The Food Porn Laboratory

Spicy “Crack” Krab Cakes from Starry Kitchen

The full title for this post is actually “The Food Porn Laboratory Sponsored by Starry Kitchen featuring Pulitzer Prize Winning LA Times Photographer Kirk McKoy & Award-Winning Photojournalist and Photo Editor Ken Kwok”. Quite a mouth-full. But all true.

Last week my friend Michele sent me an urgent email saying she had read about this photo event in the LA Times and thought it was right up my alley. She included the link to the article. It sounded like fun and something to get me outside my comfort zone, so I called up and registered. Subsequent emails revealed that about 70 people had signed up and we were urged to get there early, as we would be given numbers and be shooting the food in the order of our arrival.

This free event was hosted by Visual Communications, the nation’s premier Asian American Media Arts organization, and was billed as a three-part feast for the senses, one-part photography tutorial and food styling workshop, one-part photo competition and one-part community potluck. Guaranteed to give you multiple foodgasms. The dishes for the photo competition were donated by Starry Kitchen and the owners of that famous underground restaurant, Nguyen and Thi Tran, would be judging and selecting the winning photos. The prizes included the winning photo framed and displayed in Starry Kitchen’s restaurant, website and menu, plus a $20 gift card to Starry Kitchen.

We started off with the potluck, which was set up in the courtyard in front of the Union Center for the Arts Theatre. There was so much good food, I can’t even describe it all. I just remember one guy taking a bite of his Rice Krispie Treat Pop and saying “Who made these? I’m going to marry her.”

We all sat around stuffing our faces and networking. I met one other food blogger and everyone else seemed to be there to learn about photography. At the appointed time, we were called into the basement offices of Visual Communications, where they had set up rows of folding chairs in front of the tables where  Pulitzer Prize Winning LA Times Photographer Kirk McKoy and Award-Winning Photojournalist and Photo Editor Ken Kwok were giving their photography and foodstyling workshop.

Kirk McKoy talked about turning your dish around until the way it looked really appealed to your senses. He had a LED light faced with vellum shining on the hero and placed those nifty silver reflectors around just so. On the opposite end of the table a strobe light was also shining on the dish.

More silver reflectors were used, and Ken Kwok consulted and held the big silver reflector.  Kirk McKoy suggested that if we were in a restaurant and it was dark, that we should take the plate to the nearest window. Or use the light or candle sitting on the table. Or as a last resort, get everyone around to turn on their cell phones and hold the lighted screens near the food while you take the shot.

For this dish, you can see a small compact mirror was used as an option. After the photo competition, we went to the computer center upstairs and uploaded our photos into our own folders. We could choose to enter them into four categories: Most (Food) Pornographic, Best Color, Best Mood, and Best Composition. No Photoshop was allowed. I needed a lot of help with this part as I am MAC-challenged. DSLRs and point-and-shoot cameras were judged separately.

Finally we got into groups of ten according to our arrival numbers, in preparation to go shoot the dishes from Starry Kitchen. I want you to guess who had number one. OCD me, of course. LOL.

The dishes were set up on tables covered with black tablecloths. We had been told we could bring our own props, but I didn’t. In retrospect, I should have brought a white napkin and a knife and fork, at the least. As I said, the room was in the basement and was lit with overhead fluorescent lights. We got two minutes each to shoot 5 dishes (10 minutes total) and only got to choose the first dish. Then the rules were that you had to go on to the next four consecutively numbered dishes. There were actually 10 dishes in all. They blew a whistle every two minutes. I had never been in a photo competition before, especially one that was timed, so it was a very interesting experience. I did ok, I think. At least a couple of my photos turned out.

Thank you Visual Communications, Starry Kitchen, Kirk McKoy and Ken Kwok for a really informative and interesting event. Next time I’m bringing props, you can bet on that. Oh yes.