About The Photos

Although I’m a photographer I haven’t yet figured out a way to wield a camera and a knife at the same time. Many times the hands you see in these photos are mine.  So who’s shooting them?  My daughter is responsible for much of the photography here.  When she’s not around I can set up the camera, hand it to my son and he fills in admirably.  It’s a family effort but we get it done.

What do we shoot with?  I’m a Nikon girl all the way.  Currently shooting with a D3, we also own a D300 and a D200, a couple of Speedlights, three great lenses (50 mm 1.4, 24-70 2.8 and 70-200 2.8) and a few other lenses.

I’ve also got quite an assortment of studio lighting equipment but we don’t use it for the food blog.  I draw the line somewhere for my family’s sake.  And my own sake because I’m sure they’d rebel if they had to endure softboxes and lightstands in the kitchen just to get around to dinnertime. I finally decided it was easier to use one Alien Bee for lighting the entire kitchen than it was to keep putting new batteries in the Speedlight.

I don’t shoot specifically for getting photos accepted by the food photography sites.  Most of the big ones have pretty narrow preferences that don’t always match with what really happens in my kitchen.  We don’t always artfully arrange everything in front of a big window in the middle of the day before eating.  We cook, we serve and we eat.  At night.  When it’s dark.  Without all that lovely natural light.   I’m not rearranging our routines or our food just for the photo opportunities.  After all, this is about Our Life In The Kitchen and what really happens here.

Most of my cooking is pretty simple and taking the time to shoot every step of the way can make it decidedly more time consuming but we do it anyway.  It’s fun and we’re creating a really unique family journal as a bonus.