The sandwich at the front

Text C: an original fiction extract.

Esme offered to photograph the sandwiches for her uncle's café because she wanted examples for her photography portfolio. He needed pictures for a new counter menu and the café's website. She imagined warm light, crisp edges and bright layers of filling. At home she studied advertisements and practised with an empty plate. Her uncle said the pictures should help customers choose lunch. Esme agreed, hearing this as permission to make every sandwich look as attractive as possible.

On the first morning, a member of staff prepared the usual sandwiches while Esme arranged a small table beside the window. The filling was distributed evenly, which meant that only a modest amount appeared at the cut edge. She moved some towards the front. Through the camera, the bread now enclosed a generous, colourful stack. From the side, one half looked almost empty. She turned the plate so that the thin part disappeared. Her uncle admired the first image on her screen. Esme enjoyed the praise enough not to show him the sandwich from the other side.

A customer waiting for coffee asked which sandwich was being photographed. When a fresh one arrived from the kitchen, he looked between it and the image. He said he would have expected more filling from the picture. Esme explained that food photographs were arranged carefully. He said he understood, but he was buying something to eat, not a place on the plate in her composition. The staff member who had prepared the sandwich watched without speaking. Esme realised that her photograph might make the usual preparation look inadequate.

She proposed asking the kitchen to arrange every order with the filling pushed forwards. Her uncle asked what the customer would find after the first bite. The question made her look again at the unused half. Increasing the total filling would also change the cost and the product; it was not a photographic adjustment she could decide for the café. She had treated the cut edge as the whole sandwich because that was the part her camera could make most impressive.

They prepared a fresh sample in the usual way. Esme changed the light, background and camera position without moving food from one part to another. The image was less spectacular than her first version. She made a pair of views instead: one showing the complete sandwich and one showing the cut interior. Her uncle checked that the filling description matched the menu before she added it. She asked the staff member to compare the pictures with an ordinary order, rather than with the first specially arranged plate.

By lunchtime, she had fewer finished photographs than planned. She wanted to keep the dramatic first image for her portfolio. Her uncle said that if she did, she should explain the arrangement rather than present it as a picture of the usual order. Esme saved it in a separate folder beside a note about what she had changed. For the menu, she used the new versions. She still wanted the café's food to look good. Now she understood that the person looking might be deciding what would arrive on their plate, while the person making the picture was deciding only what would appear inside a rectangle.

You are Esme. Write a letter to your photography tutor explaining the café assignment, evaluating your first approach and proposing how you will present the work.

In your response:

• explain what you hoped to achieve and why your first photograph seemed successful
• evaluate the difficulty revealed by the customer and your uncle
• explain your revised approach and how you will use the images responsibly

Base your response on Text C, developing its ideas in your own words. Write about 250 to 300 words. Up to 10 marks are available for reading and up to 10 marks for writing.