Working to a Brief 8: Honey Jar Composite

For our eighth ‘Working to a Brief’ assignment, Karl would like you to produce a composite honey jar shot.

The deadline for this brief is 12:00 BST / 07:00 EDT on Wednesday 20th April 2022.

You’ll find all the details you need to complete the brief below, as well as in the accompanying live show. We highly recommend watching this show (live or as a replay) as it may feature additional useful information and advice! No further guidelines will be provided.

LIVE PHOTOGRAPHY WORKSHOP

Working to a Brief — Assignment 8 LAUNCH

Thursday 10th February 2022 - 15:00 BST / 10:00 EDT
Find Out More

Brief

Produce a composite image of a honey jar and dipper with a sunlit field in the background.

Objectives

The image is intended to promote a honey manufacturer that wishes to be associated with healthy living, pure and natural produce, and sustainability.

Annotated brief sketch

© Visual Education

'Art Directors'' visual

Items

Wooden surface with visible grain; colourful wild flowers (lavender or similar); open glass honey jar, full of honey, with circular base and convex sides; traditional wooden honey dipper.

Background image for compositing can be downloaded here.

PLEASE NOTE: You may only use this stock image for the purposes of executing this photography brief. Using the image in any other context without permission is prohibited.

Image layout

The sketch above illustrates the desired composition and layout for the image. The various elements should be arranged roughly as shown in the illustration. 

Note the patch of golden caustic light, on the wooden surface beneath the jar, which is refracted through the honey and onto the wood. See Mood images 2,3 and 4 for examples.

Mood

The mood of the image should be warm and natural, with a hint of indulgence.

The mood images below provide good examples from which you can take inspiration.

Flat-lay food photography example mood image

Mood 1

Flat-lay food photography example mood image

Mood 2

Lighting

The image should be lit warmly and naturally from behind, with subtle fill light used to balance the exposure and soften the shadows in the foreground (for example, under the wild flowers).

As mentioned above, the image should feature caustic light passing through the honey and casting a golden hue onto the wooden surface beneath the jar.

Flat-lay food photography example mood image

Mood 3

Flat-lay food photography example mood image

Mood 4

Background

For the background of the image, you must use the provided stock photograph of a sunlit field, cropped to match the required ratio of 6:5.

Download the image here.

PLEASE NOTE: You may only use this stock image for the purposes of executing this photography brief. Using the image in any other context without permission is prohibited.

Annotated brief sketch

© Visual Education

Styling

The image should depict a central glow emanating through the jar of honey, with caustic light refracted through the honey.

The wooden surface should be mid-coloured with visible grain. Honey should be dripping off the dipper and into the jar.

The shadows in the foreground should be soft.

The flowers should be lavender or similar wild flowers in a loose bunch.

Annotated brief sketch

© Visual Education

Brief summary

  • Full glass jar of honey with honey dripping off a wooden dipper
  • Mid-coloured wooden surface
  • Loose bunch of wild flowers
  • Warm natural light from behind
  • Caustic light refracting through honey
  • Composited with supplied stock background image
  • 6:5 ratio

    This brief is for example purposes only. This is not a professional commercial brief and all requirements are purely for educational purposes.

    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.

    Submit Your Image

    The deadline for entry is 12:00 BST / 07:00 EDT on 20th April 2022. Karl will review all submissions in a follow-up live show on 4th May.

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

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

    Recommended Content

    Below is a selection of some of our past photography brief challenges. To learn more about photography and commercial projects, you can find a complete breakdown of the commercial workflow in our Business of Photography course.

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    Comments

    1. I appreciate the license restrictions on the background use – but are we allowed to post the finished piece to our portfolio and social media?

    2. AdrienneCatanese

      Quick question about the supplied “meadow” image: just downloaded it, and noticed some odd banding / artifacts in the image located where the sun would be.

      I can certainly correct these in post, but just wondering if anyone else has noticed these artifacts in the supplied image?

      Thanks! Looking forward to tackling this brief; just bought some honey today!

      1. Hi Adrienne, yes you are correct there are a couple of weird horizontal lines in the sun highlight area, if you run the healing brush over them they will disappear but we won’t hold it against anyone who misses it as that is how the stock image is supplied.

        1. AdrienneCatanese

          Thank you for that clarification! Just wanted to make sure it was not an error on my end in downloading the image improperly or something 🙂 Thanks for a fun challenge–I’m excited to work on this!

      1. Hi, only a limited amount but the client would prefer you shoot the picture to match with the background rather than destroy the background.

    3. Well it never hurts to ask. Thanks Karl and btw I’ve really enjoyed my membership here. I appreciate you and your team.

    4. Really great idea for a brief Karl. Will be fun to try to get it all to mesh together.

      Since this is due in April…. how about another simple brief thrown on the calendar for March? 🙂

      1. Hi Ryan, glad to hear you are taking part. We will be throwing more briefs in where we can this year but at the moment we have a packed production schedule to deliver you guys lots more classes!

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