Focaccia bread, home-made. Shot in natural light, 50 mm.

I chose a side on view because although the items themselves are not piled high, I wanted to be able to show the crumb of the bread, where the holes are achieved by using a wetter dough. I tried to balance the lower level of the bread by placing the olive oil pourer behind, but left it soft to show that it was background. I included the glass of olive oil as I wanted to see the oil in shot, not just have it implied by the metal container. I also included rosemary and sea salt as these three represented the major additional ingredients of the product.

I chose to angle the board to draw you into the image. 

I left plenty of space around the board as this positioning was the most pleasing to me. I chose not to crop in so that we could see the board as a whole, in space.

I tried a more fine art approach for this image, with the natural light and components being reminiscent of old still life paintings. 

Pizza, home-made, shot in natural light with a small LED helper light.

I attempted an overhead shot for this image,arranging ingredients around the edge of the pizza. I chose a square crop to come in tight to the pizza shape.

I think I could have usefully used more lighting (which I don't yet have) to get a better shot. The salt is a little lost at the bottom and it would be good to get rid of some the shadows. But I'm very happy with my first attempt at this kind of shot.

I used 24mm to get this shot as the camera was mounted under the tripod and I didn't have a lot of distance to play with. I think it hasn't distorted the image too much - fortunately the pizza is hand-made so is gloriously irregular to start off with!

My final image shows a loaf of home-made bread fresh from the oven, and a proving loaf still in its banneton. 

I shot this at a 45 degree angle, with a focal length of 48mm.

I don't think the composition is very successful with this one. I was trying for an intimate feel which is why I cropped in. I used some of my bread and baking books as a background. I was aiming to have a suggestion of items pointing towards the dominant word Bread at the back but I don't think it worked and would probably lose the scoop of flour if I did it again. Perhaps I could have had the books on their side as well.

I like the warmth and texture of the finished loaf - more of a focus on that could have worked better. The proving loaf is a little all too much of the same colour, and you can't see the slats of the banneton very well so it lacks some impact.