Ok. So September kind of got away from me, photo remake wise. There are some beautiful canning jar shots in the pool that are still awaiting my comments. Despite the current lack of feedback, I hope you all learned a little about shooting transparent but reflective materials. Rather than letting October pass me by as well, I thought I’d jump right on it with the new challenge: Pie.

Pie is one of those things that seems simple, but turns out can be quite a styling and shooting nightmare. A slice standing on it’s own often requires a lot of reconstruction, or you end up with a gappy and sometimes flat mess. Not that that can’t be beautiful too. But that upstanding slice of pie that will soon be gracing magazine covers takes propping, stuffing and all sorts of fiddling.

Similarly, a whole pie, while easy to style and photograph, doesn’t give much of a hint as to what is going on inside. You have to dive in to really tempt the viewer. Take a slice out, and now you start to have something. Of course, then, you also have to start rebuilding the edges.

So, for this month’s remake, let’s see what you can do with a double-crusted fruit pie, shot top-down with a slice taken out. My pie was plum, which gave a lovely red hue, but you can use whatever fruit you’d like for your pie. But, do try to actually remake the

I know last month’s challenge was tough, particularly in the midst of a busy summer. But I definitely got a kick out of your results.

This month’s remake introduces it’s own difficulties, but there is a good chance many of you are already involved in the cooking aspect already. This month, our remake is about canning. Photos of veggies or fruits in vintage glass jars can be so beautiful… but managing the reflections so you can still see the contents of the jar takes some work.

photo by Becky Luigart-Stayner

Sometimes, as a food photographer, you have to make really ugly food look beautiful. There are many people who are true masters of this. I wouldn’t call myself one of them. But, I do have a few tricks up my sleeve. And the main one is distraction. The thing about ugly food is quite often, it actually is really delicious. Hummus is a big beige blob, but if you swirl it around, dress it with a little oil and finishing salt and put it in a nice bowl, maybe with a chip taking a little dive in, suddenly, it becomes the appealing dip that it actually is.

Last month’s photo remake was all about taking a dish of something that is probably not all the beautiful, and making it into something that looks like you may actually want to eat it. I had a recent photo shoot that included a recipe for a molded salmon pate. I was worried about the shot going in… it sounded like it might be fairly Fluffy Mackerel Puddingesque. My worries were justified… when I unmolded the pate, it wasn’t anything you’d want to take a photo of. (Of course, I did anyway) And then, I proceeded to style it to make it look like something you’d actually want to eat (because despite its looks, it was tasty).

before styling

I knew at some point for these remakes, I’d resort to this. Remaking the 1974 Weight Watcher’s recipe card photos. How can you not love something called Rosy Perfection Salad? or Frankfurter Spectacular? or Mackerelly?!? But of course, my all time favorite has got to be the Fluffy Mackerel Pudding. I mean, come on.. it’s fluffy, it’s pudding and it’s fish, mackerel no less (what is it with these cards and mackerel?)!
Anyway… yes, this month’s challenge is all about creating these masterpieces of the 70s. Pick whichever card you want, and remake it in the spirit of that card. You can go one of two ways with it this month: you can remake the photo so it looks like the original or you can remake the recipe in a more modern and, well, aesthetically pleasing way. Since you won’t have the original recipes, you will have to get a bit creative. I’m not exactly sure what is in Snappy Mackerel Casserole myself, but I bet I can have fun making it up.

If you are new to the monthly photo challenges, head over to the Flickr group for the rules and to introduce yourself.

This challenge will run through the end of July.

Well, either people just don’t like pasta as much as Nutella, or last month’s challenge to remake Chris Chen’s table top shot was quite intimidating to many of you. That’s ok. It was a tricky challenge… I’m really impressed with the photos that were submitted. There were some lovely variations and some beautiful photos.

This month, we’ll go a bit more macro again, with one of my shots. This is a variation of a shot that I took for a client for a cookbook proposal. In some ways it may seem less intimidating because it’s a much tighter shot… you’ll have to work with ice cream which can be quite a trial of it’s own right.

Although she didn’t choose this particular variation, and it’s really far from a perfect shot, it was probably one of my favorite from the whole shoot and it would be a good fit for my stock library. I just loved playing around with the ice cream in the emptied out lemon peel, and letting it start to slowly drip down.

Don’t feel like you need to stick with the lemon peel for your remake, but there should be some combination of fruit & ice cream (and ideally, as in this shot, the fruit will communicate the flavor of the ice cream as well).

If you are new to the monthly photo challenges, head over to the Flickr group for the rules

Originally, I had planned to make this month’s challenge all about meat. Meat is a challenging subject. Uncooked, it’s colorful, but can be off-putting. Cooked, it is critical to bring out the texture to avoid a big brown or grey looking blob. And, then you get to slicing… just thinking about having to neatly slice a turkey breast makes me shudder a bit.
Then, I watched this fantastic talk by Mark Bittman about the problems of how we eat. Which largely boil down to too much meat. It’s bad for our health, it’s bad for the environment. It’s not that everyone needs to run out and become a vegetarian… it’s just that we need to think about the impact of our choices on ourselves and our planet. And, with that, I knew I wasn’t going to feel good about making this month’s challenge all about meat.

The good news is that in general, proteins have similar issues. A big block of tofu is hardly mouth-watering without some work. Fish can be just as challenging to make appealing.

So, this month’s challenge will be about complete proteins. Note the word complete there… you can do beans, but they need to have some grains with them! I’m also going to be a stickler about the protein being the subject. If you have a bowl of goopy curry that makes it impossible to tell a carrot from a chunk of lamb, it doesn’t count.

I’m so pleased with last month’s challenge! There were some amazing shots and creativity on how to think about black plates… one of my favorites was this shot by the food photography/styling team of Sherif Tamim and Hoda El Sherif… they took a tile and turned it upside down and spray painted black for a fantastic corrugated texture.

This month, I’m taking a suggestion out of the discussion board… it seems like the perfect time of year to be thinking about what we can do to help others. Well, I suppose, everytime of the year is good for that… but around the winter holidays, I at least seem to get a thoughtful about how lucky I am and look at ways that I can help others and share some of what I have.

WIth that in mind, this months theme is Food for a Cause. You pick your own cause, but make sure that your photo reflects what the cause is about. Maybe it’s a photo of people volunteering in a soup kitchen or collecting for a food bank. Maybe it’s food of a particular color (aka livestrong yellow, pink for breast cancer research, etc.). Make it something that is important to you, and let us know in your description how you (and all of us) can help.

I think these shots will take some thought to really communicate the intent… no simple snapping away on this one folks! In fact, I don’t even have a shot yet to put along with

Flip through old food mags from the 1980s, and you’ll find a common food and prop styling trend. Food was fussily styled like art work, with novel visual forms taking precedence over making the food look particular appetizing. Food was piled as tall as possible, with little regard to how a diner might actually dig in. Starkness, versus lusciousness was “in.” Color was bright and bold, and full of contrast. And, at the center of all of this was the ever present shiny black plate.

Well folks, I don’t know if you’ve noticed it like I have, but the black plate is making a come-back. This time though, it’s not fussy and it’s not shiny. And I, for one, am a fan. The images I’m seeing are rustic and earthy and amazingly inviting. They fit my mood as our season turns cold and dark perfectly. Here are some examples that I just love: