Lipstick Brief Review & Brief 20 Launch

Join Karl, Tim, and Emma as they take a look at our latest Lipstick Brief images, see who's top of the leaderboard and announce the next Working to a Brief challenge!

The Brief

For this brief, you have been asked to create an image that will be featured in a recipe book.

Image

For this recipe book photograph you need to create and image that represents Spaghetti in a bowl.

Some key requirements to this image are highlighted in the brief sketch such as:

  • The lighting must be soft and natural looking.
  • The position of the items in the shot must be relatively close to the provided brief sketch.
  • The depth of field should be mostly sharp across the spaghetti area.
  • The depth of field should still allow the viewer to understand the foreground and background.
  • The bowl must be predominantly white (the bowl in our sketch has a grey edge).
  • The cutlery style will be up to the photographer.
  • The amount of olives will be up to the photographer.
  • The scale of the olive oil bowl and the parmesan bowl should be similar to the sketch.
  • The serviette should not be white.
  • Basil leaves must be on top of the spaghetti for some green colour.
  • The table top should be a very light tone.

A Pinterest mood board can be found here.

It is the job of the photographer to understand the brief and deliver an image that meets the requirements above and is similar in layout to the provide brief sketch.

Submit Your Image

The deadline for entry is 1st September 2025. Karl will review all submissions in a follow-up LIVE workshop.

To view the entry form login or non-members sign-up here to join Visual Education.

Please note all images will remain copyright to the original photographer, but Visual Education reserves the right to publish them within its website and on social media.

© Visual Education. All rights reserved. No content on this page may be used or shared by third parties.

Comments

  2. Hello. Quick question about the olives, I didn’t see addressed on the brief: the olives: I can’t quite tell from the sketch if these are meant to be fresh olives, ie: picked off a tree, or ready-to-eat olives you’d eat…. Not being in the Mediterranean at the moment, it might be difficult to source fresh olives…. Looking forward to doing this shot 🙂 many thanks.

    2. Ok, after a hard work looking for the video, I see that the photo can be in colour. (you should add a link direct to these videos!! 😉 )
      Regards,

  4. Hi! A couple of questions about the new brief. Does the crop/placement of the bowls need to match exactly? It looks like there is cheese on this dish. Is that a must for the submitted image? Thanks!

    1. Hi, the crop has to be vertical, the exact position of things is not explicit but the visual provides a rough guide. Small details such as the cheese on the spagetti is up to the photographer it comes down to whatever you think looks best and we will be deciding on the best shot based on what we think looks best and what is in general keeping with the requirements of the brief.

  5. Hi Karl – I’ve noticed the crop on the brief image along with the noted intended target (cook book) – is that significant? just checking, being on a larger format 🙂

  6. HI Karl,

    Just entered the brief challenge, I usually prefer to photograph events like Rodeos, Motor sports etc.

    I found it to be a challenge; however, once I started, I found the process very enjoyable, slowly building the composition of the image and then finding a suitable method to light the subject.

    Still learning my way around Lightroom and Photoshop, which occasionally has me tearing my hair out.

  7. Hello!
    Regarding the new brief, looking at the picture, is the plate with the spaghetti sort of elevated?

    1. Hi, thank you. CGI means Computer Generated Imagery but not the likes of Ai, CGI usually refers to 3D modelling and rendering which takes a lot of skill and is sometimes combined with photography in the commercial world. We have a whole section of training on it here: https://visualeducation.com/3d-cgi/

  9. SaraFdez

    Hi Karl, question about props: does the bowl need to be pure white or it can work with a light colored bowl (off-white, beige, cream…)?
    I am starting to look for props, and wonder if it needs to be that clean high-end restaurant white bowl or something more rustic. Thank you!

    1. Hi, I think white or as close to it would be best but off white or close could still work. The decision making is really down to you guys to see what works best, if I was conducting the shoot for a client then I’d have a few options and test them to see which looked best.

  10. Steven Lan

    Hi Karl, thanks for the brief review. I learned a lot and got inspired massively by other members’ brilliant works.

    The gummy bear(or jelly baby) idea popped up when I went shopping in 7-Eleven. This was initially intended to be some interactions between the lipstick such as they are pushing of climbing it. It didn’t end well for the camera angle and I’m running out of time so what I could do is to place them near the lipstick. Coming back with fresh eyes I have the same feeling of “what are the gummies here for?”😂😂.

    For the mood of the picture, I have two questions.

    For the first one, will the photo be better if I keep the whole background pure white? I brushed the corner of the photo a bit off-white but I’m not very sure about which one looks right.

    The second question is more like a technical one. My studio lights are GODOX DP800IIIV, I tested the shot without trigger to ensure there isn’t any ambient light in my shot. However, the results still have a nasty purple color cast on the white backdrop. The camera white balance was set at 5600K and the specs chart in the manual of the strobe writes 5600±200K, am I setting the WB wrong? What caused it and how can I deal with it?

    Here’s the original RAW file(sorry for the rotated CR3 image) : https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1ddJ438sQNPg6pA6ndy1BIFi3y3PbDkaa?usp=sharing

    Thank you for answering my questions. I learned so much on this platform and I am genuinely grateful for it. 🙂

    1. Hi, I’m glad to hear that you have enjoyed and learnt from the briefs and we hope that you continue to participate in the next ones too. For your first question, no that wouldn’t have made any difference in my eyes as it wouldn’t be a major component that would change the overall emotion of the image. For your second question, everything you have done sounds correct in testing the ambient light and the white balance. There can be many reasons for a colour cast, it could be that the white base surface wasn’t pure white, I’ve even had instants where an assistant was stood near the photo with a red t-shirt and spoiled the colour of the shadows etc. The best way to be sure is to use a colour checker card and neutralise the shots to the neutral grey. You can learn more about that here: https://visualeducation.com/class/how-to-use-a-colour-checker-card/

      1. Steven Lan

        Thank you Karl, looks like it’s time to invest on the checker card. So the color cast is pretty random isn’t it? There can be a lot of factors. Does it have something to do with the quality of the brands?

        1. Hi, every brand of light and each modifier in their range can have slightly different colour casts. For example Softbox material usually runs a bit warmer than a silver reflector, Paras I find run a bit colder and sometimes the age of your flash tube can have an effect too. The light bouncing off of the walls in the room you are shooting can also have a big effect. The only solution is a good quality colour checker or grey card and then even if some lights are a bit warm and some are a bit cold the overall blend of them can be neutralised to the best result. If after neutralising and the perfect grey is now reading as a perfect grey then that is the light now neutral, but if a white table still looks blue etc then that’s because it is actually bluer. There are many garments I’ve photographed over the years that look pure white but when you check they actually have a slight blue tinge.

  11. PoppyPix

    hi, I just saw the Live recording and I noticed my image on the disqualified board 🙂 the submission was an honest mistake, I subscribed to the Online School recently and added this photo because I thought we can get a feedback generally on a shot, what to improve and so on. I missed completely (somehow – maybe it was too late in the evening) that this submission was for a specific brief and not a general submission area. so this is how that happened. Good start here 😀

    1. Hi Poppy, welcome to our platform and thanks for joining us, I’m very sorry to hear that and I understand that this was a genuine mistake, luckily it’s only a one point deduction. Take some time to familiarise yourself with our platform and navigate around some of our other live shows, brief challenges and critique shows so you understand how it all works. If you’ve then got any questions just let me or one of the team know, you can find our direct contact details on the ‘meet the team’ page under the ‘Resources’ menu. All the best Karl.

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