This article appears in issue number 16 of Magnolia Journal. The photographer was Carson Downing, food styling by Charles Worthington. This spread is accompanied by several pages of recipes, all with the almost monochromatic layout of dark blue with the pops of color coming from the fruit, produce and finished dishes. The darkness provides a good contrast to the type.

There are three contrasting typefaces used in this article, serif for the large title “The Flavors of Fall”, a smaller sans serif for “Finding Comfort In”, and italicized serif font for the paragraph. Each type has been circled. The serif font is more easily read than sans serif when they are italicized. The sizes and styles contrast and bring attention to the main idea of flavors of fall.

This photo uses several effects to draw your eye to the type and the bowl of fruit and produce. This grid shows the rule of thirds. The table setting is mostly in the bottom third and the bowl of fruit and produce, with it’s pop of color, is at the bottom right “sweet spot”. The darkness of the photo also lets the type stand out.

Natural light was used to keep the photo fairly dark. The light that comes in through the window is diffuse and at low, raking angle, keeping the highlights on the table setting rather subdued.

I set up my photos to recreate the monochromatic look with raking natural light. It took two days with this still life set up for the light to be at the correct angle and diffuse enough to mimic the original magazine spread. This photo was taken at 8:30 am with a south window exposure. In order to get the background dark enough for the type to contrast well, I used photoshop to remove distractions on the background and added a gradient at 50%. The fruit colors pop really well.

It was much easier to get the feel of the original magazine article with a darker wall color. The color of the table setting is more spread out with the pottery’s orange color and the tablecloth but the type has good contrast to the background. This photo was taken at 5:00 pm with a west window exposure. The background had distractions removed and a gradient added to bring out the colors of the table settings. This is my favorite of the three photos I took.

I really wanted to try a different setting for the third photo, such as at the local farmer’s markets or orange orchard produce stands but they’re closed due to COVID. I ended up with a backlit dining room, thinking I could silhouette the gourds and pear. What I ended up with was a too bright background and too dark foreground. Even with all of the adjustments made to this photo in photoshop, it still doesn’t work well at all. The window ends up drawing the eye instead of the produce. Using natural light for photos is something I look forward to practicing.

The monochromatic colors, low light level with soft highlights, contrasting type and rule of thirds set up a visually pleasing magazine spread. Trying to recreate that look was a great learning experience.