Oak Smoked Garlic, hand-fired pots.
This smoked garlic smells like those carefree days from childhood, where a box of matches borrowed from the kitchen draw led to secret bonfires in the woods, sheepishly returning home trying to hide the smell of smokey clothing from prying noses. I have no idea how to cook with garlic that smells like post-bonfire clothing.
This painted caravan just appeared in field half way between Chester and Helsby a few weeks ago. It looks really defiant against the backdrop of farm sheds and trees. These last few days images exhaust my local knowledge of graffiti art, unless anyone knows any good spots around Chester/North Wales?
This disused railtrack runs [under the A55] near Chester, and is regularly used by graffiti artists as a legal painting venue. It’s different every time I go back and you never know what amazing art you will find painted on the concrete walls here. I would love to meet one of the artists, but I have never seen anyone here. [Sustrans] are developing a cycle route along this track soon – I do hope the permission to paint here will still stand, so more people will get access this ever changing art.
Poor man’s crème brûlée.
An ever changing combination of raspberries, blackberries, vanilla pod, crème fraîche, natural yogurt, maple syrup and sugar. This was the best one yet and only took about 5 minutes to put together. I won’t be trying to hold a blowtorch in one hand with a camera in the other again though.
All of these shots following the contemporary style for in-progress, close-up food photography. The informal presentation of the food is enhanced with the very shallow depth of field, perhaps slightly too shallow in some cases here. This style seems to be a good shortcut to the desired result of making the food look good enough to eat. I think it is probably much more challenging to get satisfactory results shooting product type food shots where everything in the shot needs to be perfectly presented and in sharp focus.
This shot breaks the best practice [guidelines] I just learned for food photography – mainly as the light here is overhead tungsten lighting, which really shows in the flat look of the photo. The preferred diffused natural light was in short supply at 9pm though, plus our guests were looking at their withheld food threateningly. The [recipe] thankfully, was a real show stopper and also really quite easy to put together if you happen to have some Scottish flaky hot-smoked salmon handy.
