Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘Food Stylist’

Meeting Meeta

Posted in food tips & techniques, personal, Shoots, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on April 10, 2012 | 2 Comments »

Last week I was lucky enough to attend a food photography and styling course here in Dubai. It was held by Meeta K Wolff who is the author of the very successful ‘Whats for lunch Honey?’ blog. It was organized by Sally Prosser of My Custard Pie  blog fame and was held at Nasimi Beach at Atlantis where I have to say we were totally spoilt! We had cocktail demonstrations and cooking demonstrations from their talented chefs as well as a full on Arabian banquet in the evening where all course attendees got to know each other better after our first day of learning. It was great to talk and share with other bloggers and foodies.

It was very inspirational to hear how Meeta has developed her skills of photography and food styling over the years driven by her love of food and to learn of the success she is now experiencing. I personally learnt  a lot about my camera, what I want from my camera and how to use it as a proper tool.

Lunch!

Cocktails and Chefs

On day two we all met at Lafayette Gourmet at Galleries Lafayette for a guided tour by Chef Russell and for more photography challenges!

Meeta showing us how its done!!

A huge thank you to Meeta, Sally and Alison from Nasimi for all the effort and organization that went into this inspiring course!

Read Full Post »

The Studio Kitchen

Posted in personal, Shoots, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on June 20, 2011 | 1 Comment »

Its done! We have completed the new kitchen in The Studio, Al Quoz. With bespoke kitchen units, a new fridge, 5-hob gas cooker with electric fan oven, a new extractor fan, a new hot water tank and even a moveable centre unit with a gas hob insert! This has been designed to be a functioning kitchen for all food stylists as well as ideal for shooting cookery webisodes. The colours are neutral greys which can be propped with numerous complimentary colours to achieve different looks. It is also equipped with chopping boards, pots, pans and knives to help food stylists lug a little less. And thanks to Rehana from Kenwood we can also boast top of the range cooking machines, blenders, coffee machines and more which are on their way as we speak!

To book this space go to The Studio. Thank you to Nick Davidson, Selva, Jumeirah Carpentry, Rehana, Elisa and Candice for making this happen.

Read Full Post »

One-Piece Wonders

Posted in food tips & techniques, personal, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , on June 12, 2011 | Leave a Comment »

The one-piece is back! Check out these amazing swimsuits from Ralph Lauren, Moschino, Roberto Cavalli and Dolce&Gabbana, all featured in this months edition of Tatler. What better way to enjoy the summer that with delicious ice lollies and ice cream. Make your own ice lollies with fresh fruit juices or try a new flavour ice cream.

Food styling tip:

To avoid ice lollies from frosting over, blow on them using a straw or use compressed air such as ‘Dust Off’.

 Try  green tea ice cream served with shiratama dumplings (rice flour) and sweet adzuki bean paste, available at most Japanese restaurants. This desert always reminds me of summer in Tokyo.

Food styling tip:

Make fake ice cream using icing sugar and food colouring, see ‘I Scream for Ice cream’ blog. I used acylic paint as well to get the colour right on this ice cream.

Read Full Post »

Food Styling Master Class

Posted in food tips & techniques, personal, tagged , , , , , , , on May 18, 2011 | 2 Comments »

I have just returned from Singapore where I attended the Food Styling Master Class for the second year. This is taught by LA food stylist Denise Vivaldo. It was wonderful to see her again and she was full of food styling advice, industry tips and of course fascinating Hollywood stories. There were three of us from last year who travelled from Australia, Russia and Dubai with new students from the Philipines, Hong Kong, Italy and Singapore.

As well as covering the all important hamburger and cheese pull, this year we covered packaged food, grill marks, plating noodles and pasta techniques, working with frozen deserts ie real ice cream, ice lollys etc, foam on beer, chocolate, pie crusts and cheesecakes and fake bbqs.

It was all fascinating to me, here are some images of Denise’s demonstrations and my work….

TIP: With frozen microwave food It is important to get the proportions right. Usually there isn’t much food so use smaller plates. This may seem a bit of a con but legally the weight is correct so it is not false advertising.

TIP: Noodle and pasta need a little support so place vegetable shortening, stiff mash potato or cotton wool in the base of the bowl so the noodles don’t slump down. Place the noodles on top and try to create some movement in the bowl. Small droplets of fat/oil in the sauce can create a jewelled effect on camera. Only add the sauce once the dish is on set to stop the noodles from going mushy.

TIP: Heat grill pan, and spray both the pan and food item with oil. Hold down and don’t move it around. It doesn’t matter if its not cooked through, no one will eat it. Spray with a darkening agent, kitchen bouquet or soy sauce. Fix lines with an eye brow pencil if you need to.

Other gems we learnt were:

  • Use red lipstick to enhance tomatoes and pears.
  • Paint lobster and prawns with a little pink nail varnish to make their colouring more uniform for the camera.
  • Spray varnish french fries after they have been cooked to protect them from the air and so from going limp.

There was so much more and these tips and techniques can all be found in Denise’s new (award winning!) food styling book, The Food Stylist’s Handbook. 

Once again, thank  you Denise for all your inspiration and humour! And thank you to Palette Sensations Cookery School.

Read Full Post »

Fadi and The Frozen Yogurt Factory

Posted in food tips & techniques, Shoots, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on May 12, 2011 | 3 Comments »

Last week I met Fadi Younes who is the proud owner of The Frozen Yogurt Factory in Dubai Mall. As you can imagine shooting anything frozen is tricky, with ice cream it is preferable to use fake as it can be controlled and therefore quicker in the long run. These yoghurts however had to look like Mr Whippy straight out of the machines. Sometimes these are made in resin by very talented props makers, but this is very expensive, takes time and once the model arrives there is only so much you can do with it!

I went down to the store earlier in the week to select some of the 50 toppings for our shoot, these range from fresh fruit, gummy bears, mini choc chips and grated oreos (one of the top sellers I was told!) I also had a little practice on the machines and as I suspected it was hard to get that perfect pyramid swirl! We also timed the yoghurts and worked out we had 3 to 4 mins to shoot each one! Scary!!

Fadi had three machines and the yoghurt mix, strawberry, mango and coconut delivered to The Studio the night before the shoot. Once the machine is turned on this mix is frozen in a matter of minutes ready to be dispensed, amazing! Luckily Fadi is excellent at making these yoghurt swirls so I concentrated on working on the composition and balancing the colours of the toppings. We worked out that freezing the yoghurt once a perfect swirl had been created gave us a valuable few more minutes on set!

Just after lunch, Fadi, whose background is in graphic design came up with an idea he wanted to try. We had earlier discussed that we like the yoghurt clean and I had placed the strawberries around it as opposed to on it. Fadi wanted to go step further and do circles in the flavoured syrups around the yoghurt and place the toppings in this. It made for a much more exciting image as there was movement as well as texture. I loved Fadi’s enthusiasm once we got going with this idea!

Frozen yoghurt is a much healthier treat than ice cream as it has a lot less calories. The Frozen Yogurt Factory has positive feedback in Time Out and when I visited the store there were people constantly popping in. One of the great things is that you pay by weight and it is self service so you can decide exactly how much of each topping you want.

Comment from Time Out reader

You will find the store by the cinema, opposite Sega Republic, Dubai Mall. If you are off shopping this weekend why not pop in for a guilt-free treat!

Thank you to Roger Payling, photographer and his assistant Selva and to The Studio and of course to Fadi for being such a creative and enthusiastic client!

Read Full Post »

Kenwood to Bollywood

Posted in food tips & techniques, Shoots, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , on May 8, 2011 | Leave a Comment »

Last week we were at Palmonade, a kitchen showroom on the Beach Road for four days to shoot a Kenwood campaign. This time we were specifically shooting images for the Indian market which meant both the food and the wardrobe had a strong Indian influence. The photographer was Daryl Patni, the agency TMH and the crew and models from Bareface. Both Angie, the wardrobe stylist and I threw ourselves into it spending hours at a time down at Mina Bazaar, myself looking for pots, pans and rolling pins etc and Angie picking out the loveliest saris,(on one of the shoot days we actually counted her saying the word ”sari” 15 times in three minutes! Just a little obsessed!!!)

I had treated myself to two new cookbooks for this shoot, one for its incredible information on Indian spices, THE INDIAN KITCHEN by Monisha Bharadwaj and one on its fantastic propping, EAST INDIAN COOKBOOK by Manju Malhi mixing both Indian antique with modern western tableware. I was able to achieve something similar by buying props in Karama, Mina Bazaar, Zara Home  and Tavola.

We shot 4 to 5 machines a day over the three days with the last day concentrating on the the Kitchen Machine and the  Kitchen Chef with Chef Osama, who brought down lovely Arabic pastries from his own baker. The three new machines featured were the …..

HB 890 KMIX Triblade 5 in 1


This hand blender  comes with the the triblade, the soup XL and a durable metal balloon whisk as well as a chopping blade and shredding disk with the 1 litre food processor and is available in white, cream, black, silver and red. We shot the red model so we coupled it with a lovely green coriander chutney amongst other dishes.

The BL 480


This blender has three speeds and crushes ice, has a grating mill and a grinding mill. Ideal for those spices needed to make curries!

The BL718


This slick blender is a little more hardcore being more powerful with five variable speeds and metal body. It is the first Kenwood blender to have a thermal shock resistant glass jug which means both hot and cold liquids can be blended. I very much liked the weight of this machine!

Some styling tips when doing curries:

1. keep bowls small to make and curries more attractive by having a smaller mass of sauce as it is often brown in colour.

2. use ready made curry sauces (to save time but adjust colours if needed) and cook vegetables and meat separately and mix together  last minute to keep ingredients defined in the sauce.

3. think outside the box! I didn’t have any saffron to garnish my mango lassi so i cut very thin slithers of beetroot  to place on top. it worked a treat!

Here are some behind the scenes shots of this very fun shoot…..

A massive thank you to Rehana from Kenwood for being such a cool client, Zahra and Darine from TMH  and to Palmonade for letting us totally take over again! And a little special thank you to Ant for keeping my work space so tidy and functioning!!!

Read Full Post »

You got to Espresso yourself!

Posted in food tips & techniques, Shoots, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on April 3, 2011 | Leave a Comment »

This week we did a three day shoot for DeLonghi. DeLonghi are an Italian, family owned and run company in Traviso near Venice. Interestingly the company started out repairing and then making oil-filled radiators. Now they make everything from electric ovens to ice-cream makers. There are over 20 categories of coffee machines and we shot a selection of these. The images were clean, sleek and sophisticated, some shots were with models and some were straight forward still lifes but the heroes each time were the espresso, cappuccino and the caffe latte.

The espresso is a concentrated coffee brewed by hot water being forced at pressure through coffee grounds. Espresso often has a thicker consistency than coffee brewed using other methods. And the stronger the brew the more crema (foam) you get. It has been recorded that the espresso was invented as far back as 1884.

The cappuccino is a coffee made from espresso, hot milk and steamed milk froth. The name comes from the Capuchin friars, referring to the colour of their habits. It is a morning drink and rarely drunk after 11am.

The caffe latte is similar to a cappuccino but with more milk and less milk foam. It was actually invented in California and not in Europe although similar breakfast drinks did exist. If you ask for a latte in Italy you are likely to get a glass of milk.

A caffe latte differs from a latte macchiato in that in a latte macchiato, espresso is added to milk, rather than the reverse.

The location of the shoot took place at the Hacker showroom on Sheik Zayed Road. Hacker is another family owned company this time from Germany. They make beautiful high-end kitchens. Their kitchens range from 60,000 to 2 million dirhams and feature sensomatic drawers and magic cupboards where the inside shelves gently pop up and become extra work surfaces. Genius!

Behind the scenes:

Food styling tip:

To create longer lasting foam slowly heat some full fat milk in a sauce pan and add clear washing up liquid. Whisk the warm milk with an electric hand whisk. For close-up shots it is always better to use the real thing and a coffee machine is required for this.

A huge thanks to Rihana from Kenwood, Zahra and Darine from TMH, photographer Richard Allenby-Pratt, Samir and Scott from Hacker and the Bareface team, producers Neha and Wafa, wardrobe-Angie, hair and make up-Kat, booker-Leila and our lovely models.

Read Full Post »

Fruit Ninja

Posted in food tips & techniques, personal, Shoots, tagged , , , , , , , , on February 24, 2011 | 3 Comments »

“Hi my name is Mary-Kei and I am a Ninjaholic!”

Last month my friend introduced me to Fruit Ninja, a game on his ipad. It is a ipad/iphone game by Australian developers Halbrick Studios. Well, of course he had no idea what an addictive personality I have but I was instantly hooked. Unfortunately he would only let me use his ipad for the occasional 30 mins here or 20 mins there which was a little frustrating but I then realized I could download it to my iphone. Yeay! This of course has now led to hours of wasted time! At one point I was setting my alarm early so I could play Fruit Ninja before going to a shoot! As if waking up at 5 isn’t early enough!!!

I don’t know what the attraction is, whether is the vibrant coloured apples, pears, watermelons etc, or the delicious splatting noise and mess they all make when you slice them with your finger, I particularly like the “phfffutt” noise you get when slicing the banana! It could be the changing of pace throughout the game or the constant encouragement and well-dones, who knows. I am not a huge computer game fan and to be honest have never really seen the attraction but something about Fruit Ninja has got to me..

I play the Classic version where my high score is 479, this version can get a little stressful as if you hit a bomb it is all over and you are blinded by the ridiculously bright light of the exploding bomb. It’s quite charming in that it gives you little fruit facts, “an apple tree is able to produce fruit for up to 100 years” or ” mangoes belong to the same family of plant as poison ivy”. Fascinating! I do prefer the Arcade version as it is quick and a little more fast-paced. My current high score is 769. I was told that the world top score is a crazy 17,000. I’m not sure I believe that, that person must really have no life!

I am pleased to say my addiction is a little more controlled now. I do still play a few games everyday but it’s not at the expense of not talking to a friend I haven’t seen for a week and I am certainly not setting my alarm early anymore. As I have wasted countless hours on this I decided I needed to do something constructive so I decided on a Fruit Ninja food shoot. This was shot by Mike McKelvie www.bareface.com and I love the results. Who would have thought all those wasted hours could lead to a beautiful food shoot! Please note the ”50 bonus point” dragon fruit, my favourite!

Styling tips: All fruit was cleaned and polished. A little oil was added to some of the fruit ie apples and pears but not bananas as they immediately start to go brown. The cut fruit was sprayed with oil to stop the oxygen from turning them brown. In these cases you have to work quite quickly as fruit does degenerated fast. Fruit was held in place with skewers and tooth picks which were then skillfully retouched out afterwards.

Read Full Post »

Yes Chef!

Posted in food tips & techniques, Shoots, tagged , , , , , , , on July 12, 2010 | Leave a Comment »

This week I had the privilege of meeting Scott Crawley who together with Richard Lambert and Executive Chef, Andrew Burn run Yes Chef! We did a food shoot for their new website which will be up and running in the next few weeks.

Andrew created delicious meal after delicious meal. The shoot was fast with 10 shots per day so the food was being shot fresh from the kitchen without the need for all the usual food styling tricks. It is of course better to shoot food in this way and there is the added bonus of us being able to sample all these amazing dishes afterwards.

Yes Chef! having been going for about a year, successfully doing private parties, co-orporate functions, fine dining and even bbq’s. They will be expanding into restaurants, school meals, healthy eating and more!

I took some quick shots of behind the scenes…..

Nick the photographer

Andy in the kitchen

Arranging the food

And of the food…..

Mouth-watering bbq grill

Pan fried sultan ibrahim on a bed of grilled vegetables

Selection of bread from their own bakery

The photographer Nick England used a combination of day light with a little flash to achieve this look. The shots looked great. My own favorite dish was the Yes Chef! spiced pineapple with vanilla ice cream. The pineapple was gently simmered in sugar with an array of spices including chilli which gave it a little kick and looked amazing on the plate! See Nick’s shot of the dish below…..

The team from Yes Chef! are natural hosts and really funny too and i can’t wait to see their website when it is up and running!!!

Read Full Post »

Food Styling Workshop in Singapore

Posted in food tips & techniques, personal, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on May 26, 2010 | Leave a Comment »

Last week I was in Singapore for a two-day food styling workshop with L.A. food stylist Denise Vivaldo. She was absolutely amazing! We got great advice about food, how to work with clients and how to work with photographers. Denise shared so many tips and experiences from her very successful 25 year career. There were fifteen of us who had travelled from all over; Russia, Melbourne, Philipines, Pakistan and of course Dubai. Watch my video of some of the workshop highlights…..

Follow Denise and her team on her blog: foodfanaticsunwashed.com or to find out more about the workshops she runs on www.FoodStylingWorkshop.com. I would like to say a huge personal thank you to Denise for being so inspiring and encouraging!

Singapore is a vibrant city and although it is fairly small in size it packs a lot in! I had a wonderful time exploring the street food stalls, visiting tourists sights and just generally observing how people live and move around the city. I look forward to visiting this lovely city again and next time maybe even staying at Raffles!!!!

Again a massive thank you to Xan Blacker for having the patience of a saint!!! And another massive thank you to the agency at Bareface for helping to make this trip possible. You’re all gorgeous!!!!

Read Full Post »

Older Posts »

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 64 other followers