Don’t Eat Off The Sidewalk!

The last theme (for whatever reason) didn’t do paragraph breaks, so until my attention span gets back from it’s vacation to Bloody Maryville, we will be plain and white.

Today’s post is brought to you by my angry uterus!

I think we really need to start upping our standards on what we post online, guys. I know that not everyone has a great camera, but just because you take a picture doesn’t mean you have to post it. When I take food pictures, I take anywhere from 3-7 pictures so that when I get them on my computer, I can choose which one I think looks best. And you know what? Sometimes they’re all shit. Sometimes they’re all blurry. Out of focus. It was midnight and the lighting in my kitchen was so bad that even photoshop can’t save them. So I just delete them! I have posted some crappy ass pictures in my day, but i’ve learned to just say no to bad food porn. Because then it’s food scat. And no one likes that. This is not two vegans, one cup.

So here are some tips:

1. Camera. You do not need an SLR camera to take nice pictures. Canon Powershots are a pretty good point and shoot, it’s what I had before I got my Rebel. They come in a variety of prices so there’s something for everyone. If you’re stuck with some crappy camera, it’s okay. You can still work with it. Cell phones and webcams should never be used for food porn, though.

No matter what kind of camera you have, it’s important to read through the manual so you know exactly what does what.

The picture on the right was taken with my mother-in-laws 5 megapixel Powershot.

2. Turn your flash off! Flash and food are never a good combination. If it’s day, open some curtains and set your food near the window. If it’s night, turn as many lights on as you can. Use a lamp. Your camera should have special white balance settings for daylight, fluorescent, etc. lighting to keep your photos from coming out yellow.

The photo to the left really didn’t have enough light to look good. I have since stopped taking pictures on my laptop.

3. Macro settings are your friend. There should be a button on your camera with a picture of a tulip on it, that enables you to get super close to your food while still keeping things in focus. It also blurs out the background so there’s more focus on the object you’re photographing. I will never forget the day that I discovered the macro setting. It was one of the happiest days of my life.

4. Steady your camera. Nothing sucks more than having an otherwise good shot be ruined by the shakes. Blurry photos give me a headache, and therefore I hate them the most. I’ve found that the smaller a camera is, the harder it is to steady it because of the (lack of) weight. Cameras that are just a rectangle are the worst, they don’t even give you a handle to hold onto. So you can use a stack of books, hold the camera against your body, or just get a mini tripod! As you can see, they’re generally pretty cheap.

5. Angles. Another reason that I take multiple pictures of food is that sometimes I can’t tell which angle is the best, so I change positions and maybe rotate the plate so when I go to edit them, I can decide which one I like best. I can tell you that the aerial view of your plate is never going to be the best one, though. I mean, think of myspace pictures! Pretend that your food is your face and get creative with the angles so no one notices that your sandwich has a pimple on its chin. So to speak.

Check out the angles on those muffins!

6. When all else fails, photoshop. You don’t have to be great at photoshop to make your photos look better, if anything you can go under image, adjustments, and auto levels and 98% of the time that will fix any color or contrast problems that you’re having.

7. Know when to fold ‘em. Use some common sense! Just because something tastes good, doesn’t mean it looks good. And if it doesn’t look good, just don’t share it. Not everything needs a visual. You can still write about your meal and say, “Unfortunately it doesn’t photograph well.” But if you write the most epic love story about a dish ever and post a crappy photo, eyes will go to the photo first, shrivel up and fall out of their sockets, and then they won’t even be able to read your words. And then they’ll be blind for life. You don’t want to be responsible for that!

See that picture? That should have never seen the light of the internet. It’s dark, kind of out of focus, and just not…good looking.

Anyway, I hope that someone can learn from my half-assed tips. All of the photos I posted are my own, taken with my old Canon Powershot. I went through a lot of trial and error so learn from my mistakes, people! For the good of the food porn community at large.

This is what I ate today.

From the FAQ:

I didn’t get mine!

Two possibilities:

1. The address you have listed in your paypal account isn’t current. Double check before you pay, please! If I send a copy to your old address, I can’t be responsible for that, sorry.

2. Sometimes, the post office sucks and things get lost. If you are worried about your copy getting lost, delivery confirmation and/or insurance is available at extra cost.

No one has ever asked me for insurance or delivery confirmation.  I stopped offering to send out extra issues because people were emailing me after two weeks, and sometimes I would send them a new one and the original would show up anyway, and it costs me money.  Out of 1000 copies, i’ve had about 20-30 people tell me that they didn’t get their copy, and a few of those were people who had it sent to the wrong address.  Since I stopped sending out an extra issues a few months ago, maybe five people have emailed me about not getting them.  Three were like, “Damn, that sucks.”  The other two were not so nice.

Life is a kick in the balls sometimes.  We’re having a fence built, and there’s a stump in the way.  The guy that was going to remove it for $50-60, didn’t show up.  So we had to get some guy to do it at the last minute and he charged me $100.  I knew he was overcharging me just because he could but I didn’t have a whole lot of choice.  And hilariously enough, the guy who didn’t show up?  Called me an hour before the second guy showed up, after ignoring my calls for a week!

Also, last week paypal sent me a ‘reverse transaction’ email to let me know that they had taken $5 from my bank account.  When I called to ask what the hell that meant, they told me that one of my customers had used an empty bank account so they couldn’t get the funds from her.  Four months ago!  So instead of rejecting her payment, they bugged her for a few months and then took the money from me.  How fucked up is that?  But it’s part of their policy, and if I want to use their service I have to put up with it.

So if you didn’t get your zine and you really think that i’m ripping you off and that I sleep in a mattress stuffed with all of the dollar bills i’ve defrauded people out of, you can file a paypal dispute.  You have to file it within 45 days to get a refund, though.  Or you can email me and cuss me out, if it makes you feel better.  Or cuss me out here!

It’s the greatest holiday of the year, zombie day.  When we gather with our families to watch zombie movies and celebrate the greatest zombie of them all:  Jesus.  I walked five miles, hit the jackpot on clearance hippie food, made brunch,  and now i’m watching Dawn of the Dead on the tiny corner of the couch that my dogs aren’t hogging.