Chocolate Mousse

Okay, here's a question: What do you think is the product or recipe that paid for this shot?
If you guessed the mousse in the classy glass, you're right! It's not exactly brain surgery. The mousse is the thing that is in focus and has the yummy light. There is a fuzzy nice glass and a fuzzy spoon that add to the environment of the shot. There is also a tablecloth and napkin that is so fuzzy that it's hard to tell what it is but it doesn't matter. The important thing, the mousse, is nicely lit, and sharp. Are you seeing how we use focus and light to control your eyes as you look at our shots?
The TEAM:
Not too different from the earlier examples. There was a client present on this job. The client worked for the company that made the mousse, so she had an opinion that needed to be listened to. There was an art director who had worked with the client to arrive at an acceptable layout. There was a food stylist who created the chocolate curls and styled the mousse so that it would look awesome like it does. Lastly there was, of course a photographer to light the mousse and control the focus.
The LIGHTING:
The quality of a light changes as it is brought closer to, or farther away from a set. A light bank is normally a soft light source but if it sits far from the set, it can become a contrasty harder light source. That all being said, on this shot I used an 8" fresnel spot light. A fresnel spot is usually a very hard light, but for this shot I used the adjustment on the light to make it as soft as possible and then brought it very close to the mousse which made it's effect even softer. That fresnel spot is the main light which came in from above and the left and then just a simple white card close in on the right to fill the shadows. We have a lot of tools at our disposal, we photographers. The trick is to have a definite picture in our minds of how we want our shot to look, and then select the proper lighting tools to make our mental picture a digital reality.