12:10PM 04/21/2010 - A Tableaux of Ramps

Some days I see tableaux. Some days I see boxes with piles. It depends upon where I look and what my eyes (and brain) decide to see. It’s been proven in studies that we see what we want to see, depending upon what our current state of mind is, what we’re looking at and for how long.

There is something called the Feature Integration Theory developed by Anne Treisman. Color, intensity, direction of light, orientation, curvature, line ends and movement are the primary features we search for in a “preattentive stage,” when we are taking in the primitive information, before we actually recognize what it is we’re looking at.

Then we get busy  connecting this primitive information in our brains and recognize the geometric shape of the object in the “focused attention stage.”

Finally, in the “object recognition stage, we connect this information to the higher functioning parts of our brains and identify exactly what it is we’re looking at. I’ve simplified this theory (far be it from me to really explain this further), but it does basically work like this, according to her theory.

When I’m shooting in the market, I stay locked in the preattentive stage (or so I think), looking for information that translates into something I want to process further. The challenge is taking that raw information and processing it in a different perspective. In other words, instead of processing what I see from my eye level, I process the scene from a low, wide angle perspective or a birds eye view without actually having to get down on my knees or up on a ladder. I suspect if you shoot with a camera long enough, the brain begins to connect to the viewfinder or LCD. Even if you’re not looking through it.

I wonder if there’s a theory on that?

12/14/09, 10:14AM Union Square Market - Where's the Purple Broccoli?

Where’s the purple broccoli?

I make my marketing message as clear as possible because I want the attention of the smart, little shops with brilliant creatives who fly under the radar, as well as the equally brilliant big boys. I’d certainly lose the interest of those I wish to work for if I sent out a constant stream of mixed messages. Not an easy task in a competitive industry as this, but probably one of the most important lessons we can learn and a word we know all to well. Focus.

If you want to find your audience, keep your message consistent, your work focused and your vision clear.

2:02PM, 12/28/2009 - Celebration Onion 2010

I bought a dozen onions and brought them into the studio for the usual shoot ‘em and eat ‘em routine. One by one I placed them on set and, one by one, little personalities revealed themselves. These are the year-end onions, the ones that aren’t in the best of shape, but are still worth eating. No longer are the stems green and bright, they’re brown and look more like the ones in the supermarket than the greenmarket, shipped from far away and weeks or months old.

Am I deluded? Onions? Little personalities? Four years of this and still thinking there are little people in there somewhere. Should I make a metaphorical reference to the year passing as layers of an onion and go cliché on everyone?

Too late.

I pay homage to 2009 with this celebration onion. I will cut into it with sharp abandon, and with tears in my eyes, throw the thin slices into a hot frying pan drizzled with sesame oil, sizzling and transforming itself into something sweet, fragrant and appealing. Oh, how 2010 should be so transformed from 2009.

Happy New Year.

10:12AM, 12/14/2009 Rows of Romanesco Broccoli

Swaying like the tops of pine trees blowing in the wind, these end of season romanesco broccoli are actually an edible flower in the Brassica oleracea family (cauliflower, not broccoli!).

Now that the clocks have been set back, I don’t have to get up quite as early to capture the more dramatic early morning light (It’s not like I’ve ever actually gotten up early to shoot these). People keep asking me if I light or arrange the Union Square, Shooting from the Hip photos. The answer is always no. The light and styling of the subject just happen to be that way when I capture the image.

P.S. All my friends have commented that, “Hey, they look like Xmas trees.” Silly me.

2:15PM, 11/23/2009 - Watermelon Radish at Union Square Market

Watermelon radish is a beautiful root vegetable with a magenta to white center that looks like it was made on a spin art machine. Although its nickname is the bleeding heart radish there’s no heartburn here. This radish is sweet, not spicy or bitter, which is a really good reason to try it if you don’t normally like radishes in salads. The watermelon radish is different and worth a try.

Here’s a link to New York Magazine for a Mâche-and-Watermelon-Radish Salad recipe by Akhtar Nawab, formerly of Tom Colicchio’s Craftbar and his own restaurant, Eletteria.

Simply wonderful.

Anthropomorphic Celeriac

I don’t do anything, really. I don’t. I go to the market. I see something interesting. I shoot it. I eat it (this week it was in my salads). I rarely see the “anthro” part until after I’ve finished shooting and have time to review the captures. It’s the limbo of the background isolating the food. We get to study it with no distractions and that’s when it takes on a life of its own.

So why do we see it this way? I suspect that this is just the human brain still relating to the world it lives in the same way it did 50,000 years ago. As early modern humans evolved and needed to explain the world around them and, while in the process of inventing reasons for why things happen like day and night or lightning, did they also look at their relationship with food and give human attributes to those things that abstractly had hair, eyes, hands, etc., as they did with clouds? I think so (but I haven’t done my research here). Somehow this must be embedded in our genes just like smiling.

10:28AM, 11/4/2009 Rose Hips Heart

Occasionally, I’ll mosey over to Wikipedia to gather a little information about something I’ve recently shot and then grab a couple of key words and search for more reliable information. Today’s results were more amusing than usual.

Hmmmm. Fact or Wikipedia fiction? “Rose hips have recently become popular as a healthy treat for pet chinchillas. Chinchillas are unable to manufacture their own Vitamin C, but lack the proper internal organs to process many vitamin-C rich foods. Rose hips provide a sugarless, safe way to increase the Vitamin C intake of chinchillas and guinea pigs.” Now, is that so the chinchillas will make nice shiny fur coats?

Continuing on, “Rose hips are also fed to horses. The dried and powdered form can be fed at a maximum of 1 tablespoon per day to improve coat condition and new hoof growth.” Okay, maybe that’s plausible, but why the dosage? So we do it right?

And then it goes on, “The fine hairs found inside rose hips are used as itching powder” Itching powder? What? No reference to whoopee cushions? And finally, this: “Rose hips can be used to make Palinka, a traditional Hungarian alcoholic beverage.” That’s a traditional fruit brandy produced in Transylvania (no references or links to either, True Blood, The Vampire Dairies or Twilight). Nice, but I looked that up in Wikipedia and there’s no mention of rose hips.

I didn’t search elsewhere today, this was too much fun. Gotta love Wikipedia.

Anyway, we’re deep into fall and this capture was a pleasant surprise. There’s something about that long, bare green stem in the foreground that makes this work. Maybe because it looks like that big vein that real hearts have.

11/6/2009 Brussels Sprouts - Belting out a tune (probably a show tune at that)

Ethel Merman screen capture from YouTube

Standing over three feet tall and looking like Ethel Merman belting out, “No Business Like Show Business,” this stalk had over 70 Sprouts clinging to it. And the leaves at the top? Well that’s just a giant Brussels Sprout, kinda like a head of cabbage, really. And those leaves, they’re about 14 inches across. Huge.

I know a lot of folks hate these, and I really don’t understand why. Sprouts sliced in half and sautéed in olive oil for a few minutes and dusted with pepper and a twist of freshly ground sea salt makes this a wonderful side dish with pasta.

Brussels Sprouts Spine

As a side note, PJ, my studio mate, came in and suggested this would look like a spine if I cut the head off, which I did and, sure enough, it looked like a curved scoliosis spine. But after spending all that time with this stalk on set, I had grown used to that big head of leaves and I couldn’t help but feel it looked a little anemic without it.

BTW, trying to lay out multiple images in WordPress is challenging. There’s not a lot of room for design.

8:43AM, 10/28/2009 Radishes and Carrots

Another shot from last week’s rainy Wednesday.

8:46AM, 10/28/2009 - Accidental Tableaux #2

Last Wednesday it drizzled pretty much all day. A little rain isn’t going to keep me from pulling out my trusty G10 and shooting. Rain brings out deeper tones and saturated colors while giving a specularity to things we normally associate as being visually flat, especially root vegetables which are covered with a dusting of earth. I tried Googling it but I can’t find a scientific explanation for why this is. I know it has something to do with the optical nature of H2O. It must be when light passes through or is reflected off a thin film of water. Let me know if you have the answer.

And, that carrot on the ground? It was out of frame until a group of people passed by and someone kicked it into my field of view. Without that carrot, it’s a different shot.