People and food - a new project

I tend to promote myself as a food photographer to keep things simple, however I have a lot of experience shooting portraits as well. I was excited when I was asked to contribute a day's food photography for a charity cookbook in aid of Surrey Square School in South London. In order that the book would be visually consistent I suggested I be the only photographer on the project. However, I can now admit the real reason was that I was keen to gather together a new body of portrait work on a project I felt passionately about.

The idea behind the book is rather heartwarming. Parents at Surrey Square School were asked what they felt their strengths were. A vast majority lacked confidence in many things, but cooking they identified as something they were good at. The idea of a cookbook was born, which would show off the culinary talents of the school's parents and give everyone something to be proud of. The brief for each parent was to prepare a signature dish or something with a particular story attached to it.

My first shoot was with Nazma, who had had her fourth child eight days previously. I went to her house where she presented the leftovers of a beef curry, which was made in honour of her newborn son. In Bangladeshi culture, she said, it is customary to make a meat based curry for one's friends and family to celebrate a birth. They had in fact made the curry for a party with 350 of their friends and family, so we were rather lucky there were any leftovers!

Below are some of my favourite images from the shoot. I always feel a certain amount of trepidation going on location to shoot as I will not know the lighting, props and decor until I arrive. In this case everything miraculously came together. The daylight was good in Nazma's flat and the blue walls and flowery table cloth all worked out nicely to form a consistent looking set of pictures. Everything was shot in daylight, very simply and very quickly. I got to taste Nazma's delicious curry after the shoot and can verify her cooking is truly something to be proud of.

 

 

All pictures © Charlotte Tolhurst

Sourdough crackers

I am glad to report that my passion for sourdough bread making has continued. So much so that I would say 90% of the time I am eating my own sourdough bread for breakfast (rye with lashings of butter and damson jam) and sometimes for lunch as well. If I'm not eating the bread, then I can almost certainly be found eating sourdough crackers with strong cheese and a flick of chutney. The sourdough crackers have gone down tremendously well with everyone I have shared them with. In fact I have to limit how many I put out as they will all be gone if I turn away. The recipe below makes a large quantity of crackers, say around 30. They do take a while to roll out and bake, I think I have got it down to just over an hour to get through the whole batch of dough. However, they store very well, so it's worth making a batch which should last you at least a month... Well, saying that, if you like them as much as everyone seems to, they may disappear a lot quicker!

Image © Charlotte Tolhurst

Sourdough Crackers as taught to me by Jane Mason, original recipe Helene Johannson from the Brunkebergs Bageri.

500g full fat milk
40g honey
30g rye sourdough starter
500g light rye flour
250g white wheat flour
20g salt
5g bicarb of soda
10g ground fennel (or ginger, cinnamon, cumin, caraway. I use whole fennel seeds)

*Combine ingredients and knead for 10-15 minutes. It will be very sticky so a scraper is recommended.
*Pop the dough in a bowl and cover and let it rest overnight.
*The next day divide the dough into little balls of 50g or so, the size of a ping pong ball.
*Flour the board well with rye flour and roll very thinly into flat rounds or oblongs. Prick liberally with a fork, a pokey swedish rolling pin or, in my case, a meat tenderiser as pictured below.
*Transfer to a baking tray lined with baking paper.
*Spray with water and sprinkle with any of salt, poppy seeds, sesame seeds, cumin seeds, fennel seeds, caraway seeds or dried herbs.
*Bake at 210˚ for 10-12 minutes. Let them cool completely on wire rack.

New year new resolutions

Guess what one of my new year's resolutions is? Yep, to update my blog more, shoot more of my own recipes for it and get tweeting. It occurred to me that I really do cook a fair bit, visit supper clubs and restaurants, attend cooking courses and in the course of all this activity find myself having something to say about things. So, why not write about it. It'll be a good diary for myself of my exploits and hopefully of use to others. So here goes.

Linking up nicely to the idea of new year's resolutions, one of my many 2011 resolutions was to learn how to bake sourdough bread. Come November this had not been ticked off the list. Then I came across Jane Mason's one day sourdough course which happened to be on a Saturday I was free, in November, thus still in time to fulfill my 2011 resolve. I booked it immediately hardly even reading up on what it entailed. In hindsight I suppose it was just meant to be. What a wholly inspiring, fun, carb laden day it was. Here some snaps to give an idea of things.

Not only did we learn how to make rye and wheat sourdough breads and sourdough crackers, Jane had also prepared various breads and cakes to eat during the day and gladly shared each recipe with us as we all scribbled madly in our notebooks. She also made thoroughly sure we all fully comprehended how to refresh our starter and tend to it, or rather not tend to it. Not capable of keeping up household tasks on a regular basis, I was excited to hear her sourdough method does not require laborious daily feeding of your starter. You simply need to remember to wake a portion of it up the day before you want to bake.

Since the course I have been madly baking with varied results. Or rather, myself and my flatmate love what I bake, but others who are more used to white fluffy tasteless loaves, I sense, need to get used to "proper" bread. Loaves are handed over to friends and family with statements like "you know this is better for you?" in the hope this will aid their appreciation. I am glad to report that by Christmas the naysayers had been converted at least in part by my mini rye loaves, which were great sliced thinly topped with smoked salmon and provided great fuel during present opening. Below my spelt and rye sourdough loaves.

Advertising shoots

Over the last couple of years I have started shooting more advertising work. It is very different to shooting editorial where the brief is relatively open. To explain further: with editorial the exact props I use and what angle I shoot at is largely decided on the day by me with the help of the others present (a combination of stylist, home economist, art director, cookery editor etc.). With advertising the visuals, i.e. the props, layout of food and angle, are already 90% locked down and it is then my job to meet these precise expectations of the client...and ideally exceed them!

Below is the work I have done for GSK on their "LOVE" and "Defuse your food" campaigns, quite different to my usual style I think you will agree.

Cook Books

Client: Pulp Media
And finally, I did a project for a publisher who is producing a collection of books with one hundred specialised recipes in each, e.g. 100 asian or 100 tapas recipes. Unfortunately I did not shoot all the recipes for the books as time would not allow for it. The brief was very open so it allowed me to be a bit more creative styling wise and try a few new things. All shots were taken in my new studio in North London where I am just loving the light.

 

 

 

Baby Shower

Client: TBC
 A very good friend of mine asked me to throw a baby shower for her a few months ago. The baby is now born which reminds me of how behind I am with posts! Again, Kate and I made a joint effort out of it and it all looked so pretty we decided it would be a shame not to take a picture of the spread. The shoot would make a good story for a magazine and has not been used anywhere yet, so do get in touch if you know a good outlet for it. Also, myself and Kate are hugely inspired by our shoot and would love to cater another baby shower, so get in touch if you are interested. Here not only the shots, but also a list of Kate's sweet baby inspired creations.

Belle Isle Cookery School

Client: Belle Isle Cookery School
A job in Ireland for a cookery school produced these moody images, which are my favourite dark shots in my career so far. The natural light was great but the combination of the colour of the food and the kitchen surface produced these painterly shots. I have to say a big thank you to my food stylist for these shots as she pointed out the background and suggested we use it. Thanks Kate!

All images © Charlotte Tolhurst

Busy few months

I have had a busy few months hence the new post hiatus. Not complaining, it is great to be busy, but it means blog and tax returns suffer. Here are some of my favourite images from the last few months and some words on the job.

Client: BBC
I shot these images for the BBC for them to use in the branding of their food channels. We shot an enormous amount of shots in one day with the help of a food stylist. I like the way ordinary ingredients become quite beautiful photographed and lit simply like this. They would make great poster prints, even if I say so myself.

All images © Charlotte Tolhurst

Dark and dangerous

The last month I have been shooting nearly every day and it has allowed me to try out some new ideas. One such shoot was with the help of Kate Wesson and her gorgeous prop styling. It really helped create the painterly effect we were striving for. The shots below are from our recipe shoot for Douwe Egberts coffee. The dangerous bit was trying not to eat too much... at which I utterly failed, the coffee ice cream being my downfall as it is made with condensed milk, a real childhood favourite of mine.

Photo © Charlotte Tolhurst

Honey Story

The images below are a magazine commission shot using flash. It was one of those perfect shoots where the food looked great (thanks Felicity) and it was all sweet recipes. I often find sweet recipes the most enjoyable to shoot because they lend themselves so well to being pretty images. I lit them all from above and think this works particularly well for the last two shots as it helps them look deliciously sticky....which they were.

Photo © Charlotte Tolhurst

Photo © Charlotte Tolhurst