via mashable.com
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Free Zappos VIP Membership (Guaranteed Free Overnight Shipping for Life)
Click here to sign up for Zappos VIP free overnight shipping.
Offer ends Friday, November 26, day after Thanksgiving.
Free Zappos VIP membership is back! Sign up by Friday November 26 to get free overnight shipping on all your Zappos orders.
The last time they offered this "free Zappos VIP membership" opportunity was three months ago, in late August 2010. Before that previous offer it was December 2009, a gap of almost 9 months!
Zappos VIP membership is a lifetime membership that gives you free overnight shipping on all of your orders. Zappos is known for surprisingly fast shipping, sometimes overnight shipping even when you didn't pay for it, but with the Zappos VIP membership, its nice to know that you'll get free overnight shipping every single time. And remember, Zappos offers free return shipping on all their orders, too.
via dealzon.com
Thursday, November 18, 2010
How To Turn A McRib Into A Hawaiian Thanksgiving
With only a couple weeks to go before the McRib disappears into obscurity again, true fans of the pork-ish McDonald's sandwich are trying to get their fill. And now, thanks to Erik Trinidad, the mad genius behind Fancy Fast Food, they can even enjoy their favorite treat on Thanksgiving.
Starting with one McRib (extra onions), a Filet-O-Fish, two side salads, a large fry and a McCafe Wild Berry Smoothie, Trinidad crafts his takes on Kalua pig, lomi-lomi salmon and poi.
The recipe requires slicing and trimming of the McRib meat (after the sauce is rinsed off), trimming off all the breading from the Filet and mixing it with the McRib onions and tomatoes from the salads, and pureeing the fries -- with a hint of Wild Berry Smoothie -- into a starchy concoction.
So it certainly looks a lot more like restaurant food than it did when it started -- after all, the site's motto is, "Yeah, it's still bad for you -- But see how good it can look!" -- but how does it taste?
Consumerist talked to Mr. Trinidad about his latest creation to see how things turned out:
“The "Kalua pig" out of McRib pretty much tasted like a McRib, sans barbecue sauce. The lomi-lomi-o-fish was actually pretty good; the blend of vegetables from the side salad and the non-breaded fish made it taste pretty legit. The McPoi out of mashed fries and some berry smoothie was pretty disgusting; in fact, every time I mash up french fries into a potatoey mush, it's pretty vile, whether it's faux Hawaiian or not.”Speaking of his other creations, over at WomansDay.com, they have a round-up of their faves from the site, including Spicy Chicken Sushi (made from Popeyes), the Wendy's Napoleon and the Taco Bellini.
via consumerist.com
$399 iPads, fondue sets appearing at TJ Maxx locations across the country -- Engadget
$399 iPads, fondue sets appearing at TJ Maxx locations across the country
Sure, we know where you guys go when you're near a strip mall and have to pick up an irregularly sized Tommy Hilfiger shirt, or when you run out of Paco Rabanne cologne before a hot date, but we definitely did a double take when our tipster Aaron sent us these pics he took of a 16GB WiFi iPad that he found at a TJ Maxx in Vernon, NY -- and not just because they're going for a relatively reasonable $399. We made a couple phone calls and found some at stores in Ohio and New Jersey (including one who said they were holding their stock back for Black Friday) while we struck out in other parts of the country. Still, if you're looking to drop cash on one of these guys, we'd make a quick call to your local outlet before heading to the Apple Store. And when you're done, don't forget to swing by Half Price Books and pick up a remaindered copy of A Bold Fresh Piece of Humanity by Bill O'Reilly. Get a closer look after the break.
via engadget.com
Looking for an Ipad? Check out your local TJ Maxx
You Can Now Login to MySpace with Facebook
In a move that has been rumored for nearly a year, MySpace is now set to launch the ability for users to login to its service using Facebook.
In a press event this afternoon, the two companies announced an expansion of their existing partnership that puts a connect with Facebook button on the MySpace homepage and enables a wide range of personalization and sharing features on MySpace.
Users who login with Facebook (or connect their existing MySpace account to Facebook) are able to pull in their likes and interests, which makes it easy for them to do things like connect their favorite entertainers. MySpace also has plans to integrate “Like” buttons across the site, meaning MySpace content will start getting shared back to Facebook.
via mashable.com
Space Shuttle Orbiter 1:1 Model for $2,200,000 + pickup
SpaceToys.com offers a Space Shuttle Orbiter 1:1 Scale Replica Model for $2,200,000. Although shipping is the responsibility of the purchaser, that's $26,600,000 below the lowest total price we could find for an actual NASA space shuttle. This non-flying replica does not include an interior.
via dealnews.com
Twitter’s Official Analytics Product Has Arrived
Twitter has started inviting a select group of users to test a new analytics product, Mashable has learned. Such a product has been rumored for some time, and a Twitter executive said earlier this year that Analytics would debut by the end of 2010.
With Twitter Analytics, users will be able to see a plethora of data about their account; for example, information about which tweets are most successful, which tweets caused people to unfollow, and who the most influential users are that reply and retweet their messages.
In the images below, you can see how some of this data is charted. A bar graph over 6-hour increments shows you mentions, follows and unfollows, for example, and you can filter tweets by categories that are defined as “best,” “good,” and “all.”
In what will no doubt come as a blow to the third-party vendors that are already providing similar tools, we’re hearing that the product will be free and that Twitter (
) has no immediate plans to charge.
We’re working to gather more information, but we may hear more about it later this afternoon, when Twitter’s Evan Williams takes the stage at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco. Stay tuned.
via mashable.com
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Deciphering What Your E-Mail Address Says About You
Deciphering What Your E-Mail Address Says About You
NPR - November 17, 2010
We've reported about Facebook's e-mail that's not e-mail, but I wanted to point you to a humorous piece by the Washington Post's Alexandra Petri. In it she deciphers the social significance of different e-mail services. The gist?
You know the old saying: Never trust a man with an @yahoo email address.
Learning that your prospective date still has an Earthlink e-mail is the equivalent of discovering his vestigial tail. E-mail says something about you. It says, "I can be reached here," but, like a physical address, it also carries a certain cachet. Gmail? You're probably reliable and tech-savvy. AOL? You are probably someone's grandmother. @mindspring? You probably live in a box under a bridge.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2010/11/17/131388558/deciphering-what-your-e-mail-address-says-about-you?sc=ipad&f=1019
Sent from my iPad
Friday, November 12, 2010
Make Your Own McRib: Bigger, Better, and Always Available
Last week, McDonald's reintroduced the McRib — its cultish take on a barbecue pork sandwich— to its menu for, as they say, a limited time only. First introduced to the fast-food canon in the early '80s, the McRib fared poorly and was pulled after a few years, only to be brought back every so often to much hype and popular obsession. Even when it's not available, it gets a fair bit of airplay from fans and enemies alike. This little sandwich with just five components — sandwich roll, onions, pickle slices, barbecue sauce, and a single hunk of pork — lands so much attention. And yet it could be so much better! I was inspired to make a superior version right at home.After a quick trip to McD's, I broke the sandwich down. A very standard-issue six-inch white-flour roll with a dusting of cornmeal on top, lightly toasted. A scattering of raw white onion slivers, which add flavor and crunch. Exactly two dill pickle slices — not three, not five, just two. A slathering of sweet, tangy, tomato-based barbecue sauce with hints of smoke, almost St. Louis style. And the heart of the sandwich, a boneless, flavorless pork patty preformed to look sort of rib-ish, with ridges implying a rack of baby backs. (I have to admit that, to its credit, the meat was terrifically moist, which is probably due to the amount of fat in there.)Starting with that fatty cut of pork, I decided to reinterpret the McRib using pork belly, which, over the course of a three-hour braise, turns from a three-pound cut into something like the preformed pork patty's blindingly spectacular cousin. While it cooked, I made a quick pickle and a simple barbecue sauce from scratch, and sliced some red onions — sweeter than the white — to add even more crunch. I stuck with store-bought rolls, but you could easily up the homemade factor and make your own basic white sandwich roll or go really indulgent with a brioche. Sure, it might take a little more time than simply popping down to your local McDonald's for a McRib, but you'll never have to worry about whether it's been taken off the menu.Here's how to make it:
Barbecue Pork Belly Sandwich with Quick Dill Pickles and Red Onions
Serves 2
Ingredients:
2 six-inch white sandwich rolls, split in half
1/2 small red onion, cut into batonsFor the pork belly:
3 lbs. pork belly, trimmed into a 5" x 2.5" rectangle
salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 1/2 tbsp. vegetable oil
2 medium carrots, roughly chopped
2 medium yellow onions, roughly chopped
2 stalks celery, roughly chopped1 bay leaf
3–4 sprigs of fresh thyme
6 cups chicken stock or fresh waterFor the pickles:
4 medium cucumbers, sliced
1 cup kosher salt
2 big pinches pickling spices (coriander seeds, bay leaf, peppercorns, dry mustard seeds, fennel and cumin seeds, cloves)
3 cloves garlic, peeled and smashed
5– 6 sprigs of fresh dill
2 cups water
2 cups white wine vinegar
1/4 cup sugarFor the BBQ sauce:
1 cup ketchup
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
1/8 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 tbsp. yellow mustard
1 1/2 tbsp. onion powder
1 1/2 tbsp. garlic powder
1 tbsp. mesquite liquid smoke
1 1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper1. Preheat oven to 350˚F.
2. Heat a heavy-bottomed, medium-size pot over medium-high heat. Season the pork belly with salt and pepper. Add oil to the pot and sear the pork on each side to a deep golden brown. Transfer pork to a plate and set aside.
3. Remove all but about 1 tablespoon of the fat from the pot. Add the chopped carrots, onions, and celery to the pot and cook, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables begin to soften. Add the bay leaf, thyme, and 2 cups of chicken stock or water. Bring to a boil, then lower heat to a simmer and reduce liquid by about half.
4. Place the pork back in the pot. Add the rest of the chicken stock or water. Bring to a simmer. Cover with a lid, place in the oven on the center rack, and let cook undisturbed for about 3 hours.
5. While the pork belly cooks, make the quick pickles: Cover cucumber slices with the kosher salt, making sure the slices are covered on both sides. Let sit for 30 minutes, then wash the salt off and place cucumber slices in a glass or stainless-steel bowl along with the pickling spices, smashed garlic, and fresh dill sprigs. Combine the water, vinegar, and sugar in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Pour the vinegar mixture over the cucumbers and allow to steep for 30 minutes. Remove the pickles from the bowl and lightly rinse them in water to remove the brine. Put the pickles in the refrigerator.
6. Now it's time for the BBQ sauce: Combine all ingredients in a saucepan over low heat. Bring to a simmer and cook, stirring occasionally, until the sauce coats the back of a spoon.
7. In a nonstick pan, melt a little butter, then add the sandwich rolls. Toast both rolls to a golden brown crust. Set aside.
8. When the pork belly is fork tender, remove it from the oven. With a slotted spatula, carefully remove the pork belly from the pot. In a bowl, combine the pork belly with the BBQ sauce, making sure to cover every inch of the meat. Slather a small amount of sauce on both the tops and bottoms of the sandwich rolls, then place the sauced pork belly on the bottom halves. Add pickles and red onions to each sandwich and cover with the top half of the bun.
Ryan Adams is the blogger behind Nose to Tail at Home, where he's working his way through Fergus Henderson's first book The Whole Beast: Nose to Tail Eating. He lives near Austin, Texas.
via saveur.com
Monday, November 8, 2010
'Enter birthdate' not the Fort Knox of online child locks - CNN.com
(CNN) -- Enter your birthdate on this site to prove that you're over 18: And please be honest, kids.
Is this the best method we can come up with for preventing children from viewing inappropriate online videos?
With the world of video on the Web reaching new audiences thanks to software like Google TV, the whole family now has access to sometimes unrated and unregulated content in the living room, just a few keystrokes away.
And a polarizing California law banning the sale of violent video games to minors is currently being heard by the U.S. Supreme Court. But seemingly little thought has been given recently to regulating how adult-themed content is presented online.
The "enter your birthdate" age-verification system is commonly employed by entertainment companies hosting mature-rated digital videos. Before viewing such a clip, the visitor is asked to input their birth day and year. Of course, the systems have no way of actually ensuring that someone enters his true age.
You'll encounter that screen before watching an episode of the profanity-laden "Louie" on FX Networks' website or before a clip for "Grand Theft Auto" on GameTrailers.com.
Two of the most popular online video sites use a variant of this. YouTube and Hulu require users to login or register an account by providing a birthdate and agreeing to their terms of service documents. (Some legal experts say these agreements wouldn't hold up in court, especially for minors.)
Last week Microsoft enhanced its Xbox Live service's age-verification system, called Family Settings. In addition to game restrictions, Xbox 360 owners can limit the types of downloaded TV shows and movies that can be watched on the system without a passcode.
Sony's PlayStation 3 has settings for restricting which mature-rated games, DVDs and Blu-rays can be played, as well as a lock for the Web browser. (Most new DVD and Blu-ray players offer similar functions.) Sony, which has sold 38 million PlayStation 3 units, doesn't appear to let owners lock content downloaded from Sony's digital store or those manually loaded onto the console.
"We're all doing something similar," Peter Dille, Sony Computer Entertainment of America's vice president of marketing, said of content controls, adding that Sony offers "extensive parental controls."
"We comply with COPA," Dille told CNN recently.
COPA stands for the Child Online Protection Act, a federal law that passed 12 years ago during President Bill Clinton's administration. The legislation provided an early framework for how violent or explicit content should be regulated on the internet.
A response to the unsuccessful Communications Decency Act, COPA would require commercial websites containing material "harmful to minors" to restrict kids from accessing their sites. What constitutes "harmful" isn't entirely clear.
But COPA has been challenged throughout its history for alleged First Amendment violations. Last year the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear appeals, effectively killing the bill.
"To say they [Sony] are complying with COPA is a nonsensical statement," said James Schmidt, one of 15 members on the long-disbanded COPA Commission.
That's because the commission determined that there was no technological means to protect minors online, said Schmidt, a retired professor at San Jose State University. That opinion even took into account the birthdate-input mechanisms in use today.
"The commission's conclusion was that age verification schemes were so patently transparent that they were of no use," Schmidt said. "How long will it take a 13-year-old to figure that out?"
"It's silly," he added. "It's just plain silly."
Like movies, video games are packaged with age-appropriate ratings. A rating of M (Mature) means the game contains content -- language, blood and gore, sexual situations -- that may not be suitable for people younger than 17. Titles rated AO (Adults Only) contain even more graphic content and are intended for gamers 18 and older.
These ratings are determined by Entertainment Software Rating Board, a non-profit that assesses which age groups are suitable audiences for video games. The board promotes a variation of the birthdate system, which it calls "age gates."
These screening tools, displayed before a user can access a video rated Mature or Adults Only, don't specifically say why the site is asking for a birthdate. The idea is to deter children from lying in order to see a video.
The ESRB also asks websites to install a tracking device in a visitor's Web browser to prevent that person from pressing the "back" button and changing their birthdate after being denied access. The board says it will regularly audit sites to ensure that they're complying.
"They hadn't been doing it particularly consistently or up to the standards that the industry has adopted," ESRB President Patricia Vance said of video-game websites. "The internet is an exceedingly difficult medium to regulate. And I think [this rule] is a very responsible approach to that issue."
GameTrailers.com has refused to install a tracking device in browsers. That's in order to protect adults who accidentally enter the wrong birthdate and get locked out, said Shane Satterfield, the site's editor in chief. GameTrailers.com has had an age gate in place since 2006, he said.
"The ESRB wanted to make the barrier a little more extreme than we had wanted to," Satterfield said. "We can't police the internet to make sure they [users] are telling the truth. We can't check their IDs."
Some entertainment sites worry that getting too fancy with age verification mechanisms could frustrate legitimate consumers.
For example, SouthParkStudios.com, which streams full episodes of the irreverent Comedy Central show "South Park," forgoes age verification altogether.
Movie studios are testing systems that require more information, such as the viewer's name, and then checks the entry against government databases.
Representatives for YouTube, Sony, FX Networks and South Park Studios (a subsidiary of MTV Networks Entertainment Group, which also operates GameTrailers.com) didn't return requests for comment. Hulu and a Fox executive declined to comment.
"We can't prevent kids from lying about their age," the ESRB's Vance said. "The important part is that we aren't inappropriately marketing these games to children."
Satterfield said the responsibility of educating children on what types of content are OK to watch lies with the parents. It's a common argument among advocates against proposed legislation to regulate how stores can sell kids violent video games -- such as the current Supreme Court case.
"If you've raised the kid right and your kid knows right from wrong, then your kid does know what an age gate is and that they shouldn't be there," Satterfield said. If sites "put the red flags in place," he said, then kids might think twice about watching things they aren't supposed to.
The COPA Commission, when tasked with recommending online protections more than a decade ago, came to a similar conclusion.
"We believed first and foremost that the responsibility for monitoring access to content on the internet lies with parents and legal guardians," Schmidt said.
via cnn.com
Saturday, November 6, 2010
Article: The 30 CSS Selectors you Must Memorize
The 30 CSS Selectors you Must Memorize
http://net.tutsplus.com/tutorials/html-css-techniques/the-30-css-selectors-you-must-memorize/
http://net.tutsplus.com/tutorials/html-css-techniques/the-30-css-selectors-you-must-memorize/
Friday, November 5, 2010
HOW TO: Calculate the ROI of Your Social Media Campaign
Jamie Turner is the chief content officer of the 60 Second Marketer, the online magazine for BKV Digital and Direct Response. He is also the co-author of “How to Make Money with Social Media” now available at fine bookstores (and a few not-so-fine bookstores) everywhere.
First the bad news: If you’re going to calculate the ROI of your social media campaign, you’re going to have to know math. That may come as a disappointment to people who thought social media was only about accumulating Twitter followers or monitoring Facebook “Likes,” but it’s true. The future of social media is about math, metrics and monetization.
The problem is that most companies aren’t doing an effective job of measuring the value of their social media campaigns. In fact, a recent survey by Econsultancy found that 47% of the companies it surveyed said they were “not able to measure” their campaigns and that “the jury is still out” on the value gained from their social media investment.
If you’re one of the people who isn’t measuring your social media campaigns on an ROI basis, you’re setting yourself up for failure. Here are some tips, advice, and a little bit of simple math to get you on the right path to ROI success.
Understand the Value of Your Social Media Campaign
According to the Direct Marketing Association, if you run a direct response campaign and spend $1, you’ll typically generate $10 or more in return. They know this because they’ve been tracking the transactional data from direct mail, paid search, direct response TV and other campaigns for more than 50 years.
But what if you’re new to social media or new to the world of direct response metrics and don’t have that data or experience? What should you do then?
Fear not. There’s a solution. It involves understanding the 3 categories of social media measurement as well as a simple formula that will help you calculate the ROI of your specific campaign.
The 3 Categories of Social Media Measurement
There are hundreds of different ways to measure social media, which makes it kind of difficult to wrap your mind around. To help with that, social media metrics can be broken down into three different categories.
- Quantitative Metrics: These are the metrics that are data-intensive and number-oriented. You can really get overloaded with different metrics here, so the trick is to pick the key metrics that most influence your business and not get bogged down with the rest. Those metrics might include unique visits, page views, followers, demographics, frequency, bounce rate, length of visit or just about any other metric that’s specifically data-oriented.
- Qualitative Metrics: These are the metrics that have an emotional component to them. For example, if 75% of the people who mention your product online call it “cheap” and only 25% call it “inexpensive,” that’s a qualitative metric that has an impact on your business. There are several companies that provide in-depth analysis of the qualitative metrics online. Some of these include RapLeaf, Nielsen and Adobe Online Marketing Suite.
- ROI Metrics: In the world of social media, all roads should lead to ROI. After all, during business hours, social media isn’t just about being social, is it? We’re doing it to make money. And if you track what percentage of people you converted from a prospect to a customer on your e-commerce site, or how many people you converted from a prospect to a client on your B2B website, then you’ll be able to measure the success of your social media campaign on an ROI basis.
Break Out Your Thinking Caps for Some Math
The most important formula in social media is your Customer Lifetime Value (CLV). In a very basic sense, Customer Lifetime Value is the amount of revenue a customer will bring to your company over the course of their lifetime with your brand.
So, for example, if you’re a lawn care company and you know that a typical customer spends $80 per month with you and that the average customer stays with your company for 3 years, then your Customer Lifetime Value would be $80 x 12 months x 3 years = $2,880.
Once you know your CLV, you can decide how much you’d like to invest to acquire a customer. This is called your Allowable Cost Per Sale. Many people use 10% of their CLV as a starting point for their Allowable Cost Per Sale. In the example above, your CLV is $2,880 and 10% of your CLV is $288, so your Allowable Cost Per Sale is that number: $288.
Putting Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) to Work
To keep things straightforward, let’s assume that the lawn care company relies exclusively on direct mail to acquire new customers. Since a typical response rate for a direct mail piece in the lawn care industry is 0.5%, and since it costs about $1.44 to create and send a direct mail piece, you know that you have to send out 200 direct mail pieces to acquire a new customer. Here’s how the math works out:
- Number of pieces sent: 200
- Cost for printing and postage: $1.44
- Total cost to send 200 pieces: $288
- Response rate: 0.5%
- Customers acquired: 200 pieces mailed x 0.5% response rate = 1 new customer
See how that works? For every $288 spent, the lawn care company gets 1 new customer.
Let’s take it a step further. If you’re a large, national lawn care company, you might spend $2.8 million on your annual direct mail campaign. By using the math above, you know that every year, you’ll gain about 10,000 new customers from your $2.8 million direct mail campaign. (Remember, you’ll also lose thousands of customers each year from ordinary churn, so let’s not all go out and start lawn care companies based on the math above.)
Now, let’s assume that your CFO (or your CEO or CMO) wants to test the validity of a social media campaign. In order to do the test, you might slice off 10% of your $2.8 million direct mail budget and use that for a social media campaign. If you know that your $2.8 million direct mail campaign generates 10,000 new customers, then you also know that 10% of that (or $280,000) should generate about 1,000 new customers via direct mail.
That’s the pivotal number: 1,000 customers. After all, now that you know the math around your direct mail campaign, you’ll understand that your social media campaign has to match that in order to be considered a success.
In other words, you have $288,000 to set up, launch and run a social media campaign that needs to generate 1,000 new customers per year.
What You’ll Need
You’ll need a Facebook Page –- no problem. You’ll want a Twitter page –- again, no problem. And you may want to create a series of videos for a YouTube channel –- a bit of work, but also not a big problem.
You’ll want a mobile application, since prospects and customers are beginning to expect them. And you’ll want to develop a monthly e-newsletter with lawn care tips to stay in front of prospects and new customers. (Yes, I consider e-mail marketing a social media tool.)
The most important part of the campaign, however, is a series of landing pages on your website designed to capture prospects and help convert them into paying customers. The landing pages will be designed specifically around the social media campaign, and they’ll need to have Google Analytics, Eloqua or Adobe Online Marketing Suite installed so that they can track traffic and conversions.
The key point is that all of your social media programs –- Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc. –- should drive people to the landing page on your website where you can convert them from tire kickers (prospects) to paying customers.
Looking at the program outlined above, it’s easy to see how quickly your $288,000 social media budget can get used up by Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, mobile applications, e-newsletters and landing pages on websites. All that said, it’s very realistic to assume that a campaign of that magnitude would generate 1,000 new customers each year. Better still, it may generate 1,100 new customers or even 1,200 new customers.
Remember, all you have to do is to generate 1,001 new customers in order to march into your CFO’s office and show them that social media can provide a positive return-on-investment.
See? Math isn’t that scary after all.
The Bottom Line
We’ve covered a lot of ground here: the three categories of social media measurement and the single most important formula in social media. But the bottom line is that, as businesspeople, we don’t use social media to be social, we use social media to grow our business. And if you use the program outlined above, you’ll be able to prove the value of social media on a campaign-specific, ROI basis.
Good luck. And keep me posted on your success stories. I’d love to hear more about how you’re using social media to grow your sales and revenue in the comments below.
via mashable.com
Monday, November 1, 2010
How to Take Better Food Photos - Budget Travel
Zoom in—way in [SEE THE PHOTO]
There's no such thing as too close. Almost every new digital point-and-shoot offers a macro setting—just look for the small flower icon—which allows you to focus in on even the tiniest details, from herbs sprinkled over pasta to the chunks of rock salt on a pretzel. In cooking, subtle flavor details make the dish; in food photography, subtle visual details make the shot.
Our reader pick: Aubrey Dunnuck, of Bloomington, Ind., says she "took [her] sweet time" capturing the delicate chocolate shavings on her birthday cupcakes, which she photographed on a hotel window ledge during a trip to Chicago.Don't center your subject [SEE THE PHOTO]
You're shooting food—not darts—so instead of adhering to a dull, bull's-eye setup, feel free to knock your subject off-center for variety's sake. An off-kilter composition will instantly improve upon the standard aerial shots that encompass the whole plate.
Our reader pick: Joe Routon, of Haddonfield, N.J., photographed chicken wings and hot sauce at a Mexican restaurant in New Jersey. Joe swears by an artistic concept known as the rule of thirds: placing the central focal point of the image a third of the way down and a third of the way over from the edges of the frame. Moving the dipping sauce from the center to the upper left-hand corner gives the picture added impact, says Joe. (Read our earlier interview with Joe, a longtime myBT contributor, here.)
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Work with the light [SEE THE PHOTO]
Don't knock yourself out trying to get a beautiful shot in a dark restaurant. Natural light is the key to an appetizing photo, so always ask to sit next to the window or, better yet, to sit outside. Oh, and clouds are a good thing. Overcast days create even lighting that diminishes shadows and makes for a softer, prettier image.
Our reader pick: Harry van Gorkum, of Los Angeles, was the first customer of the day at this small waterfront café in the New Zealand village of Motukaraka. He was able to capture the moment without "any lighting, because the clouds made the morning light 'flat.'"Look beyond the plate [SEE THE PHOTO]
Many people get stuck on documenting finished dishes, after the server has brought over the plate. But great food photography can also include the field before the harvest, a charismatic fishmonger, or the aisles of a foreign grocery store.
Our reader pick: Connie Hum, of New York City, was inspired by the bright colors of this scene, which she captured from the second floor of a fruit and vegetable market in Panaji, India. "The woman's red sari is a great contrast to the yellow bananas she's surrounded by," Connie says. "The more something pops, the more interesting it is to look at."Be picky with details [SEE THE PHOTO]
Cropping an image helps show people where to look, which creates a more compelling narrative. A close-up of a grandmother's hands kneading dough or a chef chopping vegetables at the speed of light tells a different story than a full-length portrait.
Our reader pick: Janelle Cole Barry, of San Jose, Calif., took this photo of iced drinks—orange, strawberry, horchata, and alfalfa—in the Mexican town of Guanajuato, but this wasn't her first crack at it. "I originally shot the whole storefront with the person ladling the drinks, but ultimately preferred the close-up of the colorful jars," Janelle says. The cropped frame, she adds, "gives you more of the flavor of being there."Think vertically [SEE THE PHOTO]
Tall foods and drinks, like cocktails, layer cakes, and ice cream cones, allow you to play with different angles to make the food appear more heroic. (Just look at our June cover.)
Our reader pick: Heidi Shaker Luna, of Ladera Ranch, Calif., shot this foamy latte in a café overlooking Prague's Vltava River. "I focused on the latte and let the castle and bridge in the background get slightly out-of-focus to give it a dreamy appearance," she says. We also like the way the layers of the drink mimic the layers created by the café in the foreground, the river in the middle ground, and the castle in the background.ADVERTISEMENT | ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOWEmbrace fuzziness [SEE THE PHOTO]
Resist the urge to make everything in the frame sharp and crisp; a blurry foreground can actually look more artistic. On point-and-shoots, hold down the shutter button halfway to selectively focus on certain parts of the picture. On more advanced cameras, such as digital SLRs, you can adjust your aperture—the pupil-like opening that affects how much light enters the camera.
Our reader pick: John Eiberger, of Chicago, captured this shot of whole fried fish covered in red onions and sliced chiles in Thailand, while working on a study of close-up photography called Inches from Bangkok. He writes, "I'm a big fan of selective focus on one part of a shot with a blurred but busy background—which is easy to find in Thailand!"Clear away the clutter [SEE THE PHOTO]
Move stuff around! Being a great stylist can be almost as important as having the right camera or finding the perfect light. Start with what's on the table and tweak as needed: Move silverware and glasses, turn bottles toward the camera so the viewer can read exactly what you were drinking, and spin the plate so the most important details catch the eye.
Our reader pick: Lynn Farrell, of Scottsdale, Ariz., shot this plate of grilled calamari in a restaurant outside of Mykonos, on a hill overlooking the sea. We love the way this image encapsulates the entire Greek dining experience. From details like the Greek characters on the beer bottle to the rustic paper place mat to the simple garnish, a viewer can instantly get a feel for what it was like to eat an authentic meal in this unfussy restaurant.Capture a lost-in-translation moment [SEE THE PHOTO]
Sometimes, beauty lies not in the photograph's subject itself, but in the anecdote that it encapsulates. Mistranslations on international menus, foreign takes on American classics, like a Russian Coke bottle, and other cultural mix-ups can tell a story that will make you smile long after you return home.
Our reader pick: Wendy Dreaney, of Bremerton, Wash., shot this picture in an outdoor café at the Khan el-Khalili market in Cairo. The focal point isn't a local delicacy, but instead an unruly mop of mint leaves jammed into a Nestlé water bottle next to a mismatched cup and saucer. She writes, "My friend from Georgia asked, in her classic Southern drawl, for a tea with mint, and this is what she got! I thought the presentation was so simple and charming."
Note: This story was accurate when it was published. Please be sure to confirm all rates and details directly with the companies in question before planning your trip.
via budgettravel.com
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