Low key photo

Decided to here and there add some tidbits about photography,
and nice start could be about capturing food, or at least insight
on how I do that.
Not owning a studio and having myself as food stylist, I’m basically
where most people are, but it’s possible. With availability of SLR
cameras today, quite easy, and totally doable with regular
point and shoot camera if it’s equipped with manual controls.

Low key is in general for dark, dramatic picture, often used
for portraits, acts and similar.
For normal photography, three light setup is used,
main (key) light, fill and back light, where low key picture
is created with single, directed light, sometimes reflector
comes to play if needed.

At “home studio”, you can do picture as the garlic above quite easily-
for black background I’ve used my coat, but any non reflective fabric
or black photographic paper will do, table lamp – temporarily with 100W
bulb, normally I use energy saver
and piece of white paper held on the opposite side to the lamp for
minor reflection back. Camera on tripod, expose for the garlic.
Adjusted contrast and corrected color in editing program.
Done, nothing hard to this.
Camera settings were 1/13 sec. at f/9, ISO 100, but I believe if you
are really a beginner, today’s camera technology will choose
very similar settings to this, even if you use auto mode.
Tripod is important, with so little light, shutter speeds are slow.

Some food pictures are looking really nice on black, it’s not usual
to see food set as low key. Try it, nice alternative (or time killer
for rainy weekends and long winter evenings).

Above: 
Cassis (blackcurrant) sorbet made into small scoops, covered
in dark chocolate and served in ice bowl as sweet finger food.

Bigger pictures?
www.flickr.com/photos/tomassedlacek

Kulajda soup and more

Being inspired with my trip to Prague last week,
brought it into my kitchen.
Interesting, somewhat ancient atmosphere old recipes create.
They have one thing in common – simple ingredients.

But they are as delicious as they sound, start for winter
feast was “Kulajda” soup, comes from very old recipe from the
mountains in SW part of Bohemia. Vegetarian friendly.

Kulajda soup
recipe for standardized
10 portions at 0.33 l (approx. 1,5 cup) each

Ingredients:

2 litres (8 cups)    vegetable stock
0.5 kg (1 pound)   potatoes (peeled, cut to 1cm/half inch cubes)
0.5 kg (1 pound)   mushrooms (cleaned and sliced)
0.25 liter (1 cup)   heavy cream
0.25 liter (1 cup)   milk
150 gr. (5 oz.)      fine flour
3                         eggs, hard boiled, sliced
handful (cca 1 cup) fresh dill, finely chopped
30ml (2 tbsp.)       white vinegar

caraway seed
salt

Bring vegetable stock to boil, add peeled and cut into small cubes
potatoes, after 10 minutes add sliced mushrooms and teaspoon of
caraway seeds, salt.
After 5 more minutes, whisk flour into milk and cream,
and thru strainer slowly, while stirring it, pour into the boiling soup.
You’ll see it thicken, stop at nice, sauce alike consistency.
On low heat boil for 5 more minutes, potatoes should be now tender.
Add more salt, chopped dill and take off the heat.
Finish the taste with vinegar for sweet, creamy, slightly acidic taste,
which is in aftertaste overpowered with dill.
Before serving, put small cube of butter on top
and slices of hard boiled egg, serve with dark bread or sesame crisps.

Couple notes – usually recipe calls for making “roux” from oil and milk
to start, then adding other ingredients, I’ve altered and tested above
process to cut down on calories and simplify recipe.

Next was Steak Tartar, made from smoked salmon.
Served with nicely aged Parmigiano, few capers and homemade pasty.
Great equivalent to traditional raw beef tenderloin tartar steak.
Little spicy, contrasty edge to the traditional menu. My fave.And because picture of dessert turned out just awful . . .

second course is last one today -
I’ve coated chicken breasts in herbs, actually in “dough”
made of milk, eggs, flour and herbs, and served with steamed
winter vegetables, touched with butter. What a hit it was!
No leftovers, it suprised even me how good it is.
Here is a pic. for your inspiration.

How was that for traditional Czech cuisine?
Light, with a modern twist . . .it doesn’t have always be
about dumplings and heavy sauces . . .I hope.
And will do my best in future for those changes, wish me luck.

There will be week of Czech cuisine in Copenhagen in March
in Radisson SAS Royal hotel . . .plannig on being there -
just to look, not work, he he (suprisingly), but I’ll have camera
with me and above soup is on the menu!

Thanks for looking,

Tomas

Winter day in Prague

I was in Prague, Czech Republic for couple days.
Of course it was “business” trip, but one can’t work 24 hours a day,
so some time belonged to photography.
Love that city, I’ve lived there couple years ago for some time and
options current cameras offer are way better than scanning my old
negatives. Plus, my photography improved

Prague castle and St. Vitus cathedral,
viewed from other side of Vltava (Moldau).

Had overcast, so took out my infrared camera
and they turned out just beautiful.
Hard to mess up pictures of such beauty anyway.

Above are “City hall stairs” (Radnicni schody)

IR camera has greater tonal range, very useful in photo
such as this, I’ll put up article about IR soon.
This shot was converted to BW, it looked right.

The Prague Astronomical clock on Old Town square,

this is how infrared looks it it’s true (or false?)
blue/purpe colors after photographing.
The clock itself is amazing piece of history, constructed in
early 15th century, still works and yes, there is always crowd.

I may move back to Prague this or next year for a while,
who knows, but I’m looking forward to it if it should be.
I have more photographs from there on my Flickr site,
actually,

here is one gallery set up just for Prague

Enjoy and stop there for couple days  if you go around,
one and only jewel of Europe.

Tomas