I never had as much fun preparing a shot for a challenge than I had with this one. I had this image in mind the moment I saw the challenge description.
I'm really looking forward to seeing how this image will be received by voters. Admitted, I'm a sucker for clichés.
Never did any food shots before though.
Ingredients for the picture :
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-One large north facing skylight window.
-One overcast day.
-One large piece of foamcore.
-Fresh produce, spices and kitchen utensils.
How to make :
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-Place foamcore under skylight.
-Arrange produce, spices and utensils on foamcore.
-Position camera above foamcore and compose the picture, taking care to keep the lens axis perpendicular to foamcore plane.
-Set desired aperture and spot meter a midtone.
-Set shutter speed.
-Shoot a proof image and adjust shutter speed using histogram reading.
-Shoot final image.
-Load image into Photoshop, crop, adjust curves slightly, adjust hue & sat, apply usm, resize, add border and save for web @ 150k max.
-Upload to dpchallenge, enter details and wait for voting to start.
Ingredients for meal :
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2 sweet paprika's (the long variety), 1 yellow paprika, 4 mushrooms, 2 carrots, 3 unions, 2 garlic cloves, 3 tomatoes, fresh basil, bay leaves, thyme, pepper, salt, cayenne pepper, spirelli tricolore.
How to make :
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-Dice the unions and garlic and cook slowly in olive oil over low heat in deep pan until soft and golden.
-Dice the other veggies and add them to the pan.
-Add spices to taste, be sure to add enough cayenne pepper, it's a spicy dish. You could also use jalaneño peppers but I have trouble finding those in Belgium.
-Cover and let simmer over low heat for at least 45mins.
-Boil the spirelli 'al dente' and drain.
-Serve sprirelli with sauce and top with grated parmesan or grana padano cheese.
Oooooh how I love this kinda food. Very low on cholesterol and rich in fibers and vitamins !
Yummy !
Finally, my wine recommendations :
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-Marqués de Cáceres Rioja Reserva 1998 (ES)
-Monteregio Riserva - Castellani 1997 (IT)
-Jacobs Creek Merlot 2003 (AU)
-Ironstone Merlot 1998 (USA - Ca)
Statistics
Place: 1 out of 110 Avg (all users): 7.2659 Avg (commenters): 8.2222 Avg (participants): 6.8361 Avg (non-participants): 7.3630 Views since voting: 11576 Views during voting: 671 Votes: 331 Comments: 85 Favorites: 22 (view)
Amazing description! Reads like a good story! Excellent work photographing food.....not everyone can get an image this good without a lot of learning and mistakes.
Congratulations on your blue ribbon...it is all truly wonderful!
Congratulations on the Blue - I thought that it would end up somewhere there.
My thought - and others' too, from skimming the comments - was that this is reminescent of those postcards. You can find the kind I'm talking about on www.nouvellesimages.com if you dig around enough. They usually have a Frnech/English title.
oh - I like this one - and hope it does well - it's not like the others and has it's own originality - good idea laying everything out like this - the composition is very nice, great lighting, overall great quality - and I can see it as a print in a nice restaurant - good job :)
Nice photo. You laid out the ingredients very nicely to create a nice photo. The lighting is perfect and the backrouung and border really are a nice job.
Very nice composition. Some folks will probably knock you for it not being a "recipe" but this is one exceptionally fine image. Technical quality is great and the white background with the colorful arrangement works very, very well.
Frame it and put it on your kitchen wall! Also, how was this lit? I just hope voters don't penalize you for not having an actual dish in the picture. Excellent photograph even if it doesn't exactly meet the challenge.
Really love the arrangement, well thought out. I like how you included the seasoning and tools too. Great focus and very colorful. I don't usually like borders but it works well with this picture. Good luck
Really supurb image in my opinion. Great lighting, nicely composed and great design. Good luck with this one, its the best image in this challenge for me!
I really like this shot, at work I showed it to a collegue who said ïts like a calander shot"... I think that is a cool way of looking at it. It is crisp and clean and works.
This remind me of one of those posters with a hundred different kinds of chili peppers on them. I like it very much, although I'm not sure I like the way the utensils fit in. I think I would have preferred more food!
i love this, it stands out so much from the crowd and is really well taken (I can really appreciate you lighting, since i find it so hard!). Excellent job, I expect it to score highly
This is one of the few images in these two challenges that I think a stroke/border works for. Nice image. The colors seem to be weighted to the right side. Switch the spatula with the yellow pepper & tomatoes. My eye keeps going to the yellow...
Very professional - reminiscent of many postcards and posters I have seen along similar lines. (I'm not saying that's a bad thing, I don't think everything under the sun has to be a unique new idea in order to be appealing). I think you've made a great job - lighting works, clean background works and layout works very well.
Great shot; no shadows, perfect alignment of the subjects, a presentation of things that look as though they actually lead to a real recipe. It looks like it belongs in a commercial or something.
oooh, I use a lot of these ingredients. I will be looking forward to finding out your recipe. OH...and photo looks fabulous too! I love how evenly spaced out they are and the colors just make it pop. Good job!
Mediterranean food anyone ?
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