General Photography Archives - Page 7 of 20

Food Photography Challenge – Chocolate Banana Bread

September 16, 2011 By Paola 5 Comments

I’m still trying to work on my food photography – don’t know why, love doing it. I’m going to set myself a weekly challenge to photograph a ‘difficult’ food subject.

This week’s was Chocolate Banana Bread, which is basically a big brown blob. I wanted to show the fudgey moistness and gooiness of the cake whilst introducing a bit of colour and getting everything properly exposed.

The colour bit was difficult – I had no fresh bananas left in the house, none of the other fresh ingredients are particularly colourful and flowers seemed a bit random.

In the end I settled for using my embroidered Mexican tablecloth, though I’m still wishing I had a brightly coloured cake stand or a knife with a brightly coloured handle. (More prop shopping obviously required.)

Anyway, did my photo succeed? Does it make you want to eat the banana bread? What would you have done differently? Critique away, I want to LEARN.

The recipe I used is here.

Postcard from Orcas Island

August 20, 2011 By Paola Leave a Comment

Loveseat

Postcard from Orcas Island

August 19, 2011 By Paola 2 Comments

Fancy Hotel of the Week – Melenos Lindos

August 18, 2011 By Paola 2 Comments

Ha! You thought you’d got away with no more Greek holiday snaps. Unfortunately it remains my intention to bore you all into submission. After all, what else is a blog good for?

I mentioned that we liked to stay in little unassuming hotels while in Greece, but we decided to break that rule for the first few days by booking into the Melenos Lindos, high in the acropolis of the ancient town of Lindos in Rhodes. This hotel gets so many fabulous mentions, that it seemed churlish not to try it out.

Images from hotel website

Unfortunately they contacted us a few days before we left and said that there had been a double booking and they had no space for us. They pulled out all the stops to secure alternative accommodation (which, thanks to its enormous swimming pool and spacious grounds was actually much more suitable for the Minx) and offered us a free dinner on their beautiful outdoor dining terrace.

Architect Anastasia Papaioanou and Australian artist-designer Donald Green worked together to recreate a traditional multi-levelled, multi-terraced Lindian mansion, decorated in a timeless way using traditional local crafts and antiques.

Here are some of my photos from our dinner, supplemented by the couple above from the hotel’s website, as I didn’t have my wide-angled lens with me.

Enjoy the spectacularly pretty.

Soraam Cushions, Mats and Cupcakes

March 30, 2011 By Paola 4 Comments

Last week I did my first ever paid photography assignment. Soojin, the graphic designer behind Etsy shop Soraam saw my photos with Uncle Beefy’s cupcakes and asked me to do a little product shoot with her.

Here are some of the results. Her pre-washed linen placemats and cushion covers – hand-printed with her own beautiful designs – really are stunning. I particularly love the placemats, which are designed to look equally good with or without plates.

The cupcakes are again courtesy of Uncle Beefy, as I’d fortuitously frozen some of the previous batch (cupcakes freeze really well by the way).

‘Soraam’ means ‘take a look with a smile on your face’ in Korean. You really can’t help yourself can you?

101 Things – Food Photography with Clare Barboza

January 17, 2011 By Paola 7 Comments

Over the last week or two, I’ve been dealing with a severe case of ‘I’ve got so much to do in every direction that I must go and hide and gibber quietly to myself in a darkened room’ which I’m finding is not the optimum solution to my ever-lengthening to do list.

So it’s mostly going to be pretty pictures until I emerge from under the layers of work, admin and clutter which are currently overwhelming me.

On Saturday I took some time off from the insanity, to do yet another photography class to keep me going on my 101 Things list. (By the way, I have apparently inspired Lara at Food. Soil. Thread and Helen at CountrysideWeddings to similar madness, so please go and encourage them too).

Clare Barboza, whose Child Photography class I recently took, is also a mega-talented food photographer and works out of the same awesome studio as Lara Ferroni.

The class was extremely useful. We talked about lighting and basic technique; critiqued photos Clare had taken; took shots of beautifully prepared and plated food cooked by Chef Becky Selengut and Marc Schermerhorn; tried plating and styling our own shots, critiqued our shots as a group and then got some tips on post production.

Here are some of the shots I took. My hit ratio of good shots to crap is still frustratingly low (and these had to be significantly worked on in Lightroom) but I feel like I’m starting to grope my way towards a style. The lighting and the studio props make everything so easy though.

I know I always say this (hey, what can I say, Seattle is STUFFED with prodigiously talented photogaphers) but again I can’t recommend this class highly enough if you’re into food photography. I believe Clare has got another couple of classes coming up, check on her blog if you’re interested.

Fancy Hotel of the Week – Poet’s Cove

December 6, 2010 By Paola 2 Comments

So I celebrated Thanksgiving in a rather unconventional way by heading off with a girlfriend to the Canadian Gulf Islands – part of the same group of islands as the US San Juans, situated in the strait between Vancouver Island and Vancouver itself.

Snow was falling gently as I left the house early on Thursday morning to catch the Clipper and for a moment I was worried that me and my wheely suitcase wouldn’t even make it down our icy steps, let alone all the way to the islands. But I needn’t have worried – the crossing over to Victoria was as smooth as a baby’s bottom, and welcome rain was turning the snow to slush when I arrived.

The following day we took the ferry out to Pender Island. It’s only a short ferry crossing from Sidney, near Victoria, and then about 20 minutes drive on Pender from the north island to the south. And this is what we saw as we turned the last corner.

Poet’s Cove is a modern resort, spa and yacht marina tucked into a tranquil and stunningly beautiful bay. My friend and I were lucky enough to stay in a two-bedroom cottage with its own personal outside hot tub, so we spent a lot of time drinking prosecco in the tub, watching dreadful movies curled up in front of the fire, doing the crossword and knitting, having treatments in the fabulous spa and dining on top notch comfort food in the relaxed and busy dining room.

The decor is in the modern ‘lodge’ vernacular which one finds so often in the Pacific Northwest and is all about the fireplaces and cosy sofas, high ceilings and a few interesting craftmade pieces.

The staff were absolutely lovely. Nothing was too much trouble – here they are keeping brunch buffet open for us, so that we could fit in our spa treatments before they stopped serving brunch.

And while the resort was tremendously relaxing for the body and mind, Mother Nature was busy weaving her magic on our souls. An old Native American chief is buried close to the resort and you can see why he’d want to live out eternity looking out at views like these.

A big highlight was when this little chap came out to play close to the marina. This beautiful mottled seal was a star in the making, giving us a ten minute display of incredible underwater athleticism and seemingly revelling in his audience.

No wonder we looked somewhat drunk on fresh air, beauty (and possibly the odd caipirinha) by the end of our stay.

Apparently this place gets understandably busy in the summer, though I’d still love to return then – I think the family would love it.

And if you live in the Pacific Northwest and are looking for somewhere fun for a weekend, even in the depths of winter, then head off here. It’s where even the seals come to relax and play.

Snow Day

November 25, 2010 By Paola 6 Comments

Or this is why I haven’t been blogging.

After complete and total snow-fuelled carnage on the icy, steep Seattle streets (this city is as laughably bad at snow as London was) yesterday dawned crisp, clear and glorious. And yes my neighbours do need to look into insulating their roofs).

After a two-hour journey back from school the previous day, the Minx was understandably pleased not to be going to school, especially when this is what we ended up doing.

We went sledding, made a very unfeminine snowgal, drank hot chocolate with whipped cream, made chicken noodle soup, watched a Tinkerbell movie and altogether had a wonderful time.

And I’m so glad we did, because today the Minx and the Husband set off for England to spend the long weekend with his mother who is in hospital with kidney failure. They’re away for five days, which is by far the longest time I’ve been away from the Minx since she was born.

I’m sad not to be with them at Thanksgiving – this holiday, which meant beans to me when we first arrived, is one of the most beautiful American traditions, and I’m going to miss celebrating tomorrow, though I’m glad to share the Husband and Minx with my mother-in-law.

Instead I shall be spending Thanksgiving morning on the Clipper heading to Victoria on Vancouver Island, off to spend a weekend of laziness with a girlfriend out on the Gulf Islands. As a consequence blogging over the next few days will be light to non-existent.

And the whole thing has made me so grateful that I have my health and my own small family the rest of the year. To all those of you celebrating, I wish you a very happy Thanksgiving and good health and happiness in the year ahead.

SnOMG!

November 22, 2010 By Paola 3 Comments

This is what’s going down in Seattle this morning.

In a miraculous first the Minx’s school DIDN’T decide that an inch of snow meant a snow day, so she went off to school well bundled up and practically bursting with excitement.

Because it’s so close to the sea, Seattle doesn’t actually get much snow, but by all accounts we’re in for a hard winter this year. And snow this early in November is amazing.

Here are a couple of shots I took out in the garden. You expect to see snow on berries and evergreens but on autumn leaves and lavender?

Autumn in the Neighbourhood

November 9, 2010 By Paola 1 Comment

It’s chucking it down with rain today, with views very much like the one below, but in truth this year we’ve been having a spectacularly lovely autumn in Seattle.

Last week temperatures hit 73 degrees just after Halloween, so I grabbed my camera, and went for a stroll round the neighbourhood in a wife-beater tank before doing a little sunbathing on the deck. Seattle is always full of surprises.

Enjoy the splendour. I could never live anywhere that didn’t have seasons.