April 2010 Desktop Calendar

Flowers are blossoming on the trees, the sun is shining again and the surcoats are going back into the wardrobe and Food-0-grafia offers you the new April desktop calendar, alas a wallpaper for your PC screen with a photo and the calendar of the current month.

To set the image as your desktop click on the link at the end of this post with the image dimensions that suit your PC screen and, after the image will load, right-click on it with your mouse (or press ctrl while clicking for some Mac users) and select "Set as Desktop Background..." (or something similar depending on the web browser you're using).

Also this month you can also download the same image of the calendar as a wallpaper for the iPhone. Browse down for the link.

(Alessandro Guerani is a professional photographer specialized in food shooting. He lives in Bologna, Italy, and is available for assignments to create the images you always craved. Read the "About me" or contact him using the "Mail me" in the blog menu above.)

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Carl Zeiss Jena Sonnar 300/4

Some days ago I promised, describing a photo-reportage published in the Italian section of my blog, that I will have revealed the equipment I used. The first article was about the Hoodman Pro-loupe, this time I'm talking about a great tele lens: the Carl Zeiss Jena Sonnar 300/4.

What I could really say about this lens? It is really a great performer: sharp, fast and with a great bokeh. And all this usually at a fraction of the price you'd pay for a more modern, but not always better, lens.

It's also good for landscape shooting, but beware of flares (use a hood), and use it with a good tripod: it can be attached directly on the lens, like in pretty every other long tele.

Let's talk about the drawbacks now. The first one you discover is that it's damn heavy: using it handheld needs good training (I had my shoulder aching after the reportage). The other hidden one is that, just like most of the Sonnar type lenses around, suffers from pretty heavy CA (Chromatic Abberation) so shooting against the light isn't very advisable (even if I did it... and it was not that bad all in all).

My final verdict is very positive though, I love use this lens for street portraiture and reportage, and sometimes it could be useful to capture small portions of panorama that you wouldn't be able to with shorter lenses.

(Alessandro Guerani is a professional photographer specialized in food shooting. He lives in Bologna, Italy, and is available for assignments to create the images you always craved. Read the "About me" or contact him using the "Mail me" in the blog menu above.)

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Spicy Baked Pear with Thyme Creme Fraiche

A fruit based dessert that is tasty, quick to prepare and can be easily stored in the refrigerator for days. Impossible? no it isn't, read on.

I got this idea from a menu written by Gordon Ramsey: he used apples and the creme fraiche was flavored with mint. I instead preferred to use pears because of their sweetness while thyme and lemon zest in the cream counterbalance it without being overwhelming.

Ingredients (serves 4)
4 medium sized pears
1½ cups rough brown sugar
2 cinnamon sticks
3 star anise
1 cup creme fraiche
½ teaspoon thyme leaves
1 teaspoon minced lemon zest
1½ cups water

Preparation
Peel the pears while keeping their stalks. Melt the brown sugar in water over a low heat. Add cinnamon and anise and let boil for about 4-5 minutes.
Place the pears in a baking dish and pour over the syrup. Bake at 350F for about 30-45 minutes basting the pears with the syrup from time to time.
When the pears are tender but still with their shape took them from the oven. Let cool a bit, glaze with the syrup and serve together with cold creme fraiche, freshly whipped together with the thyme and the lemon zest.

(Alessandro Guerani is a professional photographer specialized in food shooting. He lives in Bologna, Italy, and is available for assignments to create the images you always craved. Read the "About me" or contact him using the "Mail me" in the blog menu above.)

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Polaroid 600: the impossible sometimes happens.

For the last year I have followed with an interest the guys at The Impossible Project while they was trying to bring in production again the beloved instant Polaroid film that was so intrinsic with the culture from the '60 to the '80.

Who isn't able to remember the famous shots taken with the Polaroid by great photographers like André Kertész to mythic artists like Warhol?

Finally after so much waiting and some disillusion they announced that new instant B&W film in PX100 and 600 format will be available from March the 25th.

It may seem strange but in this world dominated by digital cameras these old istant films, that I for first snobbed during the first years of the digital revolution, have now the flavor and the freshness of the youth.

Maybe I'm getting old but I'm now going to take out from the dust my Onestep express.

(Alessandro Guerani is a professional photographer specialized in food shooting. He lives in Bologna, Italy, and is available for assignments to create the images you always craved. Read the "About me" or contact him using the "Mail me" in the blog menu above.)

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Hoodman Pro Loupe

I bet every of you sometimes found an item that made you think "how could I live without it?" It happened to me with this photo accessory.

The Hoodman HoodLoupe 3.0 is basically a viewfinder that could be applied over the LCD screen of almost all the digital cameras. It can be used on and off, hanging from your neck, so you can look at the LCD whithout worrying about sun reflections, or you can block it using an elastic strap.

While this accessory could be useful to check histograms with older digital cameras, it is exceptionally useful used together with Live-View equipped cameras: being myopic (almost blind actually) I still have to understand why every cheap camera from the '60-'70 has a better viewfinder than the recent ones (except maybe the most expensive ones, maybe...); with that hood I can use the LCD panel with Live-View like it were a viewfinder, I can zoom into the scene to focus perfectly and, as a plus, I can use old lenses whose back would hit the mirror of my 5dmkII camera.

For example, I used this accessory along with a 300mm manual focus lens for taking pictures at Beppe Grillo in Bologna last Saturday and, considering that I was photographing a moving subject at full aperture, I could not certainly shoot effectively with a so limited depth of field without using it.

But there also another advantage. If you own a camera that can record HD-quality video you really can't live without this hood as it's the only way you could focus and compose in an effective way while recording video.

I also advice you to buy the modelled eye cup: it really makes a difference, especially if you're working in a very bright day, to keep unwanted reflections and light out of your eyes.

(Alessandro Guerani is a professional photographer specialized in food shooting. He lives in Bologna, Italy, and is available for assignments to create the images you always craved. Read the "About me" or contact him using the "Mail me" in the blog menu above.)

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Chickpea Soup with Langoustines

Have you ever thought to magically combine Sea and Earth together in a recipe? Then read how it could be done in a savory but delicate way in this recent, classic recipe of the Italian cuisine.

The drawback is that it is neither easy nor fast to prepare, but I assure you it worths it. You can also try some variations using shrimps or other shellfish, the important thing is that they must be the freshest possible to appreciate the full savour of this recipe.

Ingredients (serves 4)
400 gr. dried chickpeas
12 fresh langoustines (Norway lobsters)
2 carrots
1 celery
4 shallots
salt
pepper
olive oil
water
parsley

Preparation
Soak the dried chickpeas into some water for the whole night before. Remove the heads from the langoustines and put them to boil into 2-3 cups of salty water for about an hour. Drain and keep the fumet (broth) aside.
Dice the other vegetables and pour them together with the chickpeas in the fumet and cook on medium heat for about 2 hours or until the chickpeas are soft adding more water if needed. Smash the cooked vegetables with a kitchen robot or a food mill then sieve the resulting mixture until it becomes creamy, add other salt to taste and keep it at warm. Steam the langoustine tails for about 15 minutes or cook them in a frying pan with very little of oil. Sprinkle the soup with olive oil, freshly grated pepper and some minced parsley leaves, add the langoustine tails and serve.

(Alessandro Guerani is a professional photographer specialized in food shooting. He lives in Bologna, Italy, and is available for assignments to create the images you always craved. Read the "About me" or contact him using the "Mail me" in the blog menu above.)

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A Studio in the Bag

Can you replicate the look of studio pro photography with just a small speedlight and some other cheap portable equipment? If you want to know how, read on.

Strobism is a new word that means professional photography lighting without using cumbersome studio equipment. The Strobist blog really started a new trend in photography demonstrating that with smart thinking and the right equipment you can use small speedlights in many occasions when in the past a photographer had to resort to expensive and heavy gear.

Still in my opinion there was still a drawback: I had to duplicate most of my equipment because all the light modifiers that I used with my studio flashes weren't compatible with the systems available for speedlights. These meant I would had to buy another set of softboxes, snoot, beautydish, etc... All considered it was a huge expense and still some of the options I had for my studio flashes was missing once I would have decided to work with speedlights, and I'm not just talking about power.

Then in these last months some very smart adapter were released. They allow to use S-bayonet (the standard mount used by Bowens and also adopted by a lot of other flash lighting manufacturers) accessories with my light and practical speedlights.

I bought one of these adapters using eBay from this seller so to test how robust and practical it could be and I soon felt in love with it. The adapter is pretty rugged and robust, it's also smart designed so you can safely fix a speedlight using its hot shoe but with also the option to remove the hot shoe adapter and use a standard spigot: very handy in case you use some remote controllers as I usually do.

The S-bayonet adapter is a sturdy ring which can easily allow to mount large softboxes, even if I used at maximum 40x40" sized ones as I fear that my speedlights wouldn't be powerful enough to provide even illumination with anything larger.

But you can also used snoots, small and medium beauty dishes and so on... practically I can use all the studio equipment I already own (as also my studio flashes have the Bowens S-bayonet) plus I could use every new accessory I will buy.

After some testing I soon ordered other 2 adapters so that using a single, handy carry-bag I could bring on location 3 speedlights, with their tripods, a couple of softboxes, a snoot, a beauty-dish and have plenty of power for most of the shots without having to rent a battery pack, its heads and a van to transport all that cumbersome stuff.

Of course if you have to shoot 3-4 people together or you want to heavily overpower summer sun at noon you still have to resort to more powerful equipment but this solution is perfect if you want to make some portraiture on location, maybe at your customer's home, or shoot some food in a restaurant without having to transform it in a studio.

For example this portrait of ugly-me has been shot using a Nikon sb26 in a 24"x24" softbox at 1/8 power and another sb26 as hair light at 1/4 power.

(Alessandro Guerani is a professional photographer specialized in food shooting. He lives in Bologna, Italy, and is available for assignments to create the images you always craved. Read the "About me" or contact him using the "Mail me" in the blog menu above.)

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Black Treacle Custard

Half an hour. This is the time you need to prepare this custard, good both as an after-lunch dessert or a pretty energetic breakfast.

Ingredients (serves 4)
1¼ cups of double cream
5 tablespoons of rough brown sugar
3 tablespoons of black treacle
4 egg yolks
1 vanilla stick
salt

Preparation
Warm the cream together with sugar, black treacle, a stick of vanilla and a couple pinches of salt on low heat until the sugar dissolves. Whisk the egg yolks and add the hot cream mixture. Strain the mixture and pour into 4 ramekins. Preheat the oven to 300F, place the ramekins in a deep roasting tin and fill it with boiling water till about a thrid of the height of the ramekins. Cook for about 20-25 minutes until the custard is just set but still wobble in the center. Let chill for at least one hour before serving.

(Alessandro Guerani is a professional photographer specialized in food shooting. He lives in Bologna, Italy, and is available for assignments to create the images you always craved. Read the "About me" or contact him using the "Mail me" in the blog menu above.)

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Welta Welti

I am not talking about sharpness today, forgot high definition photography for a moment and try to remember the beauty of old pastel colors: here to you a jump in the past!

Welta welti was one of the first pocket 35mm cameras, it is small even compared to today standards being just 4¾ inches long, released in 1936. It is equipped with a Schneider Kreuznach Xenar 50/3.5 lens mounted on a Compur shutter with times ranging from 1 to 1/300 second. There's no rangefinder, just a visual aim, settable at short or long distance.

Given the history and characteristic of this camera I had to think with which film I could test it. I decided to avoid modern emulsions so I was left with very few alternatives, some old style b&w films like Trix or Fomapan and very little else. Then I remembered that an Italian retail store chain, Esselunga, sells under its label an old emulsion film, produced by Ferrania. I bought a couple of rolls of 400 ISO film and shot them while I was produced other images with my digital equipment.

I was pretty amazed by results. The old pastel colors that seems forgotten nowadays are back, but at cost of terrible resolution and grain. Still I think it is nearly impossible to replicate digitally this balancing of colors starting from a digital file and using an 80 years old camera with all its limitations is sometimes pretty refreshing, forcing me to avoid the usual digital workflow.

(Alessandro Guerani is a professional photographer specialized in food shooting. He lives in Bologna, Italy, and is available for assignments to create the images you always craved. Read the "About me" or contact him using the "Mail me" in the blog menu above.)

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Roasted Artichokes with Bacon

Tasty and quick to prepare can live together? Sometimes they can, just like in this recipe which uses seasonal vegetables as its main ingredient.

Ingredients (serves 2)
3 fresh artichokes
2 tablespoon of minced bacon
2 tablespoon of grated pecorino cheese
2 tablespoon of breadcrumbs
1 tablespoon of olive oil
1 tablespoon of lemon juice
1 teaspoon of thyme
1 teaspoon of minced parsley
1 clove of garlic
salt
pepper

Preparation
Cut the stems of the artichokes, remove the hard, outer leaves and cut them in halves. Put into boiling water, add the lemon juice and cook for about 15-20 minutes. Drain and place on a oiled baking tray, the cut side facing up. Mix together bacon, cheese, breadcrumbs, thyme, parsley, salt, pepper and a minced clove of garlic. Sprinkle generously the cut side of the artichokes, stuffing some seasoning in between the leaves. Drizzle the artichokes with a little more olive oil and roast in a preheated oven at 400F for other 20 minutes or until golden (grilling if needed). Serve hot.

(Alessandro Guerani is a professional photographer specialized in food shooting. He lives in Bologna, Italy, and is available for assignments to create the images you always craved. Read the "About me" or contact him using the "Mail me" in the blog menu above.)

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March 2010 Desktop Calendar

The first signs of the forthcoming Spring has arrived, March is here and so Food-0-grafia offers you the new desktop calendar, alas a wallpaper for your PC screen with a photo and the calendar of the current month.

To set the image as your desktop click on the link at the end of this post with the image dimensions that suit your PC screen and, after the image will load, right-click on it with your mouse (or press ctrl while clicking for some Mac users) and select "Set as Desktop Background..." (or something similar depending on the web browser you're using).

Also this month you can also download the same image of the calendar as a wallpaper for the iPhone. Browse down for the link.

(Alessandro Guerani is a professional photographer specialized in food shooting. He lives in Bologna, Italy, and is available for assignments to create the images you always craved. Read the "About me" or contact him using the "Mail me" in the blog menu above.)

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iPhone Wallpaper