Food0grafia En

Sunday Coffee Breakfast

noreply@blogger.com (Alessandro Guerani) — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 14:30:00 +0000

Sometimes I like to live as it were a romance. This is how I'd like to have my sunday morning breakfast, a nice coffee cup in a Victorian setting.

(Alessandro Guerani is a professional photographer specialized in food shooting. He lives in Bologna, Italy, and is available for assignments to create the images you always craved. Read the "About me" or contact him using the "Mail me" in the blog menu above.)

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Snow and Saba

noreply@blogger.com (Alessandro Guerani) — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 14:30:00 +0000

Speaking with a friend yesterday she told me about her father who prepared a sort of granita with fresh snow and saba.

Do you know what is saba? In Emilia Romagna saba is must cooked to become syrup and was used by farmers as an "affordable" sweetener. Nowadays it is a delicacy not easily found, but that I personally love for its very special flavor that resembles (resembles only) the best balsamic vinegar. Well, I must confess that, after shooting the photo, very few of that spoonful of saba and snow remained ;)

(Alessandro Guerani is a professional photographer specialized in food shooting. He lives in Bologna, Italy, and is available for assignments to create the images you always craved. Read the "About me" or contact him using the "Mail me" in the blog menu above.)

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Would You Like a Cup of Snow?

noreply@blogger.com (Alessandro Guerani) — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 14:30:00 +0000

These days I'm almost segregated at home because the weather and the only ingredient of whom I'm plenty it's snow.

So I had the idea to create an image about the old times where with just some snow and some sweet fruit syrup people prepared tasty desserts.

Forgive me for not showing you the syrup, it's in the milk jug, I did some tests and at the end I preferred to not "contaminate" the soft and pure white of the fresh snow with other colors. The recipe is pretty simple anyway, isn't it?

A little hint, being away from my studio I didn't have my lights with me so I had to shot with just the natural afternoon winter light from the window, but as you can see there wasn't any problem, I just needed a solid tripod.

(Alessandro Guerani is a professional photographer specialized in food shooting. He lives in Bologna, Italy, and is available for assignments to create the images you always craved. Read the "About me" or contact him using the "Mail me" in the blog menu above.)

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Anolini in Brodo

noreply@blogger.com (Alessandro Guerani) — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 14:30:00 +0000

Anolini are meat stuffed fresh pasta dumplings typical of Parma and like almost every other kind of Emilian stuffed fresh pasta are best served with meat stock (usually made with capon meat). So you'll be able to taste properly the real dressing of this dish that is not outside, but the precious stuffing inside.

(Alessandro Guerani is a professional photographer specialized in food shooting. He lives in Bologna, Italy, and is available for assignments to create the images you always craved. Read the "About me" or contact him using the "Mail me" in the blog menu above.)

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February 2012 Desktop Calendar

noreply@blogger.com (Alessandro Guerani) — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 14:30:00 +0000

Sorry for the lack of the calendar in January, but I found myself stuck between holidays and work. For this month I'll try to catch up with a journey through space and time.

The February calendar is in fact inspired by a print of Ichiryusai Hiroshige (not to be confused with the more famous Utagawa Hiroshige), a Japanese artist of the first half of 1800 among the first to be appreciated in the West for his realistic style both in the depiction of landscapes, than in everyday scenes including also a wonderful series about fish fauna.

Food~0~grafia monthly desktop calendar is a wallpaper for your PC screen with a food photo and the calendar of the current month.
To set the image as your desktop click on the link at the end of this post with the image dimensions that suit your PC screen and, after the image will load, right-click on it with your mouse (or press ctrl while clicking for some Mac users) and select "Set as Desktop Background..." (or something similar depending on the web browser you're using).

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(Alessandro Guerani is a professional photographer specialized in food shooting. He lives in Bologna, Italy, and is available for assignments to create the images you always craved. Read the "About me" or contact him using the "Mail me" in the blog menu above.)

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A Country Chapel

noreply@blogger.com (Alessandro Guerani) — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 14:30:00 +0000

Finding old ruined buildings like this, while you travel through the Italian countryside, make you feel a bit sad

It's true that in Italy we have countless ancient buildings and this small country chapel isn't a masterpiece, even if it has been designed with a clean and harmonic neoclassic style, but if one thinks at the money spent on building some modern monstrosities though, some reflections comes to mind.

P.S.: about the shot... no, it's not HDR even if it has been post-processed to get the look I wanted.

(Alessandro Guerani is a professional photographer specialized in food shooting. He lives in Bologna, Italy, and is available for assignments to create the images you always craved. Read the "About me" or contact him using the "Mail me" in the blog menu above.)

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Carnival Treats - Tagliatelle

noreply@blogger.com (Alessandro Guerani) — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 14:30:00 +0000

(Alessandro Guerani is a professional photographer specialized in food shooting. He lives in Bologna, Italy, and is available for assignments to create the images you always craved. Read the "About me" or contact him using the "Mail me" in the blog menu above.)

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Carnival Treats - Lattughe

noreply@blogger.com (Alessandro Guerani) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 14:30:00 +0000

Carnival Treats - Chiacchiere

noreply@blogger.com (Alessandro Guerani) — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 14:30:00 +0000

Carnival Treats - Bugie Baked in the Oven

noreply@blogger.com (Alessandro Guerani) — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 14:30:00 +0000

Carnival Treats - Sfrappole

noreply@blogger.com (Alessandro Guerani) — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 14:30:00 +0000

In about a month Carnival will begin so I want to show you images of some of the most traditional Italian carnival treats.

I'll start with the one typical of my city, Bologna, Sfrappole. They are pretty similar to many other carnival treats, a dough made of flour, sugar, butter and eggs, rolled to a very thin pastry and then fried. Their peculiarity are the extreme thinness of the pastry, the large pieces in which it's cut, and the habit to sprinkle them with confectioner's sugar (a lot of it and I mean lot) just after being fried, so it melts well inside the pastry (we always have a soft spot for healthy food habits here in Bologna LOL).

(Alessandro Guerani is a professional photographer specialized in food shooting. He lives in Bologna, Italy, and is available for assignments to create the images you always craved. Read the "About me" or contact him using the "Mail me" in the blog menu above.)

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Zuppa Imperiale

noreply@blogger.com (Alessandro Guerani) — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 14:30:00 +0000

Today we're returning to my hometown, Bologna. This soup is a traditional winter recipe, often prepared during Christmas, but it can be easily found also outside the Holiday period.

Basically it's a sort of diced omelette, then cooked inside meat stock. A similar recipe could be found into Artusi's cookbook (he named it "Minestra di semolino composta"). You can find a lot of recipe on the net, almost every Bolognese family has its own, a good one can be read on the blog of my friend Sara (aka Fior di Frolla).

(Alessandro Guerani is a professional photographer specialized in food shooting. He lives in Bologna, Italy, and is available for assignments to create the images you always craved. Read the "About me" or contact him using the "Mail me" in the blog menu above.)

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Roccocò

noreply@blogger.com (Alessandro Guerani) — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 14:30:00 +0000

Sorry for my post-festive disappearing but I didn't go on vacation. I was instead pretty busy producing food imagery for a cookbook that will released in the forthcoming months.

So no visit to Cortina with my Porsche for me, damn it, but tinkering with my Hasselblad to portray various recipes including these Rococò, typical Neapolitan cookies which, I admit, I did not know before.

They are, as you can see, donut-shaped cookies with a hard pastry that contains almonds, candied fruit and spices, and are strangely similar in flavor to many German cookies (which is not unusual for other traditional Southern Italian cookies). When I say hard pastry, I mean REALLY hard, better you buy some Marsala or other sweet wine to soak them into if you want to taste them properly.

A tech detail, the image above wasn't shot with the Hassy but with a Sinar P equipped with an old Meyer Görlitz lens, the Helioplan 135/4.5.

(Alessandro Guerani is a professional photographer specialized in food shooting. He lives in Bologna, Italy, and is available for assignments to create the images you always craved. Read the "About me" or contact him using the "Mail me" in the blog menu above.)

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The Holidays They Are a-Ending

noreply@blogger.com (Alessandro Guerani) — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 14:30:00 +0000

Happy New Year 2012!

noreply@blogger.com (Alessandro Guerani) — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 14:30:00 +0000

I wish a great 2012 to all of you and also to the ones whom will find this blog in the forthcoming year. Be the new year a special one!

(Alessandro Guerani is a professional photographer specialized in food shooting. He lives in Bologna, Italy, and is available for assignments to create the images you always craved. Read the "About me" or contact him using the "Mail me" in the blog menu above.)

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Leafing through Saveur

noreply@blogger.com (Alessandro Guerani) — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 14:30:00 +0000

We must admit it. The iPad is friggin' cool to read magazines. So, taking advantage of the Christmas break, I finally had time to use it adeguately, downloading some food magazines unavailable in Italy in their paper version.

So while I was leafing through the November and December issues of Saveur, one of the best food magazines in the U.S., I found myself within its pages. There it is, the Barilla ad campaign about the new sauces for the US market that I shot this year in May.

Revising your own work after months is always problematic. How the ad has been laid out and formatted? Do the images suit well with the style of the medium where they are published? As you could have guessed, I am always very critical about my work (in addition to being a grumpy perfectionist as said by some people who worked with me).

I have to say instead that looking at these ads I found them very well "balanced" within the style of the magazine and the other images contained therein. The client requirement was to have food images in a traditional style, but at the same time with a modern and "organic" twist, very different from the usual "commercial look" which is pretty fake, and even less appetizing (at least for my taste). So using the "real" sauce and very few photoshop (just for some unruly stain and for the contrast) was paramount.
I wish I could buy these sauces with the iPad too, the few I had in my studio were soon looted by my friends because they are really good tasting (that's about the prejudices against canned goods for the US market).

(Alessandro Guerani is a professional photographer specialized in food shooting. He lives in Bologna, Italy, and is available for assignments to create the images you always craved. Read the "About me" or contact him using the "Mail me" in the blog menu above.)

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Merry Xmas! (day 6)

noreply@blogger.com (Alessandro Guerani) — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 15:30:00 +0000

B eing on the Eve I'm allowed now to say: Merry Xmas Everyone!

(Alessandro Guerani is a professional photographer specialized in food shooting. He lives in Bologna, Italy, and is available for assignments to create the images you always craved. Read the "About me" or contact him using the "Mail me" in the blog menu above.)

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Merry Xmas! (day 5)

noreply@blogger.com (Alessandro Guerani) — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 14:30:00 +0000

Merry Xmas! (day 4)

noreply@blogger.com (Alessandro Guerani) — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 14:30:00 +0000

Merry Xmas! (day 3)

noreply@blogger.com (Alessandro Guerani) — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 14:30:00 +0000

Merry Xmas! (day 2)

noreply@blogger.com (Alessandro Guerani) — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 14:30:00 +0000

Merry Xmas! (day 1)

noreply@blogger.com (Alessandro Guerani) — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 14:30:00 +0000

One image per day will bring us to Christmas Eve. This is my way tio wish you all Happy Holydays!

(Alessandro Guerani is a professional photographer specialized in food shooting. He lives in Bologna, Italy, and is available for assignments to create the images you always craved. Read the "About me" or contact him using the "Mail me" in the blog menu above.)

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Fresh Salami - Cotechino

noreply@blogger.com (Alessandro Guerani) — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 14:30:00 +0000

To end this series about Emilian fresh salami the most common one was missing: cotechino.

Close relative of Zampone it shares with the it both the area of origin, Modena, and the dough. The only real difference are the container, in this case, the guts, its size, slightly smaller, and the area of production that today goes from Cremona to Marche.

The cooking is almost similar: instead to soak it for several hours you must pierce cotechino with a fork before cooking that, just like salame da sugo, must be done without it touching the walls of the pot. It is usually served with lentils that are boiled and flavored using a little of cotechino cooking water and, if desired, a little tomato sauce.

(Alessandro Guerani is a professional photographer specialized in food shooting. He lives in Bologna, Italy, and is available for assignments to create the images you always craved. Read the "About me" or contact him using the "Mail me" in the blog menu above.)

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Fresh Salami - Zampone from Modena

noreply@blogger.com (Alessandro Guerani) — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 14:30:00 +0000

For non-Emilian people Zampone can worry with its appearance. To those like me, who were born among these flavors (even though it is actually a specialty of our hated cousins from Modena), seeing this pink marvel make the stomach groans with hunger.

Zampone of Modena, despite the appearance, is actually a sausage made with pork rind and minced meat (cheek, head, throat, shoulder), salted and spiced and inserted into the skin of the foreleg of the pig, clean, tanned, defatted , with its complete phalanxes and tied at the top.

Tradition says that it was invented in the sixteenth century by the inhabitants of Mirandola, a town near Modena, when, under siege by the troops of the Pope, butchered pigs to prevent them from falling into enemy hands, and in order to preserve their meat they used the legs of the animals themselves. I prepared it by soaking it the night before and then cook for four canonical hours over low heat in a long pan (there are also special pans for cooking Zampone). As a side dish I used the scarcely known grass peas that blend well with the fat meat of Zampone.

(Alessandro Guerani is a professional photographer specialized in food shooting. He lives in Bologna, Italy, and is available for assignments to create the images you always craved. Read the "About me" or contact him using the "Mail me" in the blog menu above.)

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Fresh Salami - Salama da Sugo from Ferrara (part II)

noreply@blogger.com (Alessandro Guerani) — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 14:30:00 +0000

Considered the many admirers (I did not expect so many of them!) I must show Salama da Sugo in action. Here it is accompanied by the classic potato purée.

The traditional way to eat Salama is, after being cooked, to open its top and pull the inside with a spoon and then serve it into dishes ... ok, actually we squabble to empty it as quickly as possible and consolidated friendships have been broken by duels to the last spoonful!

But how do you cook it? You soak Salama in water about 6 hours before, usually in the same pot where you'll cook then. Then cook for about four hours over low heat pay attention that the sausage doesn't touch the walls of the pot: use a spoon to keep it raised from the bottom, as shown in the photo below.