Oeufs en Cocotte

I used the Little Paris Kitchen recipe and put my twist on it, I didn't manage to take many images as it was getting late in the day as you can see form my images the lighting wasn't perfect, and I'd started to get long dark shadows on the images.

I picked the best image out of the 12, so I had to use photoshop to enhance certain aspects of images. A lot was dodging the toast as it was very dark before but this worked really well and has brought it up really well. I did change the contrast of the image just to bring the colour's again out of the shadows.

Overall I think this image is really good the colour's all work together very well I'm really pleased with how the adjustments had really helped with the shadows. Really happy with this image if I'm going to re shoot all I'd made sure is that the light would be cleaner and maybe get a reflector if shooting later in the day to pick up the shadows naturally.

Little Paris Kitchen

I love little paris kitchen I think its a fantastic show with food from the heart and good for the soul.I happened to stumble upon a recipe of Rachel Khoo whilst having my dinner at work. And thought that it was such a good idea I had to give it a go. 

Eggs in Pots (oeufs en cocotte)

Eggs and crème fraîche are all you need for this super-simple yet very tasty dish. You can also throw in almost anything savoury you find in your fridge. Try serving it with plenty of crusty bread.

Ingredients

• 150g/5½oz crème fraîche
• salt and freshly ground black pepper
• pinch nutmeg
• handful of chopped dill
• 4 free-range eggs
  
  
  To Garnish

• red lumpfish roe
• small sprigs of dill
  
  
  
  
  Preparation Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4.
2. Season the crème fraîche with salt, freshly ground pepper and a pinch of nutmeg.
3. Place a heaped tablespoon of crème fraîche in the bottom of a ramekin, followed by a little dill.
4. Crack an egg on top, add a second tablespoon of crème fraîche and sprinkle with a pinch each of salt, pepper and nutmeg. Repeat with three more ramekins.
5. Place the ramekins in a baking dish and pour enough lukewarm water into the dish to come halfway up the sides of the ramekins.
6. Bake for 15 minutes or until the egg yolks are set to your liking.
7. If you like, finish each serving with a teaspoon of red lumpfish roe and a sprig or two of dill.

2nd Shoot

For my second shoot I wanted to take images of another item made using eggs, I chose a victoria sponge cake, I was going to make the cake but due to the time frame I had set myself, and not wanting to do the washing up, I got one from my supermarket. Freshly made so it still had that homemade feel.

This is the contact sheet that shows you don't always get it right every time. I had to re-shoot this to get a better shot, due to the unreliability of natural light. 

For this shot I used a cream cake stand to give different levels to the images also used some of the raw ingredients to create some interests in the background. As well as including a tea pot to give the view of afternoon tea. Very simple final shot with nice warm tones, simple colour palate I think works really well together.

False Set-up

A false set up is were you lay your props out and arrange were everything is going to be in frame, you can also use a fake piece of food to get focus and everything just right before you bring in the actual item you are photographing. 

This gives you the chance to fix any bugs, or little errors you may see when doing this to make the final image as perfect as it can be.

Props

Props are very important in photography, especially when your shooting a series of food images, as an employer is looking for consistent images using similar props of similar colour's so that they all run smoothly on from each other, this also means that the lighting has to be consistent to.

These were the first set of props I have bought, they are all very pastel colors with nice warm wood tones. I have gone for pastel green and blue, to go with the fashion of country style, home cooking. Its important to get the right props to your style of food photography, if you want clean modern images you need high shine, more monotone items  were as myself, prefers the homely look to an image, with warm tones and nothing to harsh to look at, with bold blocks of colour.

Jean Cazals

Idafrosk

This one of my main inspirations for my project, Idafrosk. I've been following her on intsagram and have fallen in love with her work she is so creative making a thing like food, the most interesting point of your day, I look forward to every morning having one of Ida's food masterpieces to look at. She Always uses simple props throughout and only ever uses a simple colour background, somtime's when using a plain colour plate she uses her socks to help signify the colour on the plate to herself.

She always shoots her food from ariel which I have always wanted to have a go with so during this project I will experiment with over the top shooting and simple use of colour.

These Images all belong to Idafrosk and are copyrighted.