First Attempts

I made some delicious chocolate chip cookies a few days ago and wanted to photograph them because not only were they supremely tasty, but they look awesome and my recipe currently has no photo to go along with it.  So I put four of them on a plate and took it out onto my porch for some natural light.  It was sometime in the evening, and it was in open shade.

My first shot looked darker than I anticipated and the cookies didn't look as appetizing as in real life.
Settings: ISO 100, f/5.6, 1/125, Av mode, 47.00mm

My second shot had a white balance correction but I still didn't think the cookies looked right.
ISO 200, f/5.6, 1/100, Av mode, 51.00mm (white balance +1)

So I tried a different angle.  But I thought there was too much empty space on the plate.  My kids were beckoning me at this point, so I figured I'd try another time.
ISO 125, f/5.6, 1/80, Av mode, 40.00mm (white balance +1)

When I later loaded the pictures to my computer, I found the second shot was my favorite.  The composition looks great and the cookies look good, though when you blow it up you realize that none of the cookies are fully in focus and that bothers me a bit.  I'm not satisfied with the lighting but I know that's because I don't know enough about it to make it better yet.  But I think this is a good start. 

I'm also glad I didn't delete the photos as I went because at the time I didn't think that second shot was much better than the first then it later turned out that it looks best.  (I took more frames but deleted as I went.)  I have a hard time choosing which frames to keep when I take a million of each thing.  But I don't need to keep everything as a potential backup.