Food Photography 101 - With Foodchic Photographer

A couple months ago I found Wendy's Foodchic shop and fell in love with her pictures. They are simple, clean, and beautiful. This week she is sponsoring the weekly giveaway and also sharing some of her talent with us. Read the interview below to understand a little more about food photography and how you can improve your skills.

How did you become interested in food photography?

I’ve always cataloged special moments by the food that was consumed during them. First date – Taco Bell (ugh.) First time in France – Paella, chocolate mousse and wine at Flunch. Honeymoon – mussels, homemade yogurt, beef consume with truffle oil. First child – giant chocolate chip cookie at 2am.

So the switch to photographing food in my life came quite naturally when I was getting my MFA in photography from SCAD. No money for props, I raided my pantry and viola – a food photographer was born.

What food item are your favorite to shoot and why?

Chocolate is my favorite to eat, but fruit is my favorite to photograph. It reflects light so well and cooperates in any lighting and temperature.

What kind of equipment do you use?

Camera: I’m totally digital now – fast results, especially important with food that melts! I’m shooting everything with either a Canon digital Elph point and shoot (on macro setting) or with my Canon Rebel.

Lighting: I love sunlight and rarely use artificial light sources.

If you live in a low-light area, I suggest checking out the article by Making It Lovely on how to shoot products with Daylight Balanced light bulbs.

Other props/tools: Smooth drawing paper in big sheets, a plastic dollar-store mirror, white ceramics, water, powdered sugar, linen, a very sharp long knife.

Bonus: An Apple computer sure makes a difference. The program iPhoto that comes with all computers is so easy to edit with, that adding photos to your blog is a breeze!

What are your photo tips for food bloggers?

Four things seem to make all the difference in food photography. And all are easy for any level of photographer.

1.Make sure the food looks delicious.

When choosing fruits and foods, make sure there are no bruises, damaged or dried out pieces. If you are photographing cookies or brownies, under cook then just slightly. And if you cut an item, do so with a sharp, smooth knife, so the cut looks clean.

Also, if you know how to use the macro (flower) setting on your camera, you will be able to blur the background and draw attention to the delicious item even more. Here’s what to do: Make sure your camera is not zoomed at all. Then press the flower button until it shows up on your screen. Then get as close in as you can with it in focus and take a shot. If the item shows up blurry, back up a tiny bit or try to get more light on the item (see below.)

2.Keep it simple.

Try to place the object off center just slightly. It will make the object look more appealing (a trick of the brain a lot of artists know called rule of thirds or the golden mean.)

Use white or solid backgrounds that enhance the food colors. I like to use a white drawing paper or a nicely ironed piece of natural colored linen. They allow the colors and textures of the food to stand out.

3. Use props sparingly.

I try to stay with natural or white dishes, so food stands out, not my serving dish. A single spoon, a napkin or more food blurred in the background can add that special touch that makes viewers crave your food!

Finally, 4. Light it right.

Here is where the ho-hum photos start to zing. Use either natural light or a set of daylight bulbs like mentioned above. You’ll end up with nice white light and a beautiful image. If you need to put a little extra highlight on your item, try using a dollar store plastic mirror. I like rectangular ones with clear edges (no colors) so they will stand up with something propping them up from behind if needed.

(Without highlight form mirror)

(With highlight from mirror)

How to set things up:

Here’s my typical set-up using window light at the brightest time of day,
a large piece of drawing paper as a backdrop and my little mirror for highlights:

More questions? Feel free to send a comment to my blog at foodchic.blogspot.com and I’ll be happy to help you one-on-one!

I ♥ food and librarians= I ♥ The Food Librarian

I really like librarians. They are usually the nicest people in town. I know it's a stereotype but show me mean librarian and I will possibly change my mind. In the meantime I keep checking out this food blog called The Food Librarian which I ♥ because her food pictures are amazing, the recipes are doable, and she's a dang good writer. I'm convinced that only a librarian could have so many qualities. Go to her blog to get a recipe for these fun cupcakes.

Lucky You!

the winner of last week's giveaways is....drum rolls....

Anonymous said...

I would choose the "The secret to becoming who we wish to be" print. It'd be great for my teenage daughter.
-Terra
partymix25(at)hotmail(dot)com

I hope your daughter enjoys it.

oh and have you seen this weeks giveaway with all the beautiful food photography?

Metta Pie- I am now ready for Monday

2 weeks ago I wrote a post called "I'm not ready for Monday" pie. I asked my readers to submit some suggestions to help me create an I'm not ready for Monday pie that would get me through the day. Thank you to all who gave me suggestions. It was hard to pick. However, the winning choice was

Metta ... I vote for something with pumpkin, dulce de leche, cream cheese, and breadish pudding.

When I read off those ingredients to my husband he was all over it. On Saturday he baked this delicious pumpkin pie/cake/bread... whatever you want to call it so that we would be ready to pig out on Monday.

We were inspired by the recipe from fullblown technicolor and of course made some variations and added the finishing touch, dulce de leche. Here is our recipe.

METTA PIE
cream cheese filling

• 12 ounces (1 1/2 packages) cream cheese
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1 tbsp flour
• 1 egg

bread

• 1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp ginger
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg
• 1 1/2 cup pumpkin puree (1/2 can)
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/2 cups white sugar
• 1 cup dulce de leche
  

1. Preheat oven to 375* and grease baking dish
2. Combine the filling ingredients in a small bowl and set aside.
3. Combine the dry ingredients together.
4. In a separate bowl combine the wet ingredients.
5. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix using an electric mixer until it is smooth.
   
6. Put half the bread mixture in the greased dish. Next put all the cream cheese filling in a smooth layer on top of that. Then put the rest of the mixture on top and bake for 60-70 minutes until lightly browned on top and cooked through.
7. Cover with dulce de leche
   

Thank you Metta for your suggestion.

Other tempting suggestions:

• Latu-Vaki Family- upside down apple pie glazes with pecans on the bottom
• Fuji Mama- chocolate, sweet chestnut puree, and more chocolate
• Lolly-
  1) canned milk, cheese, mushrooms, spinach
  2) buttermilk, sugar, almond, butter
  3) buttermilk, lemon, cinnamon
  4) chocolate, cream, almonds

These were all really good suggestions. I may have to make more Monday pies in the future.

Solving your kitchen problems one giveaway at a time!

GIVEAWAY: FOODCHIC PRINT OF YOUR CHOICE

FOODCHIC is a creative etsy shop that features delicious pictures of food perfect to decorate your kitchen.

Visit her online store to view pictures such as these

FOODCHIC is full of beautiful pictures. Make sure you check back this week where the photographer will delight us with a guest post all about food photography.

You now have a chance to win one of her prints. To enter the giveaway just visit her food section HERE and pick which one you like. Come back to this post and leave a comment about your choice. One comment will be randomly selected and announced here on Tuesday November 4th. Please leave your e-mail so I can contact you if you win.

For additional entries you can

1-subscribe to this blog

2-Follow this blog

3-Follow me on twitter

just make sure that you leave an additional comment so I can know that you qualify for additional entries.

Good luck!

For more giveaways visit the Bloggy Giveaways

Must have a U.S mailing address!

Healthy Snacks for Toddlers- Rice

Enzo loves rice especially with beans. But eating rice and beans requires sitting at the table and me supervising the ordeal to make sure that the rice goes inside the mouth and not all over my already disgusting carpet. Cleaning rice off the floor is a form or torture, in case you didn't know. So when Enzo needs to have a snack or eat solo I like to use the rice molds that Bekah sent me from Japan. Yesterday as part of our snack duty I made star, teddy bear, and heart shaped rice for the kiddos.
Despite my husband's warning that I was complicating my life I still made the 20 shaped rice. It was easy since the rice was made in the rice cooker and with my mold I can do 3 a a time. The really hard part about this snack ordeal was making Cheddar cheese from scratch. Jut kidding.

I found this on-line store that sells rice molds for $4.00. I might have to order some other shapes.

For a list on online stores where you can find Bento accessories you can go to Lunch in Box. It's also a great website to get ideas on Bento related things.

Healthy Snacks for Toddlers- Apple Peanut Butter Crunch

I'm on a toddler and food kick today. Probably because once a month I am responsible to take snacks to the kiddos in Enzo's preschool class. Living in crunchy granola Santa Cruz means that goldfish crackers won't make the cut. So for the last couple days I was thinking about what I could make that would be both cheap and healthy. There's an apple tree 100 yards from my house that is loaded, so the decision to use apples was a no brainer.

Another fun thing about this snack is that your toddler can help you make it.

Apple Peanut Butter Crunch

Makes 16 apple slices

• 2 large apples
  
• peanut butter
• granola
  

1. Wash and cut each apple into 8 slices
2. spread peanut butter on the sides of the apple slices
3. cover with granola and refigerate until ready to serve

cooking with toddlers

This yummy looking banana bread was made by these two very yummy looking toddlers


Today In Enzo's class his teacher made banana bread with the kiddos. Toddlers love to cook and with a little bit of planning it can be an enjoyable experience for everyone. I try to get Enzo involved in my cooking, even if it's just to press the button on the blender, as much as possible. Maybe a little too much because today when I invited him over to help his teacher he was all like "Are you kidding? I already slave at home with you in the kitchen. I need a break." and off he went to play with puzzles.

honey whole wheat bread

Christian makes bread every Sunday and we always manage to eat at least one whole loaf by the time we go to bed. This is his recent favorite recipe.

Honey Whole Wheat Bread

• 3 cups whole wheat flour
• 4 1/2 tsp yeast
• 1 tbsp salt
• 1/3 cup honey
• 1/4 cup vegetable shortening
• 2 1/4 very warm water

1. Mix all the ingredients together
2. Mix and knead an additional 4 cups white flour
3. let rise for 45 minutes
4. form 2 circular loaves on a greased baking sheet
5. let rise for 45 minutes
6. bake at 350* for 30-45 minutes

serve warm with butter and jam.

Solving your kitchen problems one giveaway at a time!

GIVEAWAY: Vol. 25 Print

A couple months ago I fell in love with Vol.25 and the her i heart kitchen series.



and now that I have been reading her blog I am even more in love with her work. Is there anything better than etsy and all the amazing hand made things people make? By now you've noticed how addicted I am. I seriously can not get enough.

The artist of Vol.25, Jessica, has a unique talent. She is able to create art that makes you happy just by looking at it. Wouldn't it be nice to have some of these decorating your kitchen?.

These are just a few of my favorites. You can visit Vol.25 HERE for a chance to win any of her 8.5x11 print delivered to your home.

For a chance to win visit Vol.25 and look through her prints. You'll have over 70 to choose from! Come back and leave a comment here telling us which one you want by next week Tuesday October 28. One comment will be chosen at random and announced next week.

In the meantime you can download FREE embroidery patterns of the i heart kitchen series on the vol.25 flickr group

For additional entries you can
1-follow this blog
2-subscribe
3-follow me on twitter

just make sure you leave an additional comment to let me know that you follow, subscribe or twitter.

good luck!

Lucky You!

The winner of last week's giveaway is...

Annie said...

omgosh, the Donut Soap is fricken awesome! My kids and grandkids would love it!

Thanks

nancyrobster@gmail.com

I hope you enjoy your donut soap. Yum! Please e-mail me your address so we can ship these out to you.

Dinner Party

Sunday dinners have always been important in my life. It helps that my only expectations of Sundays are going to church and spending time with my family and friends, for me it is truly a day of rest and eating. We like getting together with our friends and having pot lucks. That way we have plenty to eat and no one is slaving away in the kitchen.

Yesterday we celebrated my dear friend Ana Paula's birthday. Here are some pictures from our Sunday dinner party.

Harvesting the benifts of making jam

We busted out some more of our plum jam yesterday for a pot luck dinner we had with friends. You can read my original post Golden Plum Jam to get the recipe and step by step process of how my first jam making experience went. Looking back on that post I realize that not only was it fun to make jam but it was also very much worth it. Months later we can take a jar of home made jam to a pot luck and people will still be super stoked. I know jam making season is over but there are ways you can prepare right now so that when the time comes you'll be ready to make some of your own jam.

The simplest thing you can do is to start saving glass jars with lids. If you want the pretty jars I recommend buying them now as I've noticed that mason jars are on sale since the end of summer. Another thing you can do is to be informed on how to make jam. My favorite jam making article is found on pickyourown.org where they have a step by step process with pictures on how to make various types of jams.

For those of you who have made jam before can you share some tips on how to make the process easier?

Vegan Pumpkin Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

So far all the real effort I've put into preparing for Halloween has been to search for3T costumes on Freecycle. My peripheral effort has been checking blogs such as this one that has cute Halloween crafts. So a couple days ago in an attempt to not do my readings for school and still feel like I was being productive with a book I decided to make this.
Grad school is awesome for coming up with elaborate justifications and terrible for your ego...but more on that later or maybe never since this blog is my escapism from real responsibilities. None the less my Halloween craft for the year was made. Voila!

Today another bloggy blog inspired me to make another Halloween thing. O.K fine, it's not really Halloween cookies but since it involves pumpkins than it's all good. So I made a batch of pumpkin cookies inspired by La Fuji Mama who needs to stop posting such good recipes before I drown in my own drool.

I modified the original recipe so that they are vegan. I'm going to a very crunchy granola pot luck in 10 minutes so I think they'll be a hit.
Vegan Pumpkin Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
(printable version)

• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1/2 cup apple sauce
• 1 1/2 cup pureed pumpkin
• 1 tsp. soy milk
• 2 cups flour
• 1 cup oatmeal
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 3 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 cup chocolate chips 

1. Preheat oven to 375* degrees.
2. Mix sugar, oil, and apple sauce on medium speed for about 1 minutes
3. Add pumpkin and milk and mix for an additional 30 seconds
4. In a separate bowl, mix the flour and oatmeal with rest of dry ingredients
5. Slowly add to the wet mixture.
6. Stir in chocolate chips.
7. Drop by spoonfuls onto cookie sheet
8. Bake for approximately 10 minutes makes 3 dozen
   

Fast for our Future- HUNGER STRIKE

Today, 21 days before the election a a group of over 100 people are congregating in La Placita Olvera (or Olvera Street Plaza), the historical heart of Los Angeles to begin the largest hunger strike in American history.

I have signed a pledge and today I will fast for the purpose of supporting immigrants' rights. I will fast because I care deeply for the rights of those who pick my food. I will fast because I am an immigrant in this country and at one point I too was an "illegal" and had the support of citizens and residents fighting for my cause.

I know we may not share similar values but I ask you to understand what this historical hunger strike is all about. As you prepare to vote in 21 days please learn a little bit more about immigrants who live in this country and the struggle they go through. You may be a strong advocate for militarizing the boarder. You may hold the opinion that illegals don't belong here. However, please learn about the repercussions of deportation and what it means when parents are deported and their U.S born children are left behind and put in the foster care system. PLEASE learn about this issue and think of it as a human rights issue not an "illegal alien" issue.

In a blog where I strive to take good food photography and make you hungry so that you'll keep coming back for more recipes I ask you to take a break from eating and participate in this event. If even for just one day you are willing to fast so that we can meet our goal of reaching 1,000,000 people before the elections we will have succeeded To sign a pledge go HERE

Please share this information on your own blogs and with your friends and family.

xoxo, Damaris

Solving your kitchen problems one giveaway at a time!

GIVEAWAY: Dessert Soap

Looks good huh? Well your body will thank you because these are very delicious soaps.


Plumberry Lane is a great place to find fun and high quality soaps, lip gloss and perfume. As well as fun Kawaii items from Japan. Today Plumberry Lane is giving away a set of soap. Visit the Plumberry Lane shop to see some fun soaps such as these


So which one looks the yummiest to you? Visit the Plumberry Lane etsy shop HERE and pick your favorite soap. Come back and leave a comment telling us your choice by next Tuesday October 21st. One comment will be chosen at random and announced here next Tuesday. If your comment is chosen you get the soap you talked about in your comment. Yay!

For additional comments you can
1- Follow this blog
2- Follow me on twitter
3- Subscribe to this blog

Good luck!

Lucky You!

The winner of last week's giveaway is...

TMC said...

Those buttons are too cute! I'd display them cutely on my backpack all Autumn long.

Hope you enjoy your Halloween buttons! Please e-mail me your snail mail address so we can ship these to you.

"I am Not Ready for Monday" pie

When I was in Hawaii I made a I'm in paradise and missing my husband pie. It's the pie above. Not really photogenic since it came out all one color but none the less it was the perfect comfort food at the time. The filling is coconut milk, sweet potato, and fresh mahi-mahi fish. It was scrumptious and totally highlighted some of the tastes of Hawaii. However, I made this pie halfway through my trip when I was really missing my husband who was on the other side of the world. I also made the pie as a result of watching the movie Waitress. Have you seen it? If you haven't than you must but beware that after you watch it you WILL HAVE TO make a pie. It's an urge you will not be able to control. The protagonist makes pies and has names for all of them such as the

BABY SCREAMING IT’S HEAD OFF IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT AND RUINING MY LIFE PIE - New York-style cheesecake, brandy brushed and topped with pecans and nutmeg

I found a website that has all the pies she makes and names here. So fun!
Today I am in a foul mood. I need to make a I am Not Ready for Monday Pie. What ingredients should I use? I'll pick my favorite suggestion and attempt to make the pie and then if I love it and change my opinion about Mondays I will gladly rename the pie after you.

Quiche

Here is my quiche recipe. Please don't send me hate mail about how I'm clogging up my arteries. I know, I know...but I'm addicted to fatty foods. sigh!

Bacon and Veggie Quiche

Pie Crust

• 1 cup flour
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/3 up plus 1 tablespoon vegetable shortening
  
• 2-3 tablespoons cold water

In medium bowl, mix flour and salt. Cut in shortening until particles are size of small peas. Sprinkle with cold water, 1 tablespoon at a time, tossing with fork until all flour is moistened and pastry almost cleans side of bowl Gather pastry into a ball and shape into flattened round surface. Refrigerate the dough while you make the filling

Filling

• 1 packet of bacon
  
• 2 cups spinach
  
• 2 cups mushrooms
• 1 large onion
  
• 1 cup grated cheddar cheese
• 4 eggs
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 1 cup cream cheese
• salt and pepper to taste
  

1. Heat oven to 425 degrees
2. Cut the bacon into 1" slices and place it in a frying pan.
3. Dice the onions and mushrooms and place in the frying pan with the bacon
4. Once everything is fully cooked place the spinach in the frying pan and let cook for about 3 minutes stirring often so that the mixture doesn't burn.
5. Place the heavy cream and cream cheese in a large bowl and mix until it is totally incorporated and smooth.
   
6. Beat eggs slightly and add to the heavy cream and cream cheese mixture along with the grated cheddar cheese. remaining ingredients into egg and mix slightly again.
   
7. Fold pastry into fourths and place in quiche dish. Unfold and ease into dish, pressing firmly against bottom and side.
8. Spread the bacon mixture on top of the pastry.
   
9. Slowly pour the cream mixture over the bacon mixture. Be careful to not overflow.
10. Bake for 15 minutes, reduce oven temperature to 300 degrees and bake for 30 minutes longer or until knife inserted comes out clean.