Final image (on right): Canon 5DMkII, Canon 70-200mm f/4L IS lens, 1/8 sec at f/8, ISO 100

I recently photographed a blender filled with fruit for my stock portfolio, and the setup was unique to my usual food photographs so I thought I’d share it here on my blog. I almost always use diffused daylight for my food images (with a few exceptions) so I wanted to go with that and, even though this was a setup that would have worked just as well with strobes, I thought I’d give it a try with window-light to see what I could come up with.

When you photograph glass, or any reflective surface, you need to watch out for stray reflections. If you’re in a room with colored walls and the walls are showing in your surface then you’ll see that color in your image, just as I did with the gold-colored stripe at the bottom of the image, which is a combination reflection of the wooden surface and gold reflector I used for fill. You also want to try to add light to the sides of the glass to outline it so it doesn’t “disappear” into the background, especially if you don’t have anything inside of the glass when you photograph it.

I also wanted a backdrop that was simple, and neutral, so I added a piece of white foam board at an angle directly behind the blender. My focal length was long (180mm) so that at ƒ/8 the DOF was shallow enough so that any imperfection in the board blurred away, and it add a nice gradient to the background as well (I didn’t add any vignette to the final image since it would have introduced banding in the corners).

Here are all of the elements to my setup:

• Camera: Canon 5DMkII
• Lens: Canon 70-200mm ƒ/4L IS
• Tripod and head with Custom Bracket
• Lighting: Back-lit with diffused window light (North-facing)
• Four pieces white foam board
• Small gold reflector for fill light in the front

In celebration of my book being released and on the shelves, I’m going to be giving away four copies!

Here’s what you need to know to enter (with more specific rules below):

Create a food photograph that follows the theme “Sweet” between now and the cut-off date/time of the contest, and then post a link with a story/description about the photo in the comments below. It’s not a “photo” contest, but more of a story-telling contest … but you do need to create a photo in order to have a valid entry. I’ll be selecting one random winner here, and one random winner over on a similar contest on Google+, and then will choose two more winners (my favorite photos/stories) from each site. You can enter both contests on both sites, but can only enter once per site (blog & Google+). Image quality is not as important as creativity, so be sure to keep that in mind. :)

Also, if you don’t yet have a Google+ account, now’s a good time to start! I have some invites to give away (click here) if you need one.

Here are the rules:

1. The theme for the giveaway on this blog is “Sweet”.
2. The photo needs to be new … in other words, it needs to be photographed and uploaded any time between the date/time of this blog post and the cut-off time (listed below).
3. Only one entry on each site per person is allowed. (Click here to access the contest on Google+)
4. Upload the image to the photo hosting site of your choice (Flickr, G+, your blog, etc.). Then, post a link to your photo along with a description/story about the photograph in the comments below.
5. Two books will be given away randomly (one here, one on G+), and two additional books will be given away which I will personally select (one here, one on G+). For the winners I select, creativity is key … image quality is not nearly as important as the story behind the food.
6. The cut-off time for posting your entry for this giveaway is Saturday, September 3rd at 11:59 PM MST.

Good luck!

BTW, the giveaway is open to anyone from any country. :)

Canon 5D Mark II , Canon 70-200mm f/4L IS lens, 1/10 sec at f/8, ISO 100

As some of you may already know, I’m moving to Seattle next month. It’s been crazy … I have a ton of work piled up that I need to do and my brain is cooked (no pun intended). :) I handle change pretty well, but one thing that is really, really difficult is that “when to pack what” moment. I had one of those “oh crap” moments this weekend.

I love food. I love cooking it, photographing it and, of course, eating it. Now, I don’t always eat amazing meals every day. Being single, and living alone, most of the time I go pretty simple with my food, but when I do cook I usually get pretty fancy. So on Saturday I decided that I was going to cook up a hearty meal … steak, topped with blue cheese and some sweet caramelized onions, and a side of steamed asparagus finished in a hot pan of bacon bits and grease. I was also packing, and had run into a dilemma … I really didn’t want to pack up any of my food photography gear, cause that would mean I had to wait a month before I could shoot anything else. So, so tragic.

My solution was to photograph my steak and go out with a solid “bang”. I hadn’t cooked it yet, but decided to have an early dinner so I would have enough light to work with (here’s a link to the “behind-the-scenes” photo for this shoot). So what you see in the photo above is a fully-edible dinner, “styled” only so that it was plated nicely. Overall I’m really pleased with how the photo turned out, and photographing this “last supper”, so to speak, made me feel a little bit more comfortable packing up my food photography and styling tools.

Hey everyone, just thought I’d pass along the final book announcement that it’s shipping! I’m really excited about this book, it was a lot of hard work (and at times extremely delicious) and also a lot of fun to put together. I made this book for those of you who really want to step up their skills with food photography … I hope you enjoy it!

Also, in case you missed it I put together a video about the book (here’s the link) and if you would like to purchase it, the book is currently available on Peachpit and Amazon. :)

My new book, “Food Photography: From Snapshots to Great Shots“, is just days away from being on the shelf of your local bookstore! I thought I’d share a short promo video I put together that shares a little bit about the book. Enjoy!

Also, stay tuned to the blog … I’ll be doing book giveaways both here and on Google+, so you’ll all have a chance to get yourself a free copy. And, if you’re not on Google+ yet, feel free to send me a message and I’ll get an invite sent your way.

A few months ago I asked you guys to post recipes on my blog (link), and if I used a photo created from the recipe for my book then you would win my new food photography book (available in August … oh so close!). There were sooo many tasty looking recipes, and thanks to everyone who entered! I couldn’t squeeze more than a few into the book, and the photos above are the images I created. So congratulations to Judy Keil for posting a link to a delicious crème brûlée recipe (I used blueberries in replacement of the blackberries), and David Farrell for posting a recipe for “orange blossom French toast”. Both of you will receive a copy of my book Food Photography: From Snapshots to Great Shots!

Stay tuned to my blog, too … there will be another giveaway as the book launch date gets closer. :)

And thanks so much to everyone who posted recipes … there are some very tasty recipes in there that I’m sure I’ll end up cooking up eventually. (You can find the recipes to all of these dishes in the comments of my blog post here.)

Canon 5D Mark II, Canon 70-200mm f/4L IS lens, 1/15 sec at f/8, ISO 100

Today was the first day of this year’s Salt Lake City Farmer’s Market (yay!!!). I celebrated by getting up early, making it out to the market by 8am and getting some tasty, local-grown food. My goal was to create a nice meal for myself as well as photograph it, which I think might end up being a regular weekend thing.

On the menu tonight was lavender crusted rack of lamb. I’ve never cooked with lavender before, mostly because it’s difficult to find. I happened to find a vendor at the market that sold culinary lavender and bought a packet, and used it with some local grass-fed lamb I had just purchased. And, by the way, lavender cooking in a kitchen is one of the most divine smells ever. I’m gonna start finding more recipes to work lavender in to.

Here’s my “recipe” for the lamp … I kinda just whipped it up, so I don’t have precise measurements:

Lavender Crusted Rack of Lamb

Rack of lamb (mine was about 1.3 lbs)
1 tbsp lavender (plus some for garnish)
Olive Oil
Chopped green garlic (they look like green onions, I used about a hand-full)
Salt and Pepper
1 cup red wine (I used shiraz)

Preheat oven to 400° F. Prepare lamb, and in a small bowl add some olive oil, lavender and salt and pepper. Mix, and rub over lamb. Heat oil over medium-low heat. Add garlic, then lamb, and brown the sides quickly. Then, place in oven. I cooked mine for about 15-20 mins, and ended up with a medium to medium-rare cooked meat. When it’s done cooking, set lamb on a cutting board to rest for five or so minutes. Then, with the remaining bits still in the pan, add the wine and deglaze until it’s to a thicker sauce-like consistency. Cut lamb, drizzle sauce over, garnish with lavender and enjoy. :)

Canon 7D, Canon 50mm f/1.4 lens, 1/250 sec (left) and 1/350 (right) at f/2.8, ISO 200

Last night I had dinner with some friends at their house and brought over some salmon and cedar planks I’d been wanting to use. I don’t grill too often (mostly because I don’t own a grill) and really wanted to both eat food cooked on cedar and photograph it, so I decided to kill two birds with one stone. I brought all the fixins (minus the home-made Teriyaki sauce that Renee cooked up) and they helped out with the grill. I brought my Canon 7D w/ 50 f/1.4 along to get a few photos … I wasn’t expecting to get too much but I really like the images I made. Plus, they’re photographers, too, so they totally understood my need to photograph the food. :)

To make the salmon I soaked the cedar planks in water for about 20-30 mins and then marinated the salmon for about 20 mins in homemade Teriyaki sauce (soy sauce, garlic and ginger cooked for a bit … not sure exactly how she cooked it but it was good!). The grill was pre-heated to about 350-400° F, then we added the cedar planks and let them heat up for a few minutes. When they were ready we flipped the planks over, placed salmon on them (along with some asparagus seasoned w/ olive oil and salt/pepper) and I layered orange slices over the top of the salmon. It all cooked for approximately 20 minutes, then we took it off the grill and ate it up. It was really, really good … the smokiness flavor from the cedar really came through, especially in the asparagus … and I smelled like a campfire the rest of the evening (which is awesome!).

Here is a behind-the-scenes pic of me, along with a photo of the smoking asparagus:

Canon 7D, Canon 50mm f/1.4 lens, 1/100 sec at f/2.8, ISO 200

Canon 7D, Canon 70-200 f/4L IS lens, 1/250 sec at f/7.1, ISO 100

I was up pretty late last night working on the last bits of my new book, and this is one of the images I created. The setup and Photoshop editing is similar to the “steaming shrimp” photo from this blog post (steam added with a hand-steamer & two images merged together using masking), so take a look at that post for more info on how I created this image.

Here’s a BTS image and list of equipment so you can see my setup:

• Canon Speedlite 430EX
• Lastolite TriGrip Diffuser
• Black foam board for background
• White foam board underneath and also to the left for fill light
• Small reflector for fill light
• Manfrotto Magic Arm to hold fork (w/ Gaffer tape)

Canon 5D Mark II, Canon 70-200 f/4L IS lens, 1/30 sec at f/5.6, ISO 100

I had some bananas that had been sitting on my counter for a few days and were über ripe, so I decided to make banana bread. I also had some fresh cherries just sitting around, so I decided to throw them into the banana bread to see what happened. :) It turned out very nicely, and very yummy! I don’t do a lot of baking, and don’t eat a lot of sweet stuff so it was fun to do something different for a change. The recipe is at the bottom of the post … it’s from an old family cook-book my grandma gave me several years ago (I noted the changes I made in the ingredients).

To photograph it, I didn’t have any cherries leftover to add to the scene, so instead I used a very cute tea-cup that I’d been wanting to photograph for quite some time to add color to the background. I also placed a pat of margarine on the bread and steamed it with a hand-steamer to melt it (see this post for more info on that technique) … it also added a subtle touch of steaminess to the top-right part of the scene, too. I used window-light with two folded white foam-boards to fill in the light on the food, and a black foam-board in the back to soften the light and prevent overexposed areas, and also to lessen any reflection that would appear on the liquid in the tea-cup.

Banana Bread:

1 cup sugar (I used brown sugar)
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
2 cups flour
1/2 cup shortening (I used melted butter)
2 egg yolks
1/2 cup buttermilk
2 ripe bananas, mashed (I used three)
2 egg whites, stiffly beaten
1/2 cup chopped nuts (I used hazelnuts and also added whole, fresh pitted cherries)

Sift sugar, salt, baking soda & flour together. Stir in shortening, yolks and milk. Stir in bananas. Fold in egg whites and nuts. Put in greased and floured 9x5x3-inch loaf pan. (I also sprinkled some sliced almonds on the top before baking.) Bake at 350° F for 60-070 minutes until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool on rack.