Five Horseshoes Maidensgrove Review When Amateur Photography Meets Professional Cooking Article by Sharon Shutterstock When it comes to food, there is no one who is as excited to critique as me... «+The chance to go around restaurant to restaurant consuming as much as my feeble stomach can handle in the name of journalism is the most exciting thing about this job, so when I was told to take my photographic expertise to The Five Horseshoes in Maidensgrove I was more than excited. “A classic English pub” I thought to myself as I was on my way to the middle of nowhere, trembling at the knees over the thought of what’s on the menu, Now, I wasn’t expecting much from The Five Horseshoesin Maidensgrove but when I arrived I had the most amazing lunch I had had in a while (I ordered a parfait, a partridge and a chocolate fondant). After my meal, I looked at the website to see how well they were promoting this delicious food and surprisingly the food on the website matched the food on my plate. I can’t begin to tell you how frustrating itis to go into a food place and the food they're advertising looks nothing like the food on your plate (I'm looking at you McDonalds). ‘The photography skills on the website appear amateurish, but they get the job done for promoting the food. The food looks amazing especially the muscles, however some of the images appear to look a tad too dark, that may be due to underexposure. The colour is off and too heavily saturated, the colours are too vibrant and don’t match the food on my plate, The framing is especially effective as it draws focus to the food itself. asked some of my good friends about the images promoting the website and they all agreed that the images are well focused and get the job done for making the food look appetising however the colour is a litle off because certain images look too yellow. One of the images had a lot of noise, which is fine (if you’re a fan of grimy gritty photos) but I didn’t think it was appropriate for selling food. It looks like a digital camera was used so the photographer had clearly had their ISO too high.1 couldn’t help but notice that some of the images had little droplets of water on the plate, which sort of put me off abit that the plates were still wet and not dried properly, however it looked like they sprayed the meal with water before the photo was taken. When I consulted the owner about it he confirmed that the food was sprayed with water before the photo was taken. This is a strange technique but it makes the food look freshly made. “We cooked the food about an hour before shooting” The manager explained to me, “I had the idea of spraying it with water to give the food moisture and make it seem fresher”. 1 askedabout the yellow and he responded with “we used an orange filter on most images to hide the harsh white Lighting from the kitchen and make it seem like it was taken in the restaurant, however people were eating so we had to improvise with a table cloth in the kitchen”. Tooked at some similar images from different websites and decided to compare these photos to the ‘ones from the pub.‘The canted angle here is unique and draws our attention to the food. The face that it isn’t dead centre makes it look more visually striking and allows more things to fit into the frame. The same thing can be said for the image bellow however the colouris too blue. This image is too cold and the barbed wire fence in the background is off putting. On the good side the focus is great along with the framing. ‘The photographer tends to follow traditional advertising techniques, such as attempting to remove as many shadows as possible. The only problem with this i it seems to throw the colour off making it a bit...wrong. Its very clear that the image is conveying how fresh the food is, by featuring the dish outdoors. The white bowl isa clear contrast to the natural look of the photograph as everything else seems to be made of wood which matches the woodland landscape, making the food stand out even more. The image also uses rule of thirds which is when the focus of the image is placed on the third lines of the imaginary grid on the photograph. This draws our attention to the food despite the background. taking up more of the image than the food. asked some of my peerswhat they thought of the photographer's images and they had the following to say “Some of the colour correction could be improved. Some of the images are too yellow”. Most them said they liked the warm look of the images saying they thought “the whole scene is comforting”.1 think these pictures are perfect for the target audience which seems to be middle aged working class, The images are welcoming and inviting to people who may be out walking in the cold winter winds. I can tell this because they have defiantly taken their influence from 5 star restaurants judging by the scenery and style of the images. The issue is the shots are too bland, there is nothing exciting about them, 5 star restaurants tend to make their photographs visually stunning and intriguing, but there is nothing exciting about these pictures. Overall these pictures are fine the only issue being they are too amateurish, These photos are a bit dull but with a litle improvement they can be stunning.