I’ve done maybe 1 or 2 web/blog ‘tag you’re it’ type things in the past, but I’ve kind of stopped doing a lot of that stuff. No one cares that my favorite movie is Bed Time for Bonzo (it’s not… Really, it’s not). There’s a new push going around that I thought was kind of cool, though, called Pay It Forward. I first saw this on Nicole’s site, Pinch My Salt, but I was too late, only to see that my friend Nika was also paying it forward on her site, Nika’s Culinaria.

PIF is simple:

• To be involved, you have to be a current blogger, though it doesn’t have to be a food blog.
• The idea is that each of the three people will receive something homemade by me.
• Those three people have to do the same thing on their blog… Post about PIF, allow commenters to comment, and send the first three something homemade.
• The time frame for when I have to have sent out my homemade whatever is 1 year from today. I don’t plan on taking that long.

That’s about it. And, what, you might ask, is the item that I’ll be sending out? A one pint jar of Bucky McOinkum’s own Javacue Sauce, an espresso based barbecue sauce that I’ve used (and won with) in competition.

So let the paying it forward, from here at least, begin!

(logo used with permission by Nika Boyce)

Lesson 3 is all about depth of field (DOF). One thing I’ve noticed in looking at food photos is that really shallow DOF is used a LOT with food (sometimes too much, I think). However, it can be used to really good effect to highlight the details desired while blurring those not desired.

 

I don’t have a stovetop that’s usable right now, thanks to my ex-propane company taking my tank instead of billing me rental for it. Of course, they did that the day before Thanksgiving! So I don’t really have any food for photo subjects. Not to worry! Christmas season is starting, and what I do have plenty of is Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer stuff. And those reading this will be seeing a lot more of our decorations over the next few weeks.

 

My main subject this week is Charlie-In-The-Box (CITB). Due to time, on Thursday, I’ll have only aperture settings of f/2.8, but what I varied instead of aperture was distance from the subject. Later, I’ll be updating this with a smaller aperture, also, as well as diagrams showing my focal plane. But first, here are just my basic photos:

 

Aperture f/2.8, background perpendicular to the lens.

16″ from subject:

Read the rest of this entry »

After a well deserved holiday break, here were are at Lesson 3 of Food Photo 101!

I peeked at Nika’s photos for this and had a good idea that we were going to do one of the topics I’ve really been looking forward to doing, Depth of Field. Here’s the lesson, in Nika’s words…

Depth of Field

This week’s topic will be Depth of Field (DOF) . Remember that I am putting together a food photo glossary for those terms that may not be as commonly known. I will also try to link as many of them in the text to the wikipedia entries.

What is this Depth of Field I speak of?

“The depth of field is the distance in front of and beyond the subject that appears to be in focus.” (*)

The wikipedia has a very extensive discussion of DOF and I would recommend your slogging through the non-math parts, maybe twice.

I like to visualize the DOF as a slice of paper (representing the focal plane) that floats in front of my camera. It can have different thicknesses and positions in my photo depending on the setting in the camera, the setting in the lens, the tilt of the camera, and the position of the camera relative to the subject.

If one has a shallow DOF, that piece of paper or focal plane (or plane of focus, POF) floating in front of my camera is very thin and will capture only a small slice of the subject in sharp focus.

If the DOF is deep then the focal plane is very wide (the piece of paper gets thicker) and thus a much thicker slice of the subject will be in sharp focus.

One of the settings on your camera that has a direct impact on DOF is the aperture or f-number.

“For a given subject framing, the DOF is controlled by the lens f-number. Increasing the f-number (reducing the aperture diameter) increases the DOF; however, it also reduces the amount of light transmitted, and increases diffraction, placing a practical limit on the extent to which the aperture size may be reduced. … Aperture settings are adjusted more frequently in still photography, where variations in depth of field are used to produce a variety of special effects.” (*)

There are ways of modifying the usual formula of DOF for one’s camera. Special types of lenses called “tilt-shift” lenses modify the angle of incidence of the photons traveling through the lens and impacting the sensor. Instead of hitting the sensor on a 100% perpendicular (90 degree angle), the light hits the sensor at an angle.

The wiki says:

“When tilt is applied, the film or image sensor is not at a right angle to the optical axis of the lens, causing a gradient of focus.” (*).

This technique can give some interesting effects in food photography and also in other photography that yields a “toy” like sense to an otherwise normal landscape (called “miniature faking”). In this case, by modifying the DOF and the gradient of focus drop off, one can make a scene seem like it is very close in and being shot with a small f-number (as you would for macro shooting).

Here are a few links to examples of that.

• hame.ca
• Flicker t/s group

Tilt-shift lenses are obviously for SLR lenses and they can be expensive.

For example, the Canon Normal Tilt Shift TS-E 45mm f/2.8 Manual Focus Lens for EOS - A mere $1,069.95 Read the rest of this entry »

I was contacted last week by a Chef’s For Humanity, an organization founded by Cat Cora (you might know her from Iron Chef America). The goal of the group is to gather culinary professionals and educations to fight hunger around the world. I think it’s a great group of people to push fighting world hunger, and I like that it’s outside of the political world, just a group of people trying to do what they think it right.

I’m hoping to become a ‘Blogger For Humanity’; I think the blogosphere is a great place to raise awareness of what’s going on in the world. No, I don’t think just blogging about hunger is going to fix the problem. There are political issues with this topic that even the best meaning chefs won’t solve. However, there are also a lot of issues that can be lessened, and having a group that’s not part of a government is a great step toward that, I think.

So how can you get involved? Here’s a press release for an event currently taking place. If you see anything worth getting or just want to get involved, check it out.

CHEFS FOR HUMANITY FIGHTS HUNGER

THROUGH ON-LINE AUCTION WITH CHARITYBUZZ.COM
NOVEMBER 14 - DECEMBER 10
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Celebrity Chefs to Offer Private Cooking Lessons, Meals Prepared in Your Home, Private Parties in Upscale Restaurants and More!

NEW YORK, November 8, 2007 - Put your money where your mouth is November 14 - December 10 and support Chefs for Humanity during an on-line, one-of-a-kind auction with charitybuzz.com. Join some of the world’s most renowned celebrity chefs as they offer their culinary skills and share cooking secrets to raise funds to help stop hunger around the world.

“We’re thrilled to present this unique and creative way to help fight hunger and we encourage everyone to take part in this exciting fundraiser,” said Diane L. Burstein, acting director of Chefs for Humanity. “Our chefs are planning some fabulous culinary experiences for you and your taste buds.”

Celebrity chefs include Chefs for Humanity president/founder Cat Cora, Katie Lee Joel, Rick Bayless, Robert St. John, Ming Tsai, Christine Pirello, Dean Fearing, Charlie Ayers and Diane Henderiks. Auction items include:

• Cat Cora and Katie Lee Joel: Billy Joel Concert in New York and dinner at Bon Appetite
• Charlie Ayers: In-home dinner with wine pairings for 20 people in the San Francisco area
• Dean Fearing: Chef’s Table for eight at his new establishment, Fearing’s Restaurant, in the brand new Ritz Carlton in Dallas, TX
• Christina Pirello: In-home cooking class for 10 people within the Philadelphia, New Jersey, Delaware or New York region (winner can pay for travel expenses if out of the region). The theme for the class is “Cooking to Relieve Stress and Tension,” focusing on foods that make stress tougher for us and the foods that help us handle it with grace. The package also includes a signed copy of her newest book, Cooking the Whole Foods Way. The winner is responsible for food costs.
• Ming Tsai: Tasting Dinner with wines for six at Blue Ginger in Wellesley, MA. The lot also includes a meet and greet and four autographed copies of Ming’s book, Master Recipes
• Rick Bayless: Gift Certificate for dinner for two at Frontera Grill in Chicago, IL, a tequila tasting, products from the food line Frontera Foods and a signed cook book
• Bobby Flay: Dinner for four at Mesa Grill and a signed copy of Boy Gets Grill, Grilling for Life and The Mesa Grill Cookbook.
• Diane Henderiks: In-home healthy cooking demonstration for up to 20 guests. An entertaining and educational experience, the winner and friends will learn all about healthy cooking and nutrition while sampling a 4 - 5 course meal with wine.

To participate, log-on to www.charitybuzz.com beginning November 14, locate the Chefs for Humanity auction and start bidding.

Your participation will help support Chefs for Humanity’s vital programs, including “A Chicken in Every Pot” and the partnership with the United Nation’s World Food Programme, which launches in December with an exploratory field visit to Nicaragua and Honduras.

Chefs for Humanity is an alliance of culinary professionals and educators working in partnership with United States and global organizations, providing nutrition education, hunger relief and emergency and humanitarian aid to reduce hunger across the world. For more information, visit www.chefsforhumanity.org.

or My Favorite Thing My Wife Makes For Me That I Eat Too Much Of Too Quickly. But that title was too long, I thought.

I do most of the cooking around hte house, but my wife does make a couple of things, and I let her. I’m not about to start making pumpkin bars and have her decide not to do them anymore… I’m a lot of things, but stupid isn’t one of them.

The pumpkin bars themselves are from my wife’s grandmother, and they’re good, but my wife made them considerably better… by using butter! One truism I’ve discovered in life is that just about anything can be improved by adding one of two things: bacon and/or butter. Bacon in pumpkin bars wouldn’t quite fly, but these bars are right in the butter-improving zone.

The original recipe called for vegetable oil, but we were out, so she substituted, wisely, melted butter instead. Yum! The old recipe was fine, this and a few other slight changes really made a difference. Before this go around, the pumpkin bar part of the dessert was little more than a transport mechanism to get cream cheese icing to my taste buds. This time, the pumpkin bar is great on its own (but best with the cream cheese icing!). Read the rest of this entry »

I hope I’m not disappointing anyone by not having a lot of Thanksgiving food this year. I’m doing the same as last year, pretty much, so if you search on ‘Thanksgiving’, you’ll get lots of stuff from 2006.

Instead, I’m relaxing a bit this week, if you call fixing a huge turkey and a regular turkey, cookies earlier this week and turkeys last week relaxing. Family is coming into town, which should be good.

I know I’m getting older. The holiday confirms it. It used to be that not only would I go to some relative’s house for holidays, but I might even sit at the kid’s table. Now, holidays are at my house. We don’t have a kid’s table, but you never know when that might change (not for us, but for others).

There’s good enough reason to have things at our house. My mom and sister have less than an hour drive, so they come down. My dad and stepmother are coming up from Atlanta, and my mom and dad can get along even though they’re divorced; that happened 35 years ago. My sister’s kids are coming in from wherever they are. My other sister is flying in from NYC, and my wife’s mom will drive down for the day. There’s no place else where all those different families would get together in one room.

I’m not going to get all sappy about what things for which I’m thankful, though my God and my wife top that list. One new thing for which I’m thankful, though, is our upcoming addition to the family, Bucky.

As I’m typing this, I realize that there actually will be a Bucky now, of Bucky McOinkum’s Barbecue and Bucky’s Barbecue and Bread. However, it won’t be a pig. Bucky is a blue tabby Maine Coon cat, and I just got photos of him today, at just about 4 1/2 weeks old. So, without further ado, have a great Thanksgiving (comment on any great stuff you had this year), and enjoy the debut photos of Bucky McKatt!

One thing I realized I don’t think I’ve emphasized for Food Photo 101 is that this is an evolving instructional series. Nika and I talked about topics, but she’s coming up with the lesson organically and as she’s inspired.

Because of this, we realized this week that life needed to take priority over the class. With Thanksgiving this week, we’re both really busy, and Nika has kids that rely on her, too. We plan on keeping up a weekly lesson whenever possible, but not to the detriment of our families and lives, which I’m sure everyone understands.

So this week won’t have a lesson. I think it’s a great opportunity to practice the first 2 lessons or to get caught up, and Thanksgiving dinner has lots of chances to do so.

I want to wish everyone a fantastic Thanksgiving; I hope you’re all spending time with loved ones and have the chance to reflect on things for which you’re thankful.

Here we have Nika’s review of my work for Food Photo 101 Lesson 2, along with several others that are following along…

This week we had quite a few people contribute their results to the Food Photo 101 flickr pool.

I am going to go through Curt’s results as well as those of the other participants, which include:

• LaRecetteDuJour
• Vegan Noodle
• Big Mill BB

Lets start with Curt’s work

In the series of images below you can see his set up and bounces on the bottom row and a series of shots on a tabletop with various permutations of bounce and mirror/foil.

I have put a blue circle over the shot with his set up and a red circle over the shot with no bounce.

This next series of shots shows, at the bottom, the conditions which Curt liked the most out of the first batch. I have put an orange circle over those.

You can see how he was experimenting with using the foil to focus some sharp light on different parts of the subject across those two shots.

I think that I would like to see two separate foils aiming on the two different regions that he was aiming at, all in one photo. Also, he could move the background back so that there is not the slightly distracting silhouette in the background. One other nitpicky thing, he could avoid the sharp shadows on the right by buffering or screening his light source on the left.

In this same series we see his on-black shots. Once again, I have put a blue circle over the starting conditions, no bounce. I have put a green circle over the shot that Curt liked the most.

This is a tough subject to light on a black background because it’s black jacket disappears. This likely won’t be the case with foods (how many foods are deep velvet black?) but a rim light (some sharp light from the back) would separate the subject from the black. He found that moving the foil in closer gave him a greater amount of light.

This is a nice illustration of something called the inverse square law (see glossary).

In short it is:

“The intensity (or illuminance or irradiance) of light or other linear waves radiating from a point source (energy per unit of area perpendicular to the source) is inversely proportional to the square of the distance from the source; so an object (of the same size) twice as far away, receives only 1/4 the energy (in the same time period).

Photographers and theatrical lighting professionals use the inverse-square law to determine optimal location of the light source for proper illumination of the subject.” (learn more)

Thus, he was able to gain some intensity by bringing it in closer. When you use lighting, as you move it about, its not a 1:1 ratio between 2 feet away and 4 feet away. At 2 feet you have, say, 1 unit of illumination. When you move it to 4 feet you do not have 0.5 units of illumination, you have 0.25 units.

In the last set, shown below, Curt uses an all white background to further explore light bouncing.

In this series, the shot that Curt liked the most (with the orange circle) is one where he used no foil or mirror and just the foam core. I agree with him.

It looks like it gave him more fill on the front right parts of the face and eggs with none of the silhouetting he was getting with the foil and mirror.

I thought that Curt did a tremendous job of going through the various combinations. I cant wait to see how he uses this on food!

LaRecetteDuJour

Lets move on now to the work submitted by LaRecetteDuJour, our faithful classmate from France!

She too did an excellent job of going through various combinations of bounce and background. We can see a series of her images below.

A green circle is over her kit of bouncers, a lot of work there, great job!

The upper set is of the subjects on a white background. I have put a blue circle over the photo where no bouncing was done.

I think I would suggest two things: combine the two images in the orange circle and also make the primary light less harsh, perhaps a sheet of thin cotton. We will talk more about those sorts of things later.

Next, she worked on the on-black background. I put a blue circle over the starting conditions. She next used a foil bounce and then varied the exposure to -2 (orange circle).

I think that was a good idea because we were seeing so much detail of the black cloth. It made the background fall away and isolate the subjects but did decrease the brightness of the subject. She could go in with photoshop and selectively lighten up the subjects.

Vegan Noodle

Vegan Noodle, hailing from the sunny land of ground control (AKA Houston, TX), gave us a series of shots of meyer lemons. You can see her discussion on this work at her blog post “Lemon Light” on her blog - walking the vegan line.

I show this series below.

Blue circle over starting conditions, yellow over my preference of the lemons on the wood, and green for the one that VN liked the best. If you go to that blog post you will see that she preferred the black background the most. It definitely has some great qualities. I would suggest that she re-work this lighting where there is no direct overhead lighting but a key (main) light to one side and bounce on the other.

Great work!

Big Mill BB

Chloe, who runs a Bread & Breakfast called Big Mill B&B in North Carolina, also has a blog, Chloe’s Blog from Big Mill, where you can see what she is cooking up for her guests!

She submitted some photos of this fantastic wine glass that I would ban from our house because the kids would trash it in a second, I just know it!

She chose a hard subject because glass on different backgrounds and with different bouncers can behave very differently than non-glass items.

You can look at the various photos and decide for yourself on your favorite but I am really liking the one that I put an orange circle over. It has great reflections. There is something about the black background that really brings out so many details over the white background.

Amazing work!

I think that each of you have done a great job showing how you experimented with the conditions and the bounce. I look forward to seeing what this does for some of the food photos you have in your pipeline. Always feel free to put those photos in the flickr Food Photo 101 group pool!

Finally, I wanted to show something I did this week that used some of these techniques.

Since I live up north (like Curt), I lose the light really early and the light all day comes in at an oblique angle (until the summer when it is more perpendicular). The oblique angle makes for some really harsh light.

So, to make a long story short, some time ago I invested in a daylight balanced strobe (Alien Bees AB800) with a “giant” softbox.

I had been less than happy with my results with this strobe but with the lack of light I have decided to beat my lighting demons and try to find a set up that works with this light source that I can use any time of day.

Below you can see some eggs. They are lit by the strobe in the upper left corner. I am bouncing with a styrofoam block on the bottom right. I used my tripod and also my Canon 30D. I was working so fast that I didn’t take the time to shoot with my P&S, sorry!

Here is the set-up shot where you can see my light source on the left and the styrofoam bounce on the right. Don’t look at the mess please! I took these with my fujifilm with the flash and it hard a HARD time focusing. Sorry about that.

Related Posts:

• Food Photo 101-2: Photonic Inspirations
• Food Photo 101-2: Curts Results
• Food Photo 101-2: Harnessing Photons
• FP101-1: Week 1 in review
• Food Photo 101: Photography for Foodies
• Food Photo 101-1
• Food Photography 101: Lesson 1 results

Class Resources

• Curt’s Food Photo 101 page
• My Food Photo 101 page
• Food Photo 101 Class Forum
• Food Photo 101 Glossary
• Food Photo 101 Flickr Group
• Food Photo 101 Newsletters

To register for the newsletter that reviews each week’s topic, fill out the contact form at the bottom of this post (or on the Food Photo 101 page) and type “Food Photo 101” in the subject field.

Lesson 2 was all about directing light. I was hoping to have some good morning light again, as the time change means that it’s too dark when I get home to have much light coming into the dining room. Unfortunately, mornings this week have been cloudy, so not much luck for me having good natural light.

I want to thank Nika for another great lesson… This one will prove to be really useful right from the start.

I figured this was a good way to try out how white balance would need to change for the light in the dining room, and I ended up with using the ‘Incandescent setting’.

Task 1: My Light Bouncing Equipment

I mostly used foamcore. This is can be found at art supply stores, and it bascially posterboard glued to a white styrofoam core, which gives some stiffness so it will stand up without bending.

I picked up a few sheets of foamcore: 3 white, 2 black and one kind of a silvery grey. I also took a piece of cardboard and wrapped it with aluminum foil and snagged a mirror my wife had under her sink in the bathroom. I have some cheap lights that I can use, too, with translucent umbrellas, and my camera tripod made it into the shot a bit, too.

The problem with the lights I have is that the bulbs are too stark in color. I really need to replace them with more natural light bulbs, which shouldn’t be too difficult. I got 3 tripods (2 tall, 1 short) with 2 translucent umbrellas for something like $50 on ebay to use for photos, and they do pretty well for my needs right now.

So that’s my light bouncing stuff!

Read the rest of this entry »

It’s time for for the 2nd lesson in Food Photo 101! Without further ado, here it is, in Nika’s words:

Welcome back!

I was so impressed by all of the work you all did on the last lesson, great job!We have begun to familiarize ourselves with our cameras with the last exercise (Food Photo 101: First Principles), putting your hands to work on the settings and knobs and dials and such. Its ok if it still feels overwhelming because familiarity through practice is the only way to master these things.

For me, as I put this course together, I feel this tension between getting people started on basics and helping people keep motivated by seeing improvement in their photos immediately. Today’s lesson should yield some positive changes for you.

So, in today’s second Food Photo 101 class we are taking a break from the camera-geek-speak!

(Cheers heard from the balcony)

We are also not going to be camera-specific. These ideas are common to any format, be it pin-hole, digicam, DSLR, Medium Format, Large Format, etc.

We are going to talk about how to harness the light we need to make good photos.

Read the rest of this entry »