Food for thought or, "Do you want fries with that"?

Freshly dug red new potatoes have a really bright magenta color that I thought might be worthy of at least one photo before they meet their destiny. The bright magenta color that few people ever get to see quickly fades to dull brownish red after the skin has dried for a few hours. I harvested about half a bushel of new potatoes along with a few onions today from our home garden. Our tomatoes will be getting ripe beginning in about a week and continuing through the early summer. This isn't exactly an artistic photograph (I am presently lacking any ideas on creative potato photography), although it does evoke certain yearnings within my being ... such as how I plan to prepare them for consumption.

IN HONOR OF THE LOWLY POTATO

Fry em up with those onions and a couple eggs. Mmmm.

Well, as far as the composition goes, the lighting is a little harsh...looks like either mid day sun or a strong flash. I also think the tater's are a little close to the bottom edge of the shot.

Now as far as the potato's themselves go, I'd recommend cutting them into quarters and letting them simmer in a covered pot -loaded- with butter and lightly covered with dill over a very low flame for a couple of hours (a crock pot would work great too). The onions would certainly add to the culinary "composition" as well .

Peace,
Jim

Walczak Photo wrote in post #5492016
Well, as far as the composition goes, the lighting is a little harsh...looks like either mid day sun or a strong flash. I also think the tater's are a little close to the bottom edge of the shot.

Thank you for the valuable critique information, Jim. I think that I may have made enough photography mistakes to fill a small book about things not to do, but sometimes the "hurry up" syndrome takes control of one's better judgement. The shot was taken a little after 6 PM and some of the spuds in the picture were running late for a meeting with the head chef. The sun was still bright and it was coming from directly over my my head so it was a bit like having a head-on flash. The shooting distance was around 25 feet and the produce was sitting on top of a low retaining wall around the garden. Because of the low sun angle, the shadow of my head was hitting the lower part of the wall which was one reason that led me to crop the bottom where I did. I think that because of the lighting situation with strong sharp shadows, I should have backed off on some of the adjustments in Adobe Camera RAW to reduce some of the contrast. I was using my new macro lens (Canon EF 1200 mm f/2.8) and I don't know if it might have been a contributor to the image looking too sharp with strong contrast.

LeuceDeuce wrote in post #5489084
Fry em up with those onions and a couple eggs. Mmmm.

Walczak Photo wrote in post #5492016
Now as far as the potato's themselves go, I'd recommend cutting them into quarters and letting them simmer in a covered pot -loaded- with butter and lightly covered with dill over a very low flame for a couple of hours (a crock pot would work great too). The onions would certainly add to the culinary "composition" as well .

Peace,
Jim

Thanks for the recipes, Chris and Jim.

Hey Bill,
Next time you get a harvest of these beauties, here's a thought maybe worth playing with...try doing it as an "ad shot". Take a piece of white poster board off in some indirect light, stack the taters on it and shoot them like they were a piece of jewelry with the focus solely on the spuds.

I understand about getting caught up in the heat of the moment...I've blown lots of shots that way myself at places like the zoo and such. Sometimes you just gotta take what you can get. Either way, with a little butter and some sour cream and chives, it's all good .

Peace,
Jim

Baked in the oven with olive oil, garlic, rosemary and cracked black pepper..

I can smell those fresh vegetables from here. I have just finished planting my runner beans, lettuce and tomatos.

I realise now what was missing in my husbands CV. He cannot cook or have any of those cracking ideas you others had. Mind, he is great at muckig out the horses.

I kind of like the way the potatoes seem to "pop out" at me. I think it would make a great glitzy ad. photo, send it to the Idaho chamber of commerce.