The Jealous Crumpet

A sweet little blog


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Behind the Scene of a Blog Tour #dinehsv

1Y2B57721Last weekend I participated in my 4th food blog tour to celebrate a Restaurant Week.  They are always fun and interesting, so I thought I’d give an inside look of this year’s tour. behind the scenes

The tours actually start out kind of awkward, especially if you don’t know anyone. You’re just eating with a bunch of strangers and though you’ve read their profiles you don’t really know much them. I’m always worried that I’ll do something stupid, because I usually do, this year I misplaced my shoes and may or may not have accidentally mooned someone when a gust of wind caught my skirt. I was fulling immersed in photographing a beautifully plated dish and didn’t pay attention to how windy it was getting. To that person walking by on the sidewalk I’m sorry..  or you’re welcome.

But in the end the bloggers all become fast friends, because we are brought together by food and the experience of eating 3 meals together. In the beginning we are so polite and proper, but by end we are sharing food off each other dishes, recommending places to get good photographs, and laughing and joking with each other.

And it always nice to read each other’s experiences on the blogs afterwards and I recommend you do the same.

Katherine photographing some amazing sides at the Toybox Bistro. Photo on the left courtesy of KatieActually.com

Katherine photographing some amazing sides at the Toybox Bistro. Photo on the left courtesy of KatieActually.com

We also risk life and limb to get a shot. As a photographer you get yourself worked up about ‘finding the right light’ and ‘making sure you captured the ambiance of a place’.  You know that friend that is SO annoying Instagraming every piece of food that goes in their mouth, and then your food, and then the food of the people at the table next to you, well that is child’s play when it comes to a food blogger. I come to a restaurant with a full camera bag, I shoot with a reflector and sometimes a tripod. I climb up on chairs to ‘get the shot’. So obnoxious. The nice things is I am not alone on a food blog tour!

Jennifer photographing at Beignet Cafe. She's a shorty like me so Charles kindly steadied her chair so she didn't die. Worth it though! Her photo is on the left courtesy of SweetTMakesThree.com.

Jennifer photographing at Beignet Cafe. She’s a shorty like me so Charles kindly steadied her chair so she didn’t die. Worth it though! Her photo is on the left courtesy of SweetTMakesThree.com.

It is also nice because you have people who help aka egg you on to do something crazy.

Thank-you to the Huntsville/Madison County Visitor’s Bureau for hosting us and thanking to all the restaurants and bloggers for making it a great experience.

Make sure you check out their blogs!

Katie Actually: http://www.katieactually.com

Charles Hunter III: https://thesaltedtable.com

Jennifer Garvens: http://www.sweettmakesthree.com

Bo Williams: http://bowilliams.com

Stephenie Walker: http://www.rocketcitymom.comsarahDid I get the shot? Yes I did! Thank-you to Charles from TheSaltedTable.com for making sure I didn’t break my neck or really embarrass myself by getting stuck in a chair and having to have firefighters cut me out or some nonsense like that.

Thank-you to Katie for letting me use your shot from KatieActually.com.

Me shooting over the years at blog tours! Thank-you Constance, Sarah and New Market BBQ for taking pics of me.  12


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Hot Dogin’

Hot DoginSeveral month’s ago I photographed hot dogs for the menu board of a new hot dog restaurant, Hot Dogin’.  This week I was invited to Hot Dogin’s grand opening.  I finally got to eat their fare and see my photographs on the menu board!  Yay!  It is always fun to see your work come to fruition. Now OpenThe restaurant is really cool and appropriately decorated in ketchup red and mustard yellow.  There are lots of fun details such as:  red and yellow marbled tables, cute hotdog festooned napkin dispensers, and brightly colored retro seating.  Even the employees match the red/yellow theme.  feature3I brought my husband with me to the opening and he was happy to be able to sample some of the food he’d seen my photographs off.  He rarely gets to sample what I photograph.  feature5

I’m a traditionalist, so I went with the Classic Dog, mustard, ketchup and relish.  Simple, yet delicious.  Olivier went with the Nasty Dog, mustard, chili, cheese and sauerkraut.  Both of us enjoyed our dogs throughly.

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Hot Dogin is located in Madison right next to Publix on 72.  Go check it out and be sure to notice my photos on the menu board!feature7

I know I’ve posted this before, but here is a gif from the shoot.  It is all the steps that go into styling just the Classic Dog.  Don’t even get me started on how many steps the Shonuff Dog had!forever_hotdog

Enjoy!

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How to Style a Hotdog: Illustrated with a gif

forever_hotdog

I recently did a photo shoot for an upcoming hotdog restaurant. The hot dogs when through quite the process of transformations with lighting, positioning, and fixing condiments, which is illustrated in this gif.

Final Product!

Final Product!

After you get your shot, you have to edit. I always struggle with over editing. You want the food to look clean and professional, but still natural.

lightedit


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Awesome Photo Foodies

So I had a contest this week where fellow foodies submitted me their best food photos.  There was some really incredible photographs, and I’ll admit it made me nervous that they’re going to put me out of work.

Here are some of the amazing photographs.

alice amanda ana danny dee Dee2 janie kami mandee mandee2 pierre rebecca rebecca2 ryan ryan2 Screen Shot 2014-08-12 at 4.33.38 PM shannon stephanie