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I am at home right now trying to stay still and heal from some tooth surgery; actually I got two of my wisdom tooth pulled, but the other one had to be cut open and pulled surgically. It is really boring to just heal and eat soup and smoothies, I do not like this at all, I never was very good at being sick, but luckily it will soon be over.

As I received the Arte y pico award from Naomi at Straight into Bed Cakefree and Dried, I thought that I might make a post about food photography in general. I am going to give this award to five bloggers whose photography I admire, but please don’t feel obligated about this meme thing at all. This is just my way to say thank you to some people whose photography I feel is inspiring and beautiful.

I would like to give the award to these bloggers in no particular order-

Fxcuisine.com for the unique style in photos, which I would describe as somewhat hard and very stylish.

Make life sweeter because I like the light in the photos and the eye of the photographer.

VeganYumYum for the use of colour; the photographer has such a good eye for colour, it is always inspiring to look at the photos.

Have Cake, Will Travel I am a huge fan of the photographer, I love the clean cut look of the photos, the style is unique.

Yarnstorm the beauty of her photos is why I want to give this mention, just for the beauty. The new address would be this.

I would also like to state that these are my thoughts in general, I am not a real photographer and my words should be taken as just that; some thoughts from an amateur.

Food photography is said to be different from other kinds of photography; and I would say that it is true. Rarely do I see a food photographer who has a good eye for regular photos, and vice versa. Some people have a unique eye with food, they have the ability to catch something that makes the food look really delicious, maybe they have some kind of a passion towards their subject and it shows in photos?

As for retouching and food pictures I would say that if you are really good with your camera and you know how to adjust everything by hand to be perfect, and I do mean perfect, then you have no need for retouching the photo. Some, like me for example, who are not that good with cameras have a real need for RAW processing and retouching, but this is an area where a little bit goes a long way; I should know since I almost always go overboard with photos, but I am learning.

It is important to shoot in RAW mode, since it gives you the chance to adjust the lights, saturation and basic things like that. As for the ISO I would say that use 100 if you have a tripod, it makes a big difference. You can see that most of my pictures are shot with a higher ISO, I even use 1600 sometimes, which is really bad and the photos are grainy when using something that high. The reason behind my high ISO is that I have shaky hands and I don’t like using a tripod every time.

The light used in food photos should be natural; you can’t go wrong when shooting in natural light. Direct light is too harsh, so block it with some white paper for example. Try getting the light to come from one side and using a reflector if you like the look it gives. I myself don’t like using reflectors, but I still use one small reflector sometimes. You can use anything that reflects light as a reflector - mirrors and foil for example. The light from the north is the best one in my opinion; use it, if you have the chance.

You can see the difference some Corel use does in photos if you look at the first cat photo which is the finished one; it has been edited in RAW and moved to Corel and then edited there. I use Corel even though I do have Photoshop since I like it more, actually a lot more. It is easier to use and I just feel comfortable with it.

This is the straight out of camera shot. As you can see it has a grey film over it and it is there because I am not so good that I would know how to adjust everything perfectly.

This is after some RAW editing, I adjusted the saturation and a bit of the light, and increased the sharpness.

This the finished photo. I used a layer of hard light with the opacity of 30. Some unsharp mask with the strength of 20 was then used. For the eyes I used unsharp mask with the strength of 100 and then some contrast of 30. Not much editing, but the difference with the first photo is huge.

Some general advice I would give is to use auto contrast and unsharp mask with photos, just those two will give you sharper and brighter photos. Auto contrast will get rid of the grey film in photos in a snap. You can find it in Corel from Adjust->Brightness and contrast->Levels->Auto contrast. In Photoshop you’ll find it from Image->Adjustments-> Auto contrast.

You will find unsharp mask in Corel from Adjust->Sharpness->Unsharp Mask. Adjust the strength, I usually use 20. In Photoshop you’ll find it from Filter->Sharpen->Unsharp Mask.

For really good Photoshop advice you could go to the Pioneer Woman site, Ree also has some Photoshop actions there which are free and really good. The advice given there is simply done and that’s why it is so good, you can understand it even if you are not familiar with all the photography terms.

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I made up this dessert one evening when we had just eaten a nice dinner and I got a craving for some dessert. Fruits are naturally sweet and naturally gluten-free so I tend to make a lot of fruit desserts because of that, and it doesn’t hurt that I have always liked baked fruit desserts. I’m not so into eating raw fruits, although I do occasionally turn into “the mango maniac” and eat mangoes all day long. I can’t help it, they just taste too good and sometimes I dream about fresh, ripe mangoes picked straight from a tree; maybe someday I’ll get to sink my teeth into a fresh mango fruit - that would be one dream fulfilled.

I didn’t use much of a sweetener in this since I don’t think this recipe requires it; I used a little bit of maple syrup, but regular sugar would be just as good, especially some muscovado sugar would suit very well. I used some raw yolks from organic eggs for the sauce since I can’t use something like maizena or arrowroot, but those would work well as a thickener. People who have problems with their immune system shouldn’t eat raw eggs and also children should stay away from raw eggs as far as I know.

The chili apple recipe is dairy-free if you use some oil instead of butter or some dairy-free margarine, do add a pinch of salt if you are using oil of any kind. The sauce is dairy-free in itself, but can be made egg-free as well by using arrowroot powder for example or you can always have it without any kind of thickener, it’s just as good, just not as thick.

Make the sauce in advance if possible, since it is much better with those hot apples when cold.

Rum and coconut sauce

serves 4

-1/2 cup or 1,2 dl, coconut cream or milk

-2 tbls rum

-1 tbls maple syrup, or some other sweetener

-a pinch of nutmeg (freshly grated if possible)

-1 tsp vanilla extract or vanilla

-2 yolks

Start with separating the yolks and set them aside.

Heat a saucepan on medium heat and add the coconut milk/cream. Add two tablespoons of rum and cook while stirring constantly for 5 minutes.

Add the remaining ingredients and cook for 2 more minutes.

Take the saucepan of the heat and add the yolks, whisk them into the sauce. Place the sauce into a fridge to cool down.

Remember that it’s important to take the sauce of the heat before adding the yolks.

Chili apples

serves 4

- 4 apples, organic if possible so that you don’t have to peel them

-1 red long chili, minced and the seeds should be taken off, unless you want some really, really hot apples

-1 tbls grated ginger

-1 tsp cinnamon

-1-4 tbls maple syrup

-2 tbls butter, or oil or margarine

Melt the butter in a saucepan on medium heat. If you are using oil, just warm the oil in a saucepan.

Add the spices to it; chili, cinnamon and ginger. If you are using something else than salty butter add a pinch of salt.

Cook the spices while stirring them in the butter for a small while, 1 -2 minutes is enough.

Add the maple syrup.

Slice the apples and place them in a bowl.

Pour the hot and spicy butter on to the apples and make sure to coat all the apples with it.

You can either cook the apples on a frying pan until they are done; soft on the outside and still somewhat crisp on the inside.

Or you can take a baking tray, line it with some baking paper and place the apples on it. Bake at 400 F or 200 C, until they are done, this depends on the thickness of the apples, so keep an eye on them.

I was also thinking about making a recipe archive page; I think it would be easier to find recipes that way, especially if there would be categories like “gluten- and dairy-free”?

I have so far thought that I would make a dessert category, one for side dishes, one for main courses, one for baking, one for breakfast. I don’t know if I should have one category for egg-free, for dairy free etc? I try to mention in every recipe if you can adjust the recipe in some way, should I place those kind of recipes into the dairy- or egg-free category at all?

Also, I think that some recipes here are better than others; maybe I should also make a category about those recipes that are a bit better than others?

I will try to simplify the categories, although at the moment it seems that the list will be of a massive size.

I would of course appreciate any input on anyone’s part on how you would like to see the archive? Massive and detailed or simplified? Everything in their own categories or some categories merged together etc?

The whole idea should be that it would be easy for everyone to find something they are looking for; for example if someone is looking for a cake recipe not using dairy it should be easy to find from the recipe archive page.

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