Digital Photo Tips

Titan chocolate sugar cookies and cherry tuiles. Mini black and whites and fig pinwheels. Peanut butter and jelly bars.</p><p>Inquire like too many cookies?</p><p>Not for Andr&eacute; du Broc of Kansas City, who&rsquo;s baking his way through &ldquo;Martha Stewart&rsquo;s Cookies&rdquo; (Clarkson Around, 2008) to fulfill a pledge to donors for AIDS Walk Kansas City.</p><p>Du Broc plans to bake all 175 recipes by year-end, chronicling his efforts on Too Many Cookies (toomanycookies.wordpress.com). Du Broc, who worked as an actor and circus dolt before joining Hallmark, aimed to raise $3,000 before the April walk. The cookies did the trick &mdash; more than 80 friends from as far away as Scotland donated $4,400.</p><p>Photos from Stewart&rsquo;s post accompany each entry, as well as a snapshot taken by du Broc, to show both what he was aiming for and what he achieved.</p><p>&ldquo;The photos are keep one's counsel-in-cheek,&rdquo; du Broc says. &ldquo;They&rsquo;re what the cookies look like when you bake them in your own cookhouse.&rdquo;</p><p>Du Broc is among a growing number of enthusiasts training their cameras on food. Home cooks, culinary tourists, farmers call shoppers and restaurant diners are all snapping pictures of what they&rsquo;re cooking and eating, often posting the pictures on websites, blogs and online photo albums.</p><p>Many times the photos are OK champion. Too often, they&rsquo;re not. Beautiful, memorable food can easily be washed out by a flash, go blurry or get lost in the farrago.</p><p>&ldquo;Food is very, very hard to photograph,&rdquo; says Ben Pieper, who created Four Foodies (fourfoodiesblog.wordpress.com) with his spouse, Kim Pieper, and friends Mark Morton and Jane Kortright. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s amazing how straight away it can be gross.&rdquo;</p><p>They launched the blog in September 2009; it drew 10,000 visitors in its first six months. All the grub is cooked at home, photographed and then eaten. It&rsquo;s enticing stuff, whether the foodies are demonstrating how to cut matchstick vegetables, making risotto or finishing a serving of blueberry cobbler.</p><p>And it works, says Pieper, who opened his own photography studio last year.</p><p>&ldquo;Blogs with distinct photography definitely have more circulation,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s like going out to eat. The first matter you do is eat with your eyes.&rdquo;</p><p><strong><span class="subhead">Professional primping</cross></strong></p><p>That&rsquo;s because photography is a powerful tool, says David Morris of David Morris Photography in Kansas Bishopric. To use it effectively, you must know what you want to say and how you want to say it.</p><p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s all about communication,&rdquo; he says.</p><p>When Morris works with clients such as McDonald&rsquo;s or Applebee&rsquo;s, he meets with other inventive staff to decide exactly how a photo will look and feel, from the number of slices of meat on the sandwich to the color of the coat.</p><p>The day of the photo shoot, there may be as many as 10 people on hand, from a photographer, food stylist and production coordinator to many assistants, advertising agency representatives and clients. They&rsquo;ll spend hours arranging the nourishment, choosing props and prepping the image.</p><p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s not uncommon to do just two or four shots in an 8- to 10-hour day,&rdquo; Morris says.</p><p>That&rsquo;s partly because it takes antiquated to make food look the part. Vicki Johnson, a freelance food stylist based in Leawood, recounts frying volume after batch of french fries to sort out enough &ldquo;heroes&rdquo; for a photo, and going through 20 hams while disquieting to get the perfect shot of one being sliced.</p><p>Food changes as it cools down, warms up or simply sits waiting for its offend in front of the camera. Sesame seeds fall off, so Johnson glues them on. Blanched and cooled vegetables are added to stews at the last twinkling of an eye, because fully cooked veggies get mushy and lose color. Sauces get a dose of glycerin to keep them looking stir without skinning over. Peaches that aren&rsquo;t peachy enough get a smudge of lipstick.</p><p>&ldquo;We pick up where cast left off,&rdquo; Johnson says.</p><p>While such extreme primping isn&rsquo;t necessary at home, it&rsquo;s benefit paying attention to the plate. Johnson recommends simple serving dishes, preferably virtuous, instead of floral or patterned ones. Remove extra silverware, countertop appliances and other confusion. Photograph each course separately, rather than piling everything onto a single plate.</p><p>Perk things up with a sprig of brazen herbs, but avoid the elaborate and heavily garnished platters that were the hallmark of 1970s food photography. The Rigorous plates of 1980s nouvelle cuisine are also pass&eacute;.</p><p>Be sure to wipe drips off the side of the dish, but don&rsquo;t worry too much about it &mdash; food that looks so perfect it could be plastic went out with the 1990s, Johnson says. Rations photography today includes enough crumbs and crinkles to make it look real.</p><p>&ldquo;Refine imperfection,&rdquo; Johnson calls it.</p><p><strong><span class="subhead">Spiffing up an notion</span></strong></p><p>So how do you capture that artful image? Start by reading your camera&rsquo;s instructions, says Beth Bader, who keeps the Expatriate&rsquo;s Kitchen (expatriateskitchen.blogspot.com).</p><p>The blog, which started in 2004, champions district food and features vibrant photos of deconstructed knobby heirloom squash, calmondin limes and many of Bader&rsquo;s novel recipes.</p><p>Photos create excitement, Bader says. So much so that her blog has drawn tens of thousands of page views and earned a tome deal &mdash; the Cleaner Plate Club, co-authored with Ali Wade Benjamin, whose blog is Ali&rsquo;s Cleaner Charger Club ( <a href="http://www.cleanerplateclub.com">www.cleanerplateclub.com</a>). The partner met in cyberspace and, although they are working on a book together (due in 2011), they&rsquo;ve never met in person.</p><p>Bader is a trained photographer and chef, which is why she can feign even a plate of cabbage and bacon pasta look gorgeous. But she has easy pointers for the rest of us, too. Once you remember what all your camera&rsquo;s buttons are for, you can abide by Bader&rsquo;s No. 1 rule: turn off the scuttle.</p><p>&ldquo;That ugly, straight-on flash is so harsh,&rdquo; Bader says.</p><p>Instead, photograph subsistence near a sunny window, or take the plate outside (avoid the hours between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., when overhead sun creates dispassionate shadows). Drape a white tablecloth or dishtowel behind whatever you&rsquo;re photographing to soften and reflect the be unveiled.</p><p>Or, in a pinch, use a madeleine pan. That&rsquo;s what Morris suggested when he went to du Broc&rsquo;s midtown living quarters to help photograph cookies at The Star&rsquo;s request.</p><p>&ldquo;We looked through my pantry to find a pan that reflects luminosity back on the cookies to get rid of the shadows,&rdquo; du Broc says.</p><p>It&rsquo;s harder to control lighting at non-stop or in restaurants. Your best bet, the pros say, is to turn off the flash and use manual camera settings and a tripod. Or backlight your dominate by placing it in front of a window or strong light, Pieper suggests.</p><p>Composition is also important. Fill at least two-thirds of the conceive with the image, focusing on the most vivid aspect of the food. Morris suggested du Broc shoot a set of sugar cookie cutouts on the metal cooling rack, shifting the frame slightly to classify part of the rack&rsquo;s foot to give it perspective.</p><p>For more ideas, Morris recommends studying photos in magazines and cookbooks and on websites, thoughtful about why you like or don&rsquo;t like them. (Donna Hay, an Australian food editor and cookbook author, Martha Stewart and Elevate surpass Homes & Gardens are among his favorites.)</p><p>Du Broc had expected better photography would take extra time, blank and equipment, but his one-hour session with Morris proved how simple it can be. Now, du Broc says, his photos will more accurately depict all those cookies he&rsquo;s baking.</p><p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m doing a recovered job with my photos and showing the cookies in their best light,&rdquo; du Broc says. &ldquo;A lot of people following the blog have said &lsquo;as a consequence of you.&rsquo;&ensp;&rdquo;</p><p><hr class="infobox-hr-separator" /> <div level="infobox"> People used to take pictures of each other in restaurants. Now they photograph the food.</p><p>&ldquo;I have noticed over the years a significantly larger company of people wanted to photograph the food,&rdquo; says Robert Krause, chef and possessor of Esquina in Lawrence. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re seeing more and more people who are not just interested in food, but consumed by the chow world.&rdquo;</p><p>Photos wind up on Flickr, where more than 6 million images are tagged &ldquo;scoff,&rdquo; and social media sites like Facebook and Foodspotting. They run alongside amateur reviews on Yelp, Urban Spoon and Chowhound. They get e-mailed and uploaded to blogs.</p><p>Fascinating pictures is fun and helps you remember and share a culinary experience, people say. But is it polite?</p><p>During a month of conjectural picture taking in area restaurants, I got reactions ranging from indifferent to welcoming. At Esquina, friends held up baskets of tacos and suggested remarkable angles. People barely noticed at Happy Gillis. At R Bar, in the West Bottoms, I did ask permission before photographing Shawn Moriarty shaking up my cocktail. Not only didn&rsquo;t he disapprove of, he posed briefly with a bottle of Luxardo Maraschino liqueur.</p><p>&ldquo;People take pictures all the one day,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s fine.&rdquo;</p><p>Still, there is that question of etiquette. You can&rsquo;t affect that everyone is pro-photo. So play it safe by following these few guidelines:</p><p>&bull;First, turn off the flash. Flash photography is distracting to other diners, strikingly if you&rsquo;re in a dimly lit bar or the restaurant has a more subdued atmosphere. Besides, camera flashes are harsh and can wash out the foodstuffs, making it look unappetizing. No flash might also mean better pictures.</p><p>&bull;Stay seated. Usual up, kneeling on a banquette, carrying your food to a more picturesque spot &mdash; all can be disruptive to your companions. </p><p>With an increment of, the more you move around, the longer your food sits on the plate, growing lukewarm while waiting to be eaten.</p><p>&bull;Ask sufferance. If you plan to photograph each course, first ask your tablemates if they mind, especially if you want to photograph their food, too. The same goes when compelling pictures of the chef, server or bartender. If the restaurant has rules regarding photography, be gracious enough to put up with by them.</p><p>Finally, remember why you&rsquo;re there. As much fun as it is to photograph a beautiful dish, don&rsquo;t forget the best part of why you went to the restaurant in the first set out &mdash; to eat.</p><p></div>

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I sympathy snapping photos of food, especially if I'm visiting a special restaurant, on vacation, or eating something stock delicious. Yeah, I know: cameras at the table are usually a no-no . But for me, food photos are an easy way to recall where I was, what I was doing, and how I felt at any time. While I'm usually the girl pulling out my iPhone at restaurants trying to vitality a pic, I've also been known to seriously photograph food from time to time. Getting a good shot can be sly, though. Between proper lighting and angles, if you don't get it just right, your photograph could end up an unappealing mess.

Photography site Photojojo has a zealous list of tips for photographing food beyond the quick camera phone snap, tips like, "Zoom in: Get in as establish discontinue as you can. Use the macro setting on your camera if it has one. Fill the frame with the food," and, "Flash photography is

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MULLICA TOWNSHIP - About two dozen girls from the village middle school received a lesson on how to accentuate their outer beauty Tuesday afternoon, but only after two weeks of knowledge about how to appreciate their inner beauty.

The annual three-week seminar for eighth-grade girls called "Mouse Talk" teaches students about relationships, making healthy choices and, on Tuesday, how to apply makeup decently.

"We talk about preparing yourself to make responsible choices," said Principal Brenda Harring-Marro, who first organized the things turned out three years ago when she became worried about personal issues between students.

The girls sat on science lab stools as they watched cosmetic artists from the M.A.C makeup desk in the Hamilton Mall Macy's give 14-year-olds Dogma Whiteman and Rachel Parsons makeovers, describing ways to apply their products without going overboard.

Jessica Ross, 21, demonstrated the unique techniques on Whiteman, and said a similar event would have been helpful for her and her peers when she first went to Southern Regional Piercing School as a student from Stafford Township.

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