcn]

Great details Mike

[Mike Buckley]

Thank you to Maurice, Dan and Binnur!

[Shadowman]

Very nice.

[terrib]

When I saw the title, I just had to come in and look to see what you'd done with an ugly little root. The idea of a cross section is really good, showing a nice texture and layers. Great job!

Thanks for sharing your setup and taking the time for detailed explanations. I do very little studio work but I have referred others to look at your work many times.

[KimC]

The texture in this one is wonderful Mike. Where it falls a bit short for me, in comparison to your other food images is, I wouldn't know what this one was if it wasn't titled.

[Mike Buckley]

Thank you to John, Terri and Kim!

Where it falls a bit short for me, in comparison to your other food images is, I wouldn't know what this one was if it wasn't titled.

For me, that's not an indication of falling short. Instead, it's an indication that it fits well within my theme of displaying food in a context we don't normally experience or at least don't notice. When we don't normally experience or notice something, it makes sense to me that sometimes we won't recognize something that we would otherwise recognize.