The next time you feel like some scenery, why not head down to Shellharbour, just half an hour south of Wollongong, NSW which is home to a small beachside village where there is so much to see and do. We had just watched the matinee session of the musical 'Hair' put on by the Roo Theatre and felt some indian food with a view sounded a perfect end to a very stimulating day.

The first course was Tandoori Chicken with butter naan $10.90 (half)

The meat melted in the mouth and the marinade was spicy and full of flavour. We loved the dipping sauces and thought it was great value.

 

Food styling

I have been photographing food for years but only recently have I started to style the food I photograph. I have been looking at food photos in magazines for years but never really absorbed the amount of detail in each photo and the story or theme being communicated which make the food look more attractive and professionally photographed.

One of my favourite food photographers on flickr is Latartinegourmande and Bea has a website latartinegourmande.com. Recently she wrote an article on Food Styling and Food Photography which I found inspiring (as always) and prompted me to realise that if I had to make a choice between food photographer and food stylist I would definitely choose photography.

Unfortunately since I don't have a food stylist to make the food look great (other than in restaurant reviews, with the work being done by chefs) I will need to continue with my feeble attempts at food styling until I was lucky enough to be assigned a food stylist on a paid food photography job. I have to admit I am enjoying the search for props and looking at presentation and colours is quite a tasty challenge. I've never gone to the extremes used by professional food stylists as outlined in the Choice Magazine writes an article on Food Styling.

Regular roast chook dries up, shrinks and browns unevenly. And while it may smell great at the dining table, it looks pretty unappealing in a photo... How to style it: First decide on the chook’s best angle — in this shoot, the stylists consulted the photographer and his assistant and the raw chook’s credentials were discussed at some length. Then the skin at the foot and neck ends is trimmed and sewn in place. It’s carefully trussed, firmly stuffed with paper and oven-cooked for about twenty minutes to ‘set’ the flesh. The skin is ‘cooked’ to brown crispiness using a coat of soy sauce and paprika and a heat gun. A coat of oil makes it look hot and juicy. In our shot a skin graft has even been used to get a pasty area near the wing looking perfect. The result: Plump, juicy, perfect roast chicken.

It makes me sad to think that there are magazines in Australia that still use this method and feel the need to go to such extremes to make a chicken look tasty but then I remember the times I have photographed roast chickens in the past and they were never as appetising as those in glossy magazines. Now I know why :(

The article included a photo of a food stylist's kit and it caused my stomach to drop. PVC glue to replace milk in cereal shots; gravy browning or soy sauce to give that cooked meat look; cardboard or plastic to keep a hamburger from flopping under the weight of the meat and tomato; hairspray to make cake look glossy and appealing; coloured mash potato to imitate icecream; fabric protector to keep the maple syrup from soaking into the pancakes and pinned berries; soft wax drops painted with sauce for effect for desserts; a coat of glycerine for glossy seafood; liquid glucose to make noodles for a 'hot, fresh look'; motor oil in place of maple syrup; cutting holes in cheese for the perfect swiss cheese look; injecting mashed potato under the skin of a chicken leg to give it a perfect shape. Wow! That's a lot of work. And we wonder why the product on the box or up on menus in fast food restaurants rarely resemble the products actually purchased.

I am proud to say that I have never doctored up any of the food that I have photographed. The most I have done is re-arrange food on a plate and stolen garnish off one dish in a Thai restaurant to complement another. The original serving was ghastly so I did the best I could whilst working against the clock of the food going cold, much to the chagrin of my family who were hungry and waiting to eat.

Homock Talay - Red curry Seafood with coconut milk and thai herbs as served by Windang Thai Gardens Restauran

After styling:

Any steam you see is real, the lighting usually natural and I try to sit my party close to the window or natural light source whenever possible. I will be working on my food styling in terms of arrangement, props and lighting but promise not to try and sell mutton dressed up as lamb. It might be the prettiest mutton you've ever seen, perched on a bed of garlic mashed potatoes with some age defying colour schemes but I wouldn't go as far as a spray tan to recover its days of youth. If there is soy sauce used then it is for flavour purposes alone.

And if there are any readers out there who live in the Illawarra (or willing to travel) and would like to build up a food styling portfolio and work with me for free until then, please get in contact. I am also able to travel to you if necessary.

Alternatively, if you are a restaurant that wants to work on some photos for a menu or website, advertising or other project, do feel free to contact me. I'd love to do more to develop my food photography portfolio and one day achieve the goal of getting paid to take photos of mouthwatering food and every journey starts with the first step. I am not ashamed to say that I will work for food or barter :)

With a camera, that is. This isn't a Mafioso style shooting but a photo which portrays the life of a chef. I have my wishlist for who I would like to photograph. One prominent Wollongong chef has already been contacted and I have some creative ideas starting to flow, backdrop and lighting plans  already forming.

Whilst I wait with baited breath for their decision, I have decided to do some research and look through some of the past finalists and winners.  Wow. What amazing artists. It is going to be so difficult to create a unique image when there has been such creativity and innovation in previous years.  I had thought about using the clone technique where you photograph the one person in the same scene multiple times. Set the camera on a tripod and take a sequence of photographs of the person with the background the same for each shot, then merge the images into one seamless image. Unfortunately for me, there are a few such images in the galleries of Shoot the Chef finalists, including the one below by Sydney College of the Arts, Master of Documentary Photography candidate Niobe Syme with her picture Eight Yings Make Light Work.

 winner of the Sydney Morning Herald 2008 Shoot the Chef student prize (trip for two to Europe)

"Symes says, "Ying Tam and I shared a few hours one August day, in between guests and staff shift changes, creating the Shoot the Chef image 'Eight Yings Make Light Work'. We had taken quite different pictures at the front of the restaurant earlier on (with amused diners observing), but it was the nuances of available and reflected light in the kitchen, our growing rapport and Ying's playful mood by the end of the lunch period that seemed to best capture his passion for fresh, sublime and dimensional food, as well as the overarching responsibility in running a kitchen and restaurant.""

Image: Niobe Syme, Eight Yings Make Light Work, Image of Ying Tam, Restauranteur/Chef of Ying's Seafood Restaurant, Pacific Highway, Crows Nest.

(Source: University of Sydney, Collage of the Arts, url: http://www.usyd.edu.au/sca/about/news_events/2008/shoot_the_chef.shtml)

Another powerful image which drew me in was Pour Some Sugar on Me by Will Petersen, Student winner in 2004. Incorporating food into the photo is another common theme but this one is done in such a quirky way and looks almost painful.

I loved the description of the process for making this amazing photograph:

The chef and I were talking about different ways to present food and came up with the spun sugar idea together. I told him "I'm ready whenever you are", so he started heating up the pot with the sugar in it and got a wooden spoon and a fork. He'd pull out the melted sugar and whisk it around the wooden spoon, pull the sugar straight off the spoon and put it on his head. I think he got a bit sick of it after an hour. 

(Source: SMH.com.au url: http://www.smh.com.au/ftimages/2004/10/04/1096871806678.html )

 

 

"The Last Resort". Again this year we entered the SMH's 2005 Shoot the Chef competition.

The photo was a bit of fun, and thankfully Chef David Allison skills in the kitchen are superior to those portrayed in this photo.

And a very inspiring image Cupcake couture by Anton Perry, professional winner in 2005

 

 

 

 

 

 

"There are 478 cupcakes in the dress. Simmone [Logue, the subject] made them all, of course. The flowers - roses and gerberas, mainly - were all fresh. We bought them from the markets at 5am, so we had to move quickly to take the shot so they wouldn't look too frowzy.

We started off with a Barbie theme, but ended up with a more elegant look. The top's from Opera Australia - it's a costume top. I sourced the jewellery from a wedding boutique. The "skirt" took about three hours to build. It was an exercise in putting a lot of beautiful elements together to explore the idea of femininity."

(Source: SMH.com.au http://www.smh.com.au/news/good-living/shoot-the-chef/2005/10/03/1128191632261.html )

What an amazing image!