A few posts ago I brought you a peaches and cream pie. Well there is another fruit that works in this pie….
Blueberries. I will get to the recipe in a bit, but first I wanted to talk about color. When I shot this post earlier today, I had envisioned a series that I wanted to do on complimentary colors and foods. Well, now that I am actually sitting down and writing it, things have changed. I just wasn’t happy with what I had originally planned.
So time to start over. Lets start at the beginning. The whole purpose of a photograph is to convey an idea or express and emotion. When a viewer looks at your work, you want them to feel something. It could be happiness, sorrow, humor, grief. There are dozens of emotions to choose from. For me, there is only one. I just want to make you hungry (its in my tag line at the top of the blog) If I have made you hungry when you see my work, then I have done my job.
Color is a huge part of that. When taking pictures of people you have faces, expressions, and interactions with other people to express emotions. Color can actually be distracting and take away from these emotions. Well food is the opposite. Since an eggplant doesn’t smile, talk, or baby eggplant hold hands with papa eggplant, black and white doesn’t look the best for food. YOU NEED COLOR! Color tells you soo much about food. It tells you if it is ripe, how fresh it is, what type of food it is. Looking at a bright vibrant orange, a deep red apple, or a golden crust on a pie can all help you start to salivate. I love the variety of colors you can find in food. I am sure you have come across this, but there are some food color combinations that work better than others. But why?
Well there is a lot of science behind color. When I say a lot, I mean a WHOLE lot of science and math. I could go on about how electro magnetic waves that fall in the range 400 and 700 nano meters are apart of the visible light spectrum and how your eyes interpret these. I could go on about colors spaces like sRGB and Adobe RGB 1998. Lets just say it gets really fascinating (well at least to me) when you start to talk about how computers turn visible light into 1s and 0s and then use pigments and dyes to reproduce those colors. But that is way more than I want to go into for this post. That may come at a later date.
The next post or series of posts ( not sure how many it will be) will concentrate on color theory and how is relates to you composing a food photograph.
For example, the Blue/Purple of the blueberries is complimentary to the yellow background. I will dive much deeper into what complementary colors are later how and why color theory says they work in a later post, but I just wanted to get you thinking about a few things. (by the way, I made the yellow background using tips from this backgrounds post)
Are there certain color combinations that you always go to?
Certain ones you stay away from?
With summer produce in full swing, don’t be afraid to take hold of all the great summer food colors out there!
Here is the recipe.
Blueberries and Cream Pie
9 inch unbaked pie shell (store bought or using your favorite recipe)
3 cups cleaned blueberries
Place pie shell in pan then pour blueberries into shell.
In a separate medium sized bowl, mix the following together.
2/3 cup sugar
4 tbsp flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/2-1 tsp cinnamon
1 cup cream
Pour this mixture over pie. Bake at 400F for 35-40 minutes. Let cool completely. Chill in refrigerator overnight before serving. Best served chilled.
LOL, but I really WANT to see a baby eggplant hold hands with a papa eggplant . . .
? This pie looks amazing, and I love the complimentary colors.
ha ha that would be interesting to see, maybe I can take a picture of that!
This is my first time commenting though I have been following your blog for quite sometime
Just wanted to say thank you for all the wonderful information you provide..it is really eye opening
Well thank you for commenting! So glad to hear you have found my tutorials useful!
Goodness, what i would give to try this right now! Such a beautifully vibrant colour, it looks soso scrummy! Loving the tutorial style posts ?
I can’t wait for the color tutorial. In the meantime, that pie looks incredible. Chalked FULL of blueberries. I love it!!! ?
That pie looks AMAZING and very berry-licious!! Excited for the upcoming color posts!
Thanks Brooke! I am excited about the color posts as well. I have some interesting ideas planned.
Love the photos! The colors look amazing together. Thanks for the info!
Thanks Patricia! Glad you found it helpful!
This looks heavenly. I just made a Blueberry Buckle with streusel on top, and man I love blueberries in desserts. The little blue gems are definitely one of my favorite fruits, (so healthy too!). I bet this pie would be great with a scoop of vanilla ice cream!
I made my first blueberry buckle last week. https://taylortakesataste.com/how-many-ways-can-you-look-at-a-lemon-blueberry-buckle/ Was delicious! Vanilla ice cream is a good suggestion. I will have to try that!
First, I have to tell you I randomly found your website via a twitter search on #foodphotography and am now following you (SEB1119). Next, I got hooked on your 2010 Tailgate stories. I’m a Gamecock, my BF is an LSU grad. We read your LSU post yesterday and cracked up the whole time. The BF can’t stand Saban (shock, I know), so those t-shirts were priceless. BTW, too bad you didn’t get any boudin. That’s some tasty stuff.
You obviously know your stuff when it comes to photography. I’ve bookmarked your site and started practicing. Got some new lights and clicked off a few of some fruit, strawberries, just to see if I was on the right track. I have a long way to go, but am very inspired. Nice work. I dig your style. My next step is to upgrade the camera, but I can’t swing anything in the 4 figure range. Need winning lotto ticket.
Beth, so glad that you found your way over and you enjoyed the tailgate tour. I had a blast at LSU. I heard about boudin, but sadly didn’t find any. Still ate 7 different kind of animals, so that was a success. My brother will be a junior at USC next year so I am potentially going down there for the USC Clemson game. I will be tailgating again this fall so check back for that !
As far as food photography just keep practicing ! If there are anymore topics you want to see let me know! Thanks again for the comment
I’m excited to see this series! I like using pinks/red with greens and white ?
Looks so delicious. I love having pie in the summer. Rhubarb is my favorite. Thanks for including the tips on color, always need a reminder and ideas ?
I love Rhubarb as well! I will definitely have to do something with that. Thanks for the comment!
I’ve just read through all your photo tutes – thank you for sharing. I’d love some tips/hints on getting your workspace (kitchen) lit well enough that you can shoot in process without having to stop work for 5 minutes for every shot. There are some processes that are too time critical to stop and some that really need photos to be properly conveyed.
I would suggest moving your workspace to where there is enough light for you to do these processes. You could also have someone model the processes and you take pictures of them working.
The pie just pops out with the yellow background!
Megan K. says
Hello from Denver, CO! I made this pie yesterday and am eating a piece of it right now! This is my first cream-based pie, and my most successful one! I will be modifying this recipe to add all kinds of fruits (I did add almond and vanilla extract to my pie — GREAT idea)! Thank you sooo much! I was worried about making altitude adjustments, but this pie is literally a dream, I wish I knew how to post the picture I took of it!
Sincerely,
Megan