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Why, printed on a card of course!

A couple of weeks ago I was asked if I would be interested in blogging about a food photographer’s cards, and in exchanged I would receive the cards. I jumped at the offer because what’s not to like? There goes my love for paper AND food. It’s perfect!

The package arrived while I was in Vancouver, so Dan just told me about it. At first he said “You got a package from the photographer.” And I thought — uh, from a…photographer? A wedding photographer? How baffling. Haha. When I got back, it turns out it *is* from Chef Susan, who’s also a food photographer.

And these are the beautiful cards:

Coming from a paper addict, let me just say that these beautiful photos (she’s also a food stylist) have just the right amount of food and impeccable style that is nicely printed on high quality 100 lb. cardstock. In a few words: They are fantastic!

They would be hard to “let go” and mail because they’re just too pretty to use. Decisions, decisions. I want to start writing, but I don’t know which ones to pick!

They are beautifully packaged, too.

Visit Chef Susan’s Etsy store and get your cards now:
Blue Egg Photography

And just a random fact: they smell like good paper. If you know the magazine “The Believer“, the cards smell like that. I’m one of the weird ones who love the scent of new books and paper.

P.S. I’m super thankful that there are no photos of cookies or cakes. Why? that will make me hungry at midnight. Like right now.

Here’s a little diversion from food: views of my city! I’m still here, and as Dan has mentioned, until the end of the month. Here’s why — I’ve earned myself a painful award for over-working in front of the computer: radiculitis. I’ve been getting regular treatments, and have been strongly advised to avoid the computer as much as possible, thus the lack of blogging. It’s not fun waiting and watching the slow progress, which I thought wouldn’t come after three weeks. Anyway, I won’t delve on that…just wanted to let you know what’s going on, and warn you not to be like me!

Let’s talk about Vancouver and one of my favorite places to go to on the weekends — Stanley Park. It’s a thousand acre park that’s almost like an island, but not really. It’s this huge mass of land protruding into the sea, so you can see water all around it. Although you can get your nature fix pretty much anywhere here, this is my favorite go-to place.

Last Saturday I rented a bike and went around the park. It was a beautiful spring day so everyone was out enjoying the sunshine. It’s an afternoon that Vancouverites wouldn’t miss sitting in couches at home. At least, one would think with the amount of people roaming that day.

I love the seawall goes around the park, which gives me a different view at every turn. Sometimes, it just takes my breath away.

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Before we started this website, Dan and I used to send photos from our phones to friends and relatives saying, “Wish you were here” when we want to share food and restaurants we’re trying, or places we’re visiting. Now, we get to say that to all of you and share images of our experiences. I love being able to do it. The beauty from the simple things, such as a relaxing day, a beautiful afternoon, the burst of colors from nature, good food, new experiences, etc., is overwhelming to keep to oneself. I think it’s criminal not to share it. We hope you like them!

The first thing that greeted us when we entered the Pike Place Market were the flowers. Cheap flowers! We’re talking about $5 to $10.

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Pike Place Market is a very popular tourist spot in Seattle, that each time we mention that we’ve been to that city, we’re asked if we went there. This time we’ve finally trekked down to the famous Pike Place Market. Where do we even begin to show you the area, its quaint stores, restaurants and cafes, and the abundant market?

Here’s the street view from the corner of the fish stall where the vendors give everyone a “show” of tossing fish, and occasionally throwing a fake fish toy to viewers (which sends people screaming and gasping) for kicks.

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» In case you missed it: How We Take Food Photos I: Tools and Equipment

Several people have mentioned about the ‘lighting’ in our photos, and even so much to say as we have ‘great’ lighting. Well, thank you, this is undeserved. Being home cooks and mostly self-taught, we’re absolutely flattered. The thing is, we don’t use any kind of special lighting (yet). The ‘lighting’ in our photos is the product of:

• setting the white balance before taking photos,
• using exposure compensation if needed,
• and post-processing (color balance and levels) with Photoshop.

Today’s all about the white balance. For the average food photography enthusiast/home cook/”food pornista”, you can always take photos using the white balance set to Auto. However, based on experience, if you get most things right when taking the photo — the colors with the white balance, exposure, focus/sharpness, composition, etc. — you’ll be spending less time with post processing. And that’s a great thing! More time to enjoy your food and other things.

Today’s tools:

• a gray card with one side gray and the other I have no idea what they are for, and
• packets of Active Dry Yeast [Am I too suggestive that you make dough this weekend?]

When I got the gray card last December, believe it or not, I’ve never held or heard of it prior to that. Shameful, but we all start somewhere. The only instructions I’ve had were from the magazine where it came from. This is what we do to manually set the white balance:

1. Hold the gray card where you would have the photo taken, as shown above.
2. With your camera white balance setting selected for pre-set (or manual) and the camera ready to take the measurement [read the manual for this], point your lens at the card and make sure it occupies the whole frame. Take the reading/shot. Note: I’ve read that you do not have to have to gray fill the entire frame. Our digital point-and-shoot only has a small window for the manual white balance, so it’s hard not to fill it.
3. The camera won’t take a picture of the card, only make a reading.
4. That’s it. Take a test show and see how it looks like. ** The angle of the card matters. ** If it’s reflecting light (e.g. there’s a bright light behind you), you might get an incorrect reading.

I took photos using both the DSLR (Nikon D80) and digital point-and-shoot (Nikon Coolpix 5200) cameras in 3 different white balance settings. The photos below are only edited for the size and sharpness, no color balance or levels touched whatsoever, so you’ll see the differences in their ”original” form. Each camera had the same exposure for each shot as well.

White Balance on the Nikon D80
(The “daytime” was actually the “Direct Sunlight” setting):

White Balance on the Nikon Coolpix 5200:

See the differences?

So now you might be asking, and it’s been bugging you since I started talking about the gray card — Uh, why are we using a GRAY card for WHITE balance?

It does sound odd, doesn’t it? I’ve wondered about this myself, and so has one of you who asked about using white cards. I did a bit of research and found this very useful information that’s easily explained: Continue Reading

Things are busy here as it’s tax season, and with mommy and daddy filing their taxes for personal and their respective businesses, posting is a wee bit slower than usual. They’ve also been going out to see friends, which is always a good thing. The cocoa brownies weren’t posted as anticipated– our sincere apologies for those who are waiting.

Last week’s fares here at Gourmeted are:

• Lengua Estofada (Braised Beef Tongue) - A Filipino delicacy of beef tongue cooked in tomato based sauce. A toast to offal lovers.
• Pancake Breakfast with the Help of The Scale – Teddy helps daddy test out the new kitchen scale to make delicious pancakes. It’s a great new addition to our kitchen!
• How We Take Food Photos Part I: Tools and Equipment – The first of many in the series on food photography. Come and join us in our quest to take better photos of food!
• Dorie’s Best Chocolate Chip Cookies - Awesome chocolate chip cookies from a recipe that our friend, Patricia, posted about. Yumm!

Things we loved from neighboring food sites:

• Ben’s French Bread – Beautiful homemade bread that we wish we can make someday.
• Michelle’s Pretty Good for Now Buttermilk Biscuits – She’s still on the quest to find The One biscuit recipe, but this looks great to us! If you have a phenomenal biscuit recipe, come on over there and let her know…help a fellow foodie out.
• Elle’s Oven Baked Hooters Style Buffalo Wings – Need I say more? Can’t wait to try this with our Spicy Garlic Sauce

What’s up this week? Take a peek:

• Review of Sauce restaurant
• Part II of How We Take Food Photos: The Grey Card
• Ultimate Cinnamon Rolls

That’s it for now. Have a great week everyone. And happy eating!