How the How to Went

Well, that was fun! Turns out when you like what you're doing, talking about it is easy. And what we loved the most about doing this workshop was seeing how others see. Below are a few photos by the students and some atmosphere shots of the class. And here are a few ideas that came out of the class we wanted to share, in no particular order. 1. Look for the best light and then play with it. What this means is, if the light is very bright and direct, try taking a picture in that light, then soften the light by filtering it. You can use a white sheet for this.

2. Bounce light back onto your subject. Light is usually coming from one direction which then creates a shadow on the other side of your subject. Try using a white card (we use foam core) to bounce light to fill in the shadow.

3. Play with composition and pattern.

4. Try different surfaces under your subject. We see a lot of photography of unappetizing-looking food out there on the inter-webs that works because the surface the photographer is using is so fantastic and compelling.

5. Get to know how your picture taking device works. Many people are using their phones to take pictures. This is fine and what you see below were mostly taken with iPhones.  And if you learn the best way to use the device and the limitations of the device you are  going to make better pictures.

6. Shoot during the day, please.

Next photography class will be on editing using your phone, iPhoto or whatever program you are using. If you are interested let us know, we have not set a date yet.

Kick-ass ice-cream

Where: The Bent Spoon, Princeton, NJ Who: Gabrielle Carbone and Matt Errico

Why: Its their 10 year Anniversary this week! Go get some ice-cream.

I am not sure if we have mentioned that we used to live in Santa Fe, NM, and Sicily, and New York, and, yes!, in Brooklyn too. But we have landed here in NJ. Many people would, (and do), ask why? It is too long of story to get into but what is important is that we are happy, we are near family and we can get really good, really fresh ingredients that we love to cook with.

Plus we can find other people (like the Bent Spoon people) who also like to make incredibly good things with the best ingredients. Lucky us! And there is none of that Brooklyn hipper-than-thou attitude (we have our own sort of attitude to deal with in Jersey, thank you very much!)

On another note, this portrait of Gabrielle is one of my favorites that I made in the last few months. Sort of Patti Smith meets artisanal ice-cream.

Another cookbook...

worth having. Publishes today! The New Cast Iron Skillet Cookbook, by Ellen Brown. Published by Sterling Epicure.

Photographed by Guy and styled by Kate.

We photographed this book a while ago but still remember many of these delicious recipes. (I think we just made the Irish soda bread in March!)

Here's a sneak peek to get you started.

Check it out online  here...

birthdays

We seem to know a lot of people who have birthdays in early April. Sometimes we get to make them cake. Birthday boy: Gordon

Years around the sun: 28

Cake: Flourless chocolate with a spritz of Meyer lemon zest—why not?—from Canal House Cooks Every Day

Shoot today

And this happened today... a shoot for Applegate Kitchens. Tasty sandwiches.

People Eating: Elio

I like pictures of beautiful food. I like beautiful pictures of food. But what is meant to happen to that food? Hopefully it will be eaten, enjoyed, appreciated; happily. This is something I want to start seeing more of. It should be an interesting challenge because who wants a picture of himself eating? I started with Elio the other day after making these little potato croquettes (Banatages) from the gorgeous and under-appreciated book, Medina Kitchen by Fiona Dunlop. This book focuses on the cooking of North Africa and I hope to cook from it a lot and report back here. So this is my first try with the book and my first try with pics of someone eating (along with beautiful pictures of beautiful food). Fortunately Elio liked these, because that was dinner!

10,000 hours

Back in December, we spent two and a half crazy weeks developing and photographing 50 recipes for Food & Wine's online site. It was actually fun, and the creative and physical challenge really inspired us, in that Malcolm Gladwell–10,000 hours sort of way. Food & Wine just started to post the recipes and photos to their site, and we are thrilled that they have asked us to do more! So if you live nearby, or are thinking of visiting, here's some advice: April would be a good time to pop in, you'll eat well. And often. These are some outtakes that we particularly like from the first go-round. See all the recipes and pics here. We would love to hear if anyone cooks these recipes--if you do, let us know. Comment on F&W and/or take a picture and post it on our Facebook or your Instagram so we can check it out!

(un)intentional

When Guy and I met, I remember being surprised by a collection of dried-up tea bags tacked up along one wall of his kitchen. A tiny art installation, made of an ordinary thing that I had thrown out thousands of time, turned lovely by focus... One of my favorite food photos that Guy ever took was a Polaroid of two pomegranates that had sat on the windowsill above the sink for too long. They had dried in the New Mexico sun, becoming wizened maracas. But their dusky color stayed true, darkening only a little with age...

Our fridge is always overflowing, so most fruit stays out, surrounding us in bowls and on plates, masquerading as centerpieces. Stuck on shelves near the water glasses. Usually the fruit gets eaten in time, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it gets fed to the chickens, sometimes it gets tossed, and sometimes it keeps sitting there, becoming very old and turning into something completely new.

Snow Day

Back to a few portraits. Even though it may be obvious and cliché I am going to post these portraits for obvious but hopefully not cliché reasons.  

Outtakes: Applegate

The past few weeks we have been shooting a lot for Applegate. Looking through the library of images we came across many pictures that may never see the light of a computer screen but that we think are interesting and fun: details, trays of ingredients, raw chicken, kooky old animal toys… Sorry, no intellectual or art historical reference this week (I’m sure that’s why you keep reading this blog!). Well, OK, I guess there might be some reference to abstract and found art in here, (Rothko, John Chamberlain) so enjoy.

Zeros and Ones

What are Kate and Guy doing this week? A lot really, but I was just thinking.... What is Photography now? I am not going to get too intellectual about this or too romantic about it either. Making pictures has changed dramatically since I started making them in my little basement darkroom back in 1987 or so. (Yes, I admit it, I was in the darkroom from infancy!) But what does it really mean to make a picture, to represent something. John Berger foresaw Instagram, Tumblr, Facebook etc.. in his book Ways of Seeing (check out this short video) It is this inundation of imagery, this constant communication and need for attention that I am curious about. It is a double need—one is that you want the attention and another is a nagging feeling you need the attention to keep up, to stay relevant. Then we fight against it. I hear all the time that people are quitting Facebook or giving up email. We also see a whole lot of people just making stuff by hand. Artisanal is the hip code word for it. And Kate and I try to keep that as part of our daily life, too. But of course to sell the handmade stuff you must be connected in some way (even if it means you fain disdain for the internet), but then we hope to get written about and linked to for being such a recluse. Then you blow up and are selling everything online. I really do not judge it any more, one way or the other. I just see it as truly one of the bigger struggles of our time. It is for me. It challenges me to see so many great images being made every minute with a little phone. They are images similar to the ones I struggled to make over years at the beginning my artistic practice. On another level I struggle too with the questions of value and longevity. Or are they the same question. Does a handmade black and white print have more value than an Instagram post? If an audience seeing the images adds value then there is a close battle going on.

This is all to say that while working on a book that Kate and I are doing for a publisher I made these two pictures (below) that I really liked. Last year (2013) I probably would not have shared them, but this year I have and I will continue to do so. I will also even share some of the black and white prints I made over the years, 'The Archives' so to speak, the images that were the start of my practice, a practice that is still continuing, sometimes by hand and sometimes with zeros and ones.

6 months, blood, sweat, untold amounts of money, one lost chicken, countless mosquito bites and an endless battle with a determined groundhog for this…our first egg