pjgh's shared items in Google Reader

The Curious Cubic Houses Of Rotterdam

2011-10-28T03:28:34Z

The Cubic Houses are a curious and magnificent architectural wonder located in Rotterdam, Netherlands. They were conceived and constructed by architect Piet Blom in the 1970s. Blom was asked by Rotterdam town planners to solve the dilemma of building houses on top of a pedestrian bridge, and, having built similar houses earlier in another town, Blom chose to repeat the design in Rotterdam.

Structurally, the cubes sit tilted on a hexagonal pole. They are made up of concrete floors, concrete pillars and wooden framing. Inside, the houses are divided into three levels accessed via a narrow staircase. The lower level is a triangular area used as the living room. The middle level houses the sleeping and bathing area, and the highest level is a spare area used either as a second bedroom or another living area. Completing the tilted design, the walls and windows are all angled at 54.7 degrees, providing excellent views of the surrounding area. The only drawback - aside from claustrophobia is that despite a total area of 100 square meters, the angled structure means only a quarter of that space is actually usable.

Aside from the uniqueness of the asymmetrical design, the cubic houses are meant to represent an abstract forest. According to Blom, the triangular top of each individual house is supposed to represent an abstract tree, which, when connected with its neighbor, becomes a sea of trees in a yellow, manufactured forest.

Desert Villa by Uri Cohen Architects

2011-10-24T22:29:27Z

How To Open a Wine Bottle With Your Shoe

2011-10-22T23:53:13Z

Yeah, it's in French, but you will get the general idea should you ever happen to misplace the corkscrew.

Elizabeth Hurley Is A Perfect Woman

2011-10-21T17:40:48Z

Now that she’s engaged once again to some douche who isn’t me, I call dibs on the next one, I’ve kind of lost interest in Elizabeth Hurley. Her gorgeous face, soft skin and incredible MILF body just don’t seem to do it for me any more… Aw who am I kidding? I’m in love with this woman and will be until her age finally catches up to her. Here she is looking as beautiful as ever at some event yesterday. Does the new guy she’s marrying even have his own blog? I DON’T THINK SO!!

Photos: WENN.com

Terrifying

2011-10-20T20:00:00Z

Guest Post: The Five Failings of Paleo

2011-10-20T15:17:37Z

Darrin Carlson

Unless you’ve been living under a 24 Hour Fitness, you’ve probably noticed that this whole Paleo thing is blowing up in a big way.

From the New York Times to ABC Nightline and the Atlantic to Dr. Oz, eating like a caveman has never been more in the public eye, and it shows no sign of slowing down any time soon.

The good news is that meat and eggs are back on the table. The bad news is that, like many other diets, highly-processed stuff is out, as well as less-refined foods such as grains, legumes, and (sometimes) dairy.

I hopped onto the Paleo bandwagon several years ago, before it really started to take off. (As both a health nut and a scientist, it was inevitable that I’d eventually research the diet that humans evolved eating.)

I expected to find something resembling a raw vegan diet based on readings I had done previously when I was a vegetarian, but what I found instead was pro-meat and the easiest diet I had ever followed. It also gave me the best results as far as my health and fitness were concerned. Suffice it to say I am a BIG Paleo fan, and predict it will keep growing for the foreseeable future.

But I’ve got some beefs with it–as I do with every other diet–and it’s time to get a few things off my chest.

Arguments That Hold No Water

First off, there’s a couple of objections that often come up when debating the health merits of replicating our ancestors’s diet:

Cavemen died at 30 years old. Our modern diet allows us to live much longer.
Food was scarce for our ancestors. They had to burn a lot of calories to get relatively low-calorie food.

I’ve addressed both of these claims elsewhere on this site, but here’s a brief refresher.

The idea that our caveman forebears died at a much earlier age than us is undeniable. But of the millions (or billions?) of things that have changed in our lives since then, why give all the credit to diet?

It is far more likely that the unbelievable advances in medicine and medical care are the major causes of our dramatically increased lifespans. Before this technology was available what today are everyday injuries and illnesses would prove fatal… or worse!

And among modern hunter-gatherers, we see that the average lifespan is brought down by factors such as infant mortality, and that those who are lucky enough to avoid the injuries and illnesses so easily cured by modern medicine live to an old age without the “inevitable” mental and physical decline we now take for granted.

That we evolved under mainly famine conditions is a “just-so story” that has no scientific merit. The idea of living off the land horrifies most inhabitants of industrialized societies, which is where this idea originates from. Again, when we look at modern hunter-gatherers, we see that they spend far less time getting food each week than most of us spend at our day jobs.

Humans, like all successful species, have had to weather famine conditions at one point or another. But if this were to have been a permanent environment, we would have either gone extinct or adapted to a different food source. That’s how the brute force of evolution works.

Instead, we are adapted to both times of famine and times of plenty. To claim otherwise would mean that we are an outlier in this sense from the animal kingdom, and would require supporting evidence that is simply not there.

But enough with the lame criticisms of Paleo, let’s move on to the REAL problems.

Fail #1: We Don’t REALLY Know What Our Ancestors Ate

By studying the unique characteristics of the human body, modern hunter-gatherers, and our closest primate relatives, we can figure out with a high degree of accuracy what the diet of our ancestors prior to the advent of agriculture was.

In short, we are best adapted to run on two sources of fuel:

Animal Fat
Plant Starches

Prehistoric humans almost certainly ate a diet high in meat and vegetables, with some eggs, fruit, nuts, and seeds when available. And this is, in basic terms, the kind of diet I think most of us should eat.

But when it comes down to it, we can’t know with 100% accuracy how we ate. We have yet to find a magic phone booth that will transfer us back through time–Bill and Ted notwithstanding–to directly observe how our great-times-450-grandparents lived. Yes, we’ve found animal bones with knife scrape marks on them, and fossilized poop with plant matter, but we’ll never be able to go all National Geographic and directly study our caveman forebears in detail.

Although we clearly couldn’t have eaten dairy, grains, and legumes in large volumes, there is plenty of evidence that some of our ancestors consumed a little bit. It’s hard to believe that they disposed of the mammary glands of female aurochs when modern tribes such as the Hadza characteristically make use of every last bit of the animal.

A recent study has even suggested that we were grinding flour up to 30,000 years ago! (Shock! Horror!)

And if all that wasn’t enough, even if we knew exactly what we ate back then, most of those species of animals and plants likely no longer exist today. They have all almost certainly either:

Gone extinct, or
Drastically changed as the result of domestication.

We might have a pretty good idea of how our ancestors ate, but not a good enough idea to say that all people would be better off if they avoided grains, legumes, and dairy completely. It’s much better to test these types of food out on yourself to see how you do before you decide to completely avoid them.

Fail #2: There Is No ONE Paleo Diet

By the time the Paleolithic era had ended, about 10,000 years ago, humans had already spread across the entire planet. With the exception of some very hard-to-get-to places, we were hanging out everywhere from the frigid arctic to the sweltering tropics and from coastal areas to remote mountaintops.

There is no ONE diet, with strict macronutrient ratios and lists of things not to eat, that could have conceivably sustained the human population at this point. Instead, we would have had to learn how to thrive in environments with vastly different food sources. Some of us would have eaten hardly any plants during our lifetimes, while others would have rarely tasted meat.

Focusing solely on the Paleolithic to analyze the optimal human diet is more than a little bit arbitrary, and is likely to be the result of marketing efforts just as much as science.

Most modern anthropologists agree that the earliest primates ate primarily fruits and insects. The first “true humans” (Homo Habbilis) then started scavenging meat, which allowed us to start standing upright and grow the massive brains that now consume 20% of our energy.

There is no one magic diet for humans.Throughout the history of our species, we have proved ourselves remarkably adept omnivores, thriving off a wide variety of foods.

Fail #3: Yes, We HAVE Evolved Since the Paleolithic

One of the basic tenets of Paleo diets is that our genome is optimally designed to a nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyle, and that evolution moves so slow that it has not been able to evolve to suit our modern environments.

As it turns out, recent scientific evidence suggests that, not only have we been evolving since the advent of agriculture, we are doing so at a rate that is about 100 times greater than during the Paleolithic!

This can be most evident in the physical characteristics of different races. Humans scattered all over the globe and slowly evolved to suit their environments better, and we can now see the vast physical differences that characterize us. For example, those of us who remained in the tropics kept the dark skin that would prevent sunburn while those of us that moved to cooler destinations got paler skin that could more easily synthesize vitamin D from limited sunlight.

One well-studied phenomenon is the pattern of lactose tolerance. Most mammals lose the enzyme necessary to break down the sugar in milk as they grow up, but there is a minority of humans that still produce this enzyme their entire life and are able to consume dairy with no major issues. These people are almost invariably descended from people in chillier climates, where dairy would have been a crucial form of food due to the lack of vegetation.

Although we are very much a product of preagricultural evolutionary forces, the rapid evolution that has occurred since then should not be ignored. From the standpoint of diet, it suggests that many of us, depending on our ethnic roots, should expect to handle the Neolithic foods of dairy, grains, and legumes much more effectively than others.

Fail #4: What Is Natural Is Not Necessarily Optimal

The argument known as the Naturalistic Fallacy states that it is illogical to claim that something is good or right just because it is natural.

In other words, just because we probably didn’t consume very much dairy, grains, and legumes during the bulk of our evolution doesn’t mean they are inherently unhealthy for us.

Similarly, just because we didn’t eat frozen pizza, microwave mac and cheese, and White Castle burgers during our evolution doesn’t mean they are inherently unhealthy to us!

Note that the opposite is not necessarily true. This doesn’t prove that these types of foods ARE inherently healthy. It just means that you need to draw your conclusions from different sources.

It makes a ton of intuitive sense that foods new to our diet are detrimental to our health. But from a scientific perspective, this observation is only the first part of the scientific method: formulating a hypothesis that must then be tested.

Fail #5: Nutritionism Is a Horrible Basis For a Healthy Diet

Perhaps the biggest threat facing Paleo today, the one most likely to get it thrown into the “fad diet bin” by most people, is the insistence of most of its practitioners to justify it on the basis of nutritionism.

In the late 90′s and early 00′s, the Paleo diet was a low-carb, low-fat, and high-protein diet. This has been lovingly labeled the “Faileo” diet by many today due to the incredible difficulty of eating little more than salads and chicken breasts (not to mention the silliness of thinking that our ancestors actually ate like this.)

More recently, Paleo shook off the low-fat title and went strictly low-carb. This is the version of the diet most followed during its current explosion. It has been popularly dubbed as the second coming of Atkins and has been criticized on the same points.

The hypothesis that a traditional diet of meat, vegetables, fruit, eggs, nuts, and seeds causes us to be more healthy and fit meshes perfectly with all observations, but it still needs to be tested in order to meet strict scientific scrutiny.

I hate to break it to you, but our ancestors didn’t eat a strict low-carb diet. The power of Paleo comes from focusing on food quality rather than food quantity.

Most diets attempt to earn their authority by demonizing some nutrient(s) while holding other nutrient(s) up on a pedestal, all the while quoting different scientific studies they claim support their hypothesis. So you’ve got low-carb/high-fat diets, high-fat/low-carb diets, high-polyunsaturated fat/low-saturated fat diets and just about every other combination you can think of. This nutritionism may be a great way to cause a sensation and sell books, but it is a horrible way to create and defend a good diet.

As I have bemoaned before, nutritionism is a very young science and as a result many (if not most) of the findings are inherently flawed and will eventually be superceded by more accurate information. This is similar to how early astronomy viewed the Earth as the center of the world until more rigorous testing found that it orbited the sun, which was a part of the Milky Way Galaxy, which is a tiny part in a much larger universe.

Just as you shouldn’t let observations be the only basis for how you eat, you shouldn’t let scientific studies either. These two things are ultimately most beneficial for separating the wheat from the chaff and doing the most important thing of all: testing things out on yourself to see what works. You should always try things out for yourself–for at least 28 days–to give yourself the best idea of what you should and shouldn’t do in regards to your health and fitness.

The Future of Paleo

So where do I see Paleo going in the future? To be honest, I think it hasn’t even started to peak yet. It seems to be popping up in the media more and more, and lots of regular folk (i.e. non-health nuts) are giving it a shot each and every day.

I see more and more mainstream media attention coming in the future. The bulk of the articles so far have simply derided it for its emphasis on meat, to point and make laugh at the “modern cavemen,” or to compare it disparagingly to the Atkins diet. As more and more people succeed with it, you can expect the media’s view to shift from “look at these silly cavemen killing themselves with arterycloggingsaturatedfat” to “holy hell, look how healthy these people are despite not eating healthywholegrains!”

People will start capitalizing off of it. The bookstores will become flooded with crappy Paleo books (as opposed to the small handful of excellent ones currently available). You’ll see Paleo microwave dinners and supplements start creeping in. But after a certain point the wave will crest and it will no longer be the big thing.

But it won’t die out completely. Like vegetarianism, Paleo is a diet that will be around for a LONG time if for no other reason than that it is fundamentally based on much more than a scattering of half-assed scientific studies.

At the end of the day, I think Paleo is the most intelligent and effective diet that has ever been advocated. Focusing on the types of food that our ancestors evolved on is an excellent hack to making health and fitness as automatic as possible.

On the other hand, I don’t think we should be too hasty to outright hate on all grains, legumes, and dairy products. Although they are far from essential parts of our diet, I think they can still have their place if you go about it intelligently. (Hint: 7-11 servings per day is craziness for almost everyone!)

Although I agree that our modern diet is to blame for the wave of obesity and other diseases of civilization, I think it’s far more likely to be the result of such things as sugar, flour, and highly-processed vegetable oils–the things that NO ONE has eaten in large amounts until relatively recently.

And so, most of the criticism leveled at Paleo-style diets are completely asinine and based on really bad science. Which is not to say that Paleo is above the fray. There are some failings in the ways that Paleo is commonly practiced and justified, but these things likely won’t stop its momentum.

We’re definitely entering the age of Paleo, and despite its problems, I couldn’t be happier.

Darrin Carlson is a blogger at Lean, Mean, Virile Machine - Health and Fitness Hacks for Smart, Busy Men. He's a scientist, food lover, and a neophyte surfer who's learning how to get healthy and strong without spending half his life in the gym or surviving off protein shakes. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry from the University of Minnesota. After working as a chemist in the pharmaceutical industry for several years, he moved out to San Diego and started working as a research associate in the biofuels industry.

1001 Nights House by A-cero, Joaquin Torres Architects

2011-10-20T03:06:22Z

A-cero, Joaquin Torres Architects have sent us their latest work, the 1001 Nights House located in the suburbs of Madrid, Spain.

Description from the architects:

A-cero presents one of its more recent projects in single family properties.

It is a single family house located in a development in the outskirts of Madrid. Over a plot of 7000 m2 the building, with 2100 m2, rises with a high standard design answering the owners’ requirements.

The access, through the development walkway, is placed on a higher level. Here is the property, partially hidden by many curved walls that seem to elevate from some water sheets over a stone covering in white, grey and black shades, placed on purpose as a part of the landscape in this area of the plot. Besides its sculptural features, typical of the A-cero style, this side of the facade expects the integration of the building in the surrounding environment. A wide stone path, with water sheets on both sides, lead us to a huge black glass door that gives us access inside the property. In the garden, following the wishes of the owners, there are palms, pome granate trees and Middle East vegetation.

The rear facade of the house, the most visible, makes the most of the slight slope of the plot, where there is the porch, a pool and the garden. Almost all the views from the different rooms of the property are focused here, as the views of the lakes in the common areas of the development.

All the building is dressed in “black villar granite stone”. In this part of the property big windows, with hidden woodwork, are opened, achieving a lot of light for the inside space. In the porch, the window in the main living room, of 10 meters, is automatically hidden, connecting indoors and outdoors.

The passable area is made of white marble, the vase in the pool of blue gressite. The outside furniture is from the Rest collection by A-cero In.

Visit the A-cero website – here.

Photography by Luis H. Segovia

How this gorgeous 40-year-old concept car predicted the future [Video]

2011-10-19T12:30:00Z

Holden, the Australian-born unit of General Motors, has gone back in time like Doc Brown, restoring its very first concept car — the 1969 Holden Hurricane. Not only does it still look insanely gorgeous over 40 years later, but the advanced technologies it displayed — a rear-view camera, route guidance system and digital instruments — show yet again why GM's down-under division was years ahead of its time. More »

Koziol Cheese Grater

2011-10-18T22:08:27Z

Global Warming Melting Animal Sculptures by Takeshi Kawano

2011-10-14T12:46:59Z

Koziol Cheese Grater

2011-10-12T11:43:03Z

The Koziol Cheese Grater goes about its job with style and charm and little rubbing on the back. You simply move the cheese over this little critter to get the job done, and you can see the smile on this cheese grater and now you're doing a great job.

At Firebox.com

Ai iz de nite who sez Nii.

2011-10-11T19:00:00Z

Ai iz de nite who sez Nii. Bring mei a cheezburger.

at leest u haznt met teh bunneh yet!

LoL by:

ladytimedramon

Picture by: Unknown

Food Photography Basics and Tips - Part 1: Equipment and Operation

2011-10-11T14:00:00Z

We get a lot of questions about our food photography and styling on a pretty regular basis. It's incredibly flattering, actually - because no more than a year ago our photography was nothing to be proud of! After a few months of reading and practicing, our style and quality developed to a point where we were constantly getting questions about our camera gear. To be quite honest, it felt like creating a post like this would be a bit fraudulent of us, as we were still learning the basics. Make no mistake about it, we're still learning every day about how to take worthwhile photos, but we've got a solid year under our belts with our trusty DSLR that we now feel somewhat comfortable to offer up some tips on this whole business of creating food porn.

The camera is no simple tool. There are buttons, lenses, flashes, filters, and all sorts of gizmos available to consumers that can cause more confusion than good. There is a lot of ground to cover when it comes to a primer on food photography and styling, so for part 1, we're going to focus merely on the camera and getting it to work properly.

Camera

The camera is possibly the single most important component of the photography equation. All of the accessories relate to the camera the way 'parts' relate to cars. They all work in unison to help you get where you're going - and some parts work better than others.

Selecting a camera can be tricky, but if you ask yourself some questions before buying, it becomes an easier task. Most of you reading this have some sort of phone that has a camera. This is totally suitable for snapping a quick 'twitpic', but unless you're sporting some serious styling talent, you probably wont achieve the quality you're going for with just an iphone. Operating under the assumption our core audience here is food bloggers and budding food photographers, we're assuming you want to have a camera that will produce high quality images for your website. We haven't taken a close look at the point-and-shoot crop of cameras lately, but even if you get a great one, it's possible you'll outgrow it within a matter of months. And then what? ... off to Craigslist it goes.

So, if you're still in agreement with us, this brings us to you and your DSLR (Digital Single Lens Reflex). A DSLR camera, in plain english, is a high end camera that has the option of interchangeable lenses. There are two fiercely divided camps (ok, not that fiercely divided) of manufacturers ... Canon and Nikon (among others). Both camera companies offer nice cameras with HUGE support in features, lenses, add-on's and the like. However, when push comes to shove, we prefer Canon cameras and equipment. Here's why:

Canon T1i

We personally shoot a Canon T1i, which we bought about a year ago at the time of writing (October, 2011). This camera 'body' is considered to be an entry level model, and was about $500 on Amazon without a lens. (If this makes you cringe, then you might want to sit down when we get to lenses and other gear.)

The T1i body was a great choice for us, because it had a few key features that we were really looking for: high megapixel (image quality) and the ability to shoot HD video in 1080 definition. There are now entry models that shoot even higher image quality, such as the T3i. We know a few bloggers like The Civilized Caveman and The Paleo Parents are shooting this camera with great results!

Higher end models, such as the EOS 7D and 5D, have amazing features (like shooting 4+ images per second, up to 100 photos in a single burst, uber-high megapixel ratings of 20+mp, and ISO sensitivity up to 6400 which can allow you to take photos in near-dark conditions). All of these are worthy features and ones I've wished for from time to time, but they have yet to justify their hefty price tag. We shot our entire cookbook with the T1i, after all. It has its merits!

Lens

Next to the camera body, lens selection is critical with respect to food photography. Unlike the camera body, which has little bearing on what you're shooting, the lens will have a nearly direct impact on your subject. Most cameras come with a simple zoom lens (ours was 18mm - 55mm) that has a decent lens. This "kit" lens often has an aperture of +/- 4.0. Aperture is important when it comes to shooting food, because it will dictate how much bokeh (sexy background blur) your photo has. For instance, an aperture of 10 will have very little background blur. An aperture of 1.8 will have a LOT of background blur and a short DOF (depth of field). The depth of field is the area that is in focus, with respect to it's distance from the camera. Focusing in or out will change the area that is in focus in the frame... it can bring it closer to you or make it further away. You need to choose your aperture wisely, because a shorter DOF is not always good for food photography. This old post of ours is an example of short DOF gone horribly bad. Notice how not enough of the food is in focus in any of these pictures, particularly the last one which was fairly critical in my opinion, and a disappointment.

I read Helene Dujardin's book "From Plate to Pixel" recently, and a lot of her (fabulous) photos are shot with a +/- 3.2 aperture. By the way, her blog is a fantastic source of inspiration to me, and a must-visit site. A lot of cameras can operate in this "f-stop" range, so don't go running out to buy a big-buck lens before playing with your own first.

However, maybe you're a long time shooter and you'd like to step up your game and get a great lens that is specifically geared towards food photography. Let's take a look at a few options:

Canon EF 50mm f/1.8
Read correctly, this is a 50mm fixed focal length lens with a 1.8 aperture. Fixed focal length (also called a Prime lens) means that if you want to change the size of the food you're shooting, it means you need to move relative to the food. If the food needs to be smaller to fit in the frame, you must move the camera further away from the food. This can be a bit of a pain in the butt in a small kitchen. However, there are some very redeeming qualities to a lens like this that would make it attractive for shooting food. To start, the lens is really 'quick' in its interpretation of the subject matter. If, for instance, you're pouring something out and want to catch the liquid in all its glory, you'll want the lens to figure out what is most important VERY QUICKLY. Often, we rookie food photographers (and home cooks) only have one shot to get the photo right. So, a quick lens is a must. It is also sharp, and responds very well to light. To top it all off, you can get this lens (often called a "nifty fifty" for about $100). A light, versatile lens that takes good photos and doesn't cost a bundle. Needless to say, we have one and love it.
Canon EF 50mm f/2.5 compact macro
This is the most-used lens in our camera bag. We shoot 90% of our food photos with this lens. In short: it is our secret weapon (or at least, used to be until about 5 seconds ago). While this lens has a larger f-stop of 2.5, it is vastly 'smarter' when it comes to shooting objects up close. We absolutely love this lens. Also, because it is a compact macro lens, it means that you can get very close to your subject to shoot it. Sometimes we're mere inches away to capture the tiniest details. I have a serious love affair with this lens, and would recommend it to anyone. It comes with a higher price tag of about $280, but is well worth it if you're upping your game in the food blogging world. The beautiful minutiae of food is SO worth it.

[I love this photo of a stuffed medjool date, dusted with pecan meal. This whole blog post, actually, has some really nice macro shots of the food that nicely showcase the capabilities of this lens.]
Canon EF 24-70mm f2.8L
This lens is what many pro photographers consider the 'workhorse' of the Canon line. It is one hell of a good lens. The "L" designation on the lens literally stands for "luxury" as the L series lenses are the absolute top of the line that Canon offers. This glass is crystal clear and sharp from corner to corner. If you see all the photographers on the sideline of an NFL game, you'll see many are using Canon L series telephoto lenses. While we do not own this lens, this is one that Helene uses for her food photography. If that isn't a worthy endorsement, I don't know what is. She is one of the very best food bloggers on the net (and in print, if you ask me). I'm hoping we have a 24-70mm lens in our future. Hey, Santa...?

There are many other great lenses out there. Be sure you fully understand what you're getting into before you click 'buy'. For instance, do NOT buy a Nikkor lens for a Canon camera. Nikon and Canon cameras do not have interchangeable lenses. Check out craigslist for photographers jumping ship from one brand to the other. You can often get great deals on well-cared-for lenses. We also have a 70-250mm lens in our pile of equipment, but it is very rarely used for food photography.

Flash

So, you have a camera and a great lens. Your dish is due to come out of the oven at 7:00 pm. Thats great, except you've run out of daylight for shooting the photo. Daylight is indeed the absolute best (in my opinion) lighting for shooting food photos. In fact, I'm going to dedicate a future installment of Food Photography Basics and Tips to the art of working with natural light. But say you live somewhere like... Pittsburgh.... and natural light isn't always abundant or even available at certain times of the year. Yep, I'm looking at you November, December, and January: I hate you. The sun goes down around 5:00pm here. If you're looking to take good photos of your dinner creations, you better plan to have them ready to shoot by 4:30 at the latest. Not ideal. Therefore, a flash is a good alternative for many folks that have time constraints with their cooking.

Canon Speedlite 430EX II

We use, and love this flash because it offers great control and intelligence. You can adjust the brightness of the flash up or down. A situation that may call for adjusting the flash down would be to decrease the shadowing in a photo (also known as 'filling' the photo). This flash has a swivel head, so you point the flash away from the source of light - out into the room - which allows the light to bounce off of the walls and create a soft fill of light. Here is an example of that in practice:

Other situations may call for filling the photo with more light than would be natural. This isn't often the case with food photography, but we utilized this technique when shooting products for a spread in our book. In this case, we positioned the products under a skylight, on a few pieces of foam core board. The shot itself had great light, but we wanted to 'blow it out' to give it an artistic look. This also helped in that our editing time was significantly decreased because there were fewer seams to photoshop out. Here is the result:

Sometimes we will also cap the flash with a Sto-Fen diffuser for even softer light. For about 10 bucks, its a nice little addition to have in your bag of tricks.

Tripod

A tripod is not always necessary, but we have a travel tripod that is a constant companion in our bag for those times when we could use a steady shot. We will use the tripod if we are shooting in low light with slow shutter speeds (anything under 1/30 sec, for me personally, has the potential to be blurry from an unsteady hand). Sometimes I will overcome this by setting the camera to shutter priority ("Tv" on the camera dial), and will make the other settings such as aperture and ISO to adjust based on the shutter speed. We also use the tripod to shoot a lot of our videos. Having a steady camera for videography is a must.

UV Filter

All of our lenses are protected by a small, clear UV filter at the end. This keeps dust and grit away from the expensive glass lens. For about $15-20 a pop, a clear UV filter is a good investment to protect your glass. When buying, be aware of the size of your lens - they can be different sizes.

Camera Bag

Oh yeah, you'll need something to keep it all in. We have a nice Lowepro shoulder bag, which fits the camera, tripod, and 3 lenses comfortably (not to mention a sto-fen diffuser, an extra battery for the camera, and the wall charger). It is a great investment because everything we need is in one safe, easy to transport case. We love it.

Memory Card

We use a 32GB memory card in our camera. I originally got this because I wanted to capture a long weekend of driving mountain roads in the Smoky Mountains with my dad on our GoPro HD video camera. In our T1i, it will record 15 minutes before passing out, filled to the brim with 30+ gigabytes of video. Thats a heck of a lot of data!

--------------------------------------------

So, did you get all of that? If you're still confused about any of this - check out some of the links below. We've done a lot of reading, and there are plenty of smart people out there that know WAY MORE about cameras and photography than we do. These are just the bare-minimum basics for food blogging.

Additional Resources:

Helene Dujardin (Start here - incredible write up) "Tips on Food Photography"

Smitten Kitchen "Our Approach to Food Photos"

101 Cookbooks "Food Photography Tips"

Matt Amandariz (one of my favorite food photographers) "Notes About Photography"

--------------------------------------------

Our cookbook is due out in 10 days! Order now!

A Few Million Monkeys Finish Recreating Shakespeare's Works

2011-10-09T22:55:00Z

eljefe6a writes "The Million Monkeys project has finished every work of Shakespeare. The last work was The Taming of the Shrew (insert shrewish joke here), which finished on October 6. I give my thoughts on going viral. If this article about going viral goes viral, it will create an infinite loop that will bring about the destruction of the world. The project source is released, too."

Time Photographer Diana Walker's Favorite Shots of Steve Jobs [Mac Blog]

2011-10-06T19:22:06Z

Longtime Time Magazine photographer Diana Walker has shared a few of her favorite photographs of Steve Jobs, and briefly sharing her experiences working with him.

He was so much fun because he was so quick—he was such a fast study. You showed him anything and he could get it in a second. I was always fascinated by his design sense. It was wonderful because he liked my pictures.

In this photo at Jobs' home office in 2004, we can see a model of the then new Power Mac G5 on his desk and a plethora of books, files and knick-knacks on the shelves in the background.

Elizabeth Hurley Can Do A Whole Lot Better

2011-10-06T15:58:36Z

I was very saddened by the news this week that Elizabeth Hurley has decided to get married once again, you’d think she’d learn her lesson, so I thought I’d introduce you to the happy couple. That’s Liz on the right looking as gorgeous as ever, and that’s her new fiancee standing next to her with his tongue hanging out like a caveman about to club her over the head and drag her back into his cave by the hair. We get it douche, you hit the jackpot. Now get out of the shot.

Photos: Fame

Inside every grumpy old cat

2011-10-04T16:00:00Z

Inside every grumpy old cat is a kitten wondering what the hell happened…

but dat duznt mayk dem anee less grumpee.

LoL by:

chriswiththebat

Picture by: levi

Roller Chain Clockworks

2011-10-04T13:00:32Z

Very cool idea from Ponoko seller ticktock showroom, and reasonably priced at $100 US. Could be a fun remake, too, especially if (like me) you’ve been looking for a use for that old piece of motorcycle chain you can’t quite bring yourself to throw out. [via Boing à la Boing]

18 Examples of Amazing Long-Exposure Photography

2011-10-03T17:00:23Z

[ By Steph in Architecture & Design & Graffiti & Drawing. ]

Streaks of light, trailing stars, smoothly swirling water, surreal color gradients and stretched wisps of cloud – all of these effects are possible using a long-duration shutter speed when taking a photograph. Long exposures are created by placing the camera on a tripod and leaving the camera’s shutter open for an extended period of time, which captures the stationary elements of the scene in sharp detail but blurs the elements that move.

STATIC by Maxxsmart

(image via: maxxsmart)

San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge is nearly swallowed up by incoming fog in this incredible long exposure shot captured by Flickr user ‘maxxsmart’, who says, “Though I had a chance to see about 10 strikes throughout the bay, this is the only image I came away with that featured the bridge, fog, lightning, and the bright glow of the moon. There is no digital trickery here…. What you see is what it was. The long exposure enabled me to capture two strikes, and the moon lit the fog blanket perfectly.”

Casa Loma by Paul Bica

(image via: paul dex)

The combination of infrared photography and a long expsure turned Toronto’s Casa Loma into an eerie sight in this daytime shot by Paul Bica.

Kundalini Bonfire by Dennis Calvert

(image via: dennis calvert)

Incredibly surreal, this long exposure photograph by Dennis Calvert also features a technique known a ‘light painting‘, in which artificial light is moved around in the scene during the exposure. An electrical wire taped to a stick, plus a flashlight, achieved this effect – without the need for any digital trickery.

Elakala Waterfalls Swirling Pool

(image via: wikimedia commons)

Water is a common subject for long-exposure photos because leaving the shutter open for a few seconds or even a few minutes highlights the water’s movement, giving it a misty quality. This 30-second shot blurred the waterfall in the background and captured an interesting spinning effect in the foreground as debris made lazy circles in a pool.

Dune Blazers by Alisdair Miller

(image via: 1x.com)

“This was shot just outside Dubai where people gather at the weekend and race up and down this massive dune named ‘Big Red’”, says photographer Alisdair Miller.

Traveling Stars by Dhilung Kirat

(images via: thedreamsky)

A long exposure can capture the movement of the stars in the sky, such as in this photograph of Kalinchowk in Nepal. Photographer Dhilung Kirat used light painting to make it seem as if the tower in the foreground is the source of the light.

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeel! by Guillame Vigoreaux

(image via: 1x.com)

A ferris wheel at a carnival becomes an abstracted shape in this long exposure photograph by Guillame Vigoreaux.

A Haunted Trail by Joshua Debner

(image via: jdebner)

The combination of clouds and stars moving across the sky, placed behind an abandoned home, make this photo by Joshua Debner extra-eerie. “This is around a 30 minute exposure stacked with 1 minute exposures. As you can see it was a little bit of a foggy/cloudy day, but I think it helped make the photo interesting.”

You’re My Boy Blue by Geraint Rowland

(image via: geezaweeza)

Another example of light painting achieves a memorable result with a long exposure and the movement of a flashlight around the scene.

Moonlight Shadow by Paul Bica

(image via: paul dex)

Paul Bica captures wispy-looking clouds as they move across the sky over the North Pacific at Kawailoa Beach in Hawaii.

Pigeon Point Lighthouse by Tyler Westcott

(image via: tylerwestcott.com)

The annual lighting of the Pigeon Point Lighthouse near San Francisco, California was augmented by a particularly foggy night. The individual beams of light cast from the lens stand out clearly in this two-minute exposure by Tyler Westcott.

Niagara Falls by John Ryan

(image via: insight imaging/john ryan)

“I am always looking for ways to shoot something different,” says photographer John Ryan, who took this shot of Niagara Falls. “I had seen so many shots of the falls from the same location, and all were pretty much the same. So going out at 2am, and catching the falls with no light, and pushing a 30sec exposure ending with the result.”

Fira by Night by Ben Heine

(image via: ben heine)

Though slightly digitally altered, this photograph gets most of its ambiance from a long exposure. The city of Fira, which is the capital of the Greek Aegean island Santorini, clings to the volcanic cliffs as stars twinkle in the background.

Fun in Amsterdam by Josef Stuefer

(image via: josef stuefer)

Clearly, carnivals – with their many moving, illuminated attractions – are an ideal subject for long-exposure photography. This one turns a ferris wheel in Amsterdam into an abstract starburst.

Bursting by Julie_Berlin

(image via: julie_berlin)

Colorful fireworks soaring into the sky become long trails of light in this award-winning photo by Flickr user Julie_Berlin.

S-Bend (II) by Te-Wei Liu

(image via: fjny)

Headlights and taillights are drawn out on a serpentine road, captured in Taiwan by Te-Wei Liu.

Untitled by Viernest

(image via: ernest)

An ordinary road suddenly seems like a futuristic Tron-like landscape when photographed in a long exposure from a moving vehicle.

Exploding Christmas Tree by Hartebeest Photography

(image via: hartebeest photography)

It takes a moment to realize that this strange image is actually that of lights on a Christmas tree.

Want More? Click for Great Related Content on WebUrbanist:

House in Paço de Arcos by Jorge Mealha

2011-10-01T23:17:49Z

Jorge Mealha designed this house in Paço de Arcos, Lisbon, Portugal.

Description from the architect:

Located at Alto do Lagoal in Paço de Arcos, a neighborhood of Lisbon facing the
sea, this house has been built on a sloping site and proposes as main strategy an
arrangement of several solids in order to attenuate the overall mass due to the
functional program requested by the client.

This arrangement of different solids and voids, uses large plain surfaces and
some in-between tensioned spaces to let light draw or reflect on the objects,
emphasizing geometry and proposing a changeable reading of form and space
during the day.

Some surfaces, covered by metal screening/shading devices, create large smooth
textured plans on two facades of the house hiding windows and enhancing form,
acting also as a kind of diaphragm device to filter the views between interior and
exterior. Also act as a passive sunshade control between internal and external
spaces.

Some circulations, as the staircase and main corridor are built in white painted
10mm metal sheet slightly detached from the walls, leaving opportunity for light,
caught by the long skylight to pass in between and spread to the lower floors.

The external envelope, a “in situ” concrete structure, integrates a double row
masonry of perforated ceramic blocs as external walls, including inner rigid
thermal insulation panels. External walls finishes are in cement plaster painted.
Windows are in standard natural aluminum color profiles integrating double
thermal glass.

In the interior, the walls main finish is plaster painted in white except in the
bathrooms where the walls are covered in white/grey natural striped marble.
The circulation areas floors, corridors and staircases are in plain or folded 10mm
thickness metal plates, painted with white mate epoxy enamel.

The bedrooms floors are finished in industrial wood parquet whit colorless wax
varnish finish. Social areas are covered with polished white stone and kitchen in
brilliant black ceramic sandstone.

Visit Jorge Mealha’s website – here.

pjgh's shared items in Google Reader

The Curious Cubic Houses Of Rotterdam

Desert Villa by Uri Cohen Architects

How To Open a Wine Bottle With Your Shoe

Elizabeth Hurley Is A Perfect Woman

Terrifying

Guest Post: The Five Failings of Paleo

1001 Nights House by A-cero, Joaquin Torres Architects

How this gorgeous 40-year-old concept car predicted the future [Video]

Koziol Cheese Grater

Global Warming Melting Animal Sculptures by Takeshi Kawano

Koziol Cheese Grater

Ai iz de nite who sez Nii.

Food Photography Basics and Tips - Part 1: Equipment and Operation

A Few Million Monkeys Finish Recreating Shakespeare's Works

Time Photographer Diana Walker's Favorite Shots of Steve Jobs [Mac Blog]

Elizabeth Hurley Can Do A Whole Lot Better

Inside every grumpy old cat

Roller Chain Clockworks

18 Examples of Amazing Long-Exposure Photography

STATIC by Maxxsmart

(image via: maxxsmart)

Casa Loma by Paul Bica

(image via: paul dex)

Kundalini Bonfire by Dennis Calvert

(image via: dennis calvert)

Elakala Waterfalls Swirling Pool

(image via: wikimedia commons)

Dune Blazers by Alisdair Miller

(image via: 1x.com)

Traveling Stars by Dhilung Kirat

(images via: thedreamsky)

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeel! by Guillame Vigoreaux

(image via: 1x.com)

A Haunted Trail by Joshua Debner

(image via: jdebner)

You’re My Boy Blue by Geraint Rowland

(image via: geezaweeza)

Moonlight Shadow by Paul Bica

(image via: paul dex)

Pigeon Point Lighthouse by Tyler Westcott

(image via: tylerwestcott.com)

Niagara Falls by John Ryan

(image via: insight imaging/john ryan)

Fira by Night by Ben Heine

(image via: ben heine)

Fun in Amsterdam by Josef Stuefer

(image via: josef stuefer)

Bursting by Julie_Berlin

(image via: julie_berlin)

S-Bend (II) by Te-Wei Liu

(image via: fjny)

Untitled by Viernest

(image via: ernest)

Exploding Christmas Tree by Hartebeest Photography

(image via: hartebeest photography)

Want More? Click for Great Related Content on WebUrbanist:

Painting with Light: 15 Long-Exposure Light Art Photos

12 Long-Exposure & Time-Lapse Photographers

Amazing Works of Infrared Photography

House in Paço de Arcos by Jorge Mealha