Ricki (Almond Joy-like) Dough Girl Cookie

Here’s some recent pics for Dough Girl of her yummy Almond Joy-like cookie, Ricki.  It’s huck full of coconut, almonds & chocolate – YUM!

Here’s the gorgeous dough as it comes out of the bag (without the extra coconut, almonds & chocolate lying around, though, lol).

Home-baked yumminess!!  (Can I tell you again how much I love that these cookies are so easy to just pull out of the bag from your freezer & bake?  Seriously, you can just bake up a few even if you’d like.  I love the concept of gourmet ready-to-bake cookies at home; love it.)

And my favorite of all: oozing melted chocolate.  I was really happy with this picture in particular.  I loved how the melted chocolate really came through as the primary focus & that the ingredients around the cookies are in the blurred background.

I used to not like nuts at all, but I’ve been really working on liking at least almonds.  Do you like nuts?  Do you like coconut?  Have you tried this Dough Girl?

Could You Lick the Picture?!

If you haven’t been to Counter Burger, you really ought to go check it out. You are given a list of a billion choices on how to build your sandwich (can even build it over salad so you don’t have the bun). I went there on a review, as I’m one of the Sassies at SassyScoops.com. My sandwich was a chicken breast, ham, grilled onions, pineapple, peppers, lettuce and some fancy cheese (can’t remember the name of it – Jyl would, though). Anywho, ain’t she gorgeous?! Yum!!! Makes me want to go there again… now!

Red Iguana

Recently I went to the Red Iguana to shoot some pics for Utah Business Magazine.  Red Iguana had won a people’s choice award.

They had scheduled the shoot for around 8am, on location.  I was a little nervous because I generally have a slightly nauseated tummy in the mornings (no, I’m not pregnant, LOL).  Seemed like smelling mexican food first thing in the morning would have the possibility of making my tummy SUPER nauseated.  I was worried about being able to capture how delicious the food looks if I was nauseated looking at it.  However, Lucy, the director of operations and her manager were super sweet to me.  They mixed me up an herbal mint tea to soothe my tummy which really helped.

The food was really beautiful (& delicious, I’m sure) & Red Iguana is such a fun restaurant to go to.  In hindsight, I wish I would have taken the food outside for much better natural lighting.  We were shooting near a big window, but that early in the morning it just wasn’t warm enough for what I usually like.  Regardless, the pics turned out pretty decent, I think.

What kind of food makes you a little queasy in the morning?

Backyard Grilling

These are some really fun pics I shot for Wasatch Woman Magazine’s July/August issue.  The issue has gone to print so I can FINALLY share them!!!  Yay!!!

The gist of the article was that you could cook your whole meal on the grill…

…and then finish up with some homemade ice cream sandwiches… FINGER-LICKIN’ SCRUM-DIDDLY-UMPTIOUS!!!

I took these pics of the chef’s daughter eating her ice cream sandwich.  I am in love with the contrast of her bright coral/red dress & dark hair against her fair skin.  It was so lovely to shoot.

All in all, this was THE MOST DIFFICULT lighting I’ve ever experienced on a shoot.  Truly, it was madness.  We did it outside in the afternoon (not the best time for an outdoor food shoot anyways, but had to make it work).  When we started, it was overcast so I was using my gold reflector to warm things up a bit.  Then, it quickly turned to full sun, so we turned the direction of the grill & moved the picnic table to the shade & I had to pull out the diffuser to try to soften the lighting.  Then, it got overcast again & started raining so we moved everything under the patio.  Then, it cleared up and was full sun, but rained again in the full sun.  All of this transpired over an hour or two of shooting.  I was ready to pull out my hair, LOL.  Luckily, we still got some fun shots from the shoot.  I’ve requested that next time’s shoot must be in morning or twilight to at least help with one lighting problem.

Glassware

Spark Restaurant Lounge

Last week my husband & I had the exclusive opportunity to attend a “Blogger” dinner at a new local restaurant called Spark Restaurant Lounge.  We were served an eight course meal of: 1. Shrimp Rolls, 2. Assorted Cheeses & Meats, 3. BLT Salad, 4. Pan-Roasted Filet Mignon, 5. Basil Crusted Wild Alaskan Halibut, 6. Passion Fruit Sorbet, 7. Banana Strudel & 8. Panna Cotta.  The food was amazing!

One of my favorite parts of the evening was the drinks.  Spark specializes in beautiful, fun and delicious non-alcoholic drinks.  Since I don’t drink alcohol, I really appreciated that I could have a night on the town with a fancy drink – normally I have to stick with water or soda (boring!).  Most virgin drinks sacrifice flavor, but these were scrumptious!  I loved the Bellini the most, while the Shirley Temple, adorned with a stick of cotton candy, was too sweet for my tastes (loved how it looked & photographed, though).

We were able to meet with Chef Lauro Romero afterwards.  He was surprisingly down to earth & very interested in what we thought of everything we had tasted that night.

My only complaint about the whole night is that the lighting in the bathrooms is HORRIBLE & could make a super-model look like trash.  I was grateful I’m past my teenage years where one look in those mirrors would have ruined my night & devastated me for week.

p.s. Sadly, I didn’t bring my external head flash that evening, so some of the whites in my pics are more blown out than if I had it. Oh well; live and learn, right?

Evia’s Time in the Limelight

Things have been VERY busy & I have neglected my poor little blog!  Also, I’ve been having issues with a redesign for my portfolio site (the program keeps unnaturally stretching my photos, regardless of how support has told me how to fix it – at a semi-standstill).  However, I wanted to get some pics up from this latest shoot of My Dough Girl’s cookie of the month, Evia.  It’s a vanilla bean dough with pear slices, a marzipan center & pinenuts on top.  All in all, one gorgeous cookie.  I love how little vanilla bean flecks showed up in the dough pic.

There is some argument about the perfection of the food for food photography.  My personal take is that food isn’t perfect in real life & it’s the sweet little imperfections that give it character.  I once heard of a food stylist who spent a few hours tucking spaghetti noodles in so there would be no loose ends hanging out for a photo – bleh!  When we eat spaghetti, there are plenty of loose ends & that makes it interesting.  While I do think that good food styling can make or break a shot, I think excess styling can detract & make it look unnatural.  The little flaws humanize the food & make it more appealing.

I’m also not a fan of having tons of stuff in the shot either (i.e. lots of props).  Every dish has it’s own character, with or without needing to add a lot of props.  I like the simple beauty of a white background in most situations.  This dough & cookie are so light in color that the tendency would be to put some color in the photo somehow, like putting it on a colored plate or cloth napkin.  However, I think the simple elegance of this cookie really shone by not having anything but the cookie in the shots.  What do you think?  What do you like/dislike in food photography?