Hand study- cooking

A few days ago I did a new shoot whilst someone was baking, I thought this would be a good activity to photograph as it brings in the idea of domestic life and hobbies, which Sander brings to his photographs. So here are my most successful images...

In this composition I wanted the hand to be near to the centre so it the main viewpoint. I also wanted more context than previous shoots. I also wanted to adopt Sanders narrow focusing he uses in many of his portraits. It hints at a context but defers the interest of the viewer to the hand.

This is one of my favourite images from the shoot, I like the fully focused hand overlapping the bowl. The background is slightly dropped out to give an idea of context, but not take away the emphasis on the hand. The tones are quite warm also. 

The light in this image helps to draw attention to the hand. This was created by the natural light from the window. I think if I was to use this image further I would crop out the persons t-shirt on the left, it slightly distracts. Although the hand doesn't evoke strong emotion from the viewer it documents the persons occupational hobby, like Sander does in most of the images. 

In this image I tried to add more context to the image as this was emphasized in the feedback given a few weeks ago. Again the natural window helps to pull emphasis on the hand.  

This is the same composition, but I moved closer a little. 

Again I moved even closer, this gave the hand more focus from the viewer, they aren't distracted by its surroundings. They however may still be distracted by the flour in her hand. 

In this image I focused on the back of the photograph as this was where the hand was. The bowl slightly distracts. 

I really like this image to the lighting once again.

In Sanders portraiture he often dropped out the landscape to pull attention to the person and his or her occupation or fashion, but still give an idea into where the person is, which often relates to the occupation at hand. In this image I used the same technique of dropping out the background to pull emphasis on the hand. 

Overall focus in the photograph doesn't really work into pulling emphasis on the hand. 

The hand doesn't work, as it isn't fully in the photograph, we can only see the thumb over the measuring bowl. 

Here the hands aren't in the centre of the composition, which I wanted to do. The bottom hand is fully focused but the hand in the top is out of focus due to the aperture I used. 

In this photograph the bottom hand is again fully focused but the top hand isn't because of the movement whilst I took the shot. I think this movement captured distracts us from the language and characteristics of the hand. 

I feel these images work very well due to the natural light. The images with fully focus on the hand in the centre of the composition work very well, as it draws attention to the hands, which is my main subject.