As many will know, DM had a mini-series late last year called ‘inappropriate objects in a wine glass’ that many people (Jeanne links to many of the others) progressed over a couple of weeks (including me). Over Christmas, he had a day where he was searching around for inspiration and I suggested this shot – the ultimate Christmas food, sprouts, in that wine glass.

He ignored me and shot the sublime shot of the pestle and mortar that he bought me for Christmas instead. I must say, I thought that shot he did on that day was spectacularly good and I had another ‘depressed’ five minutes as I realised that no matter how hard I try, I’ll never be as good a photographer as he is. But everyone has their strengths and mine are different ones so that’s OK.

I decided to do the shot myself and have spent today thinking about it because I seem to be on a mini-series of my own (completely by accident) of food shots.

So, I’m sitting on the sofa, mulling over my shot, when DM pipes up with ‘I think I’ll do that sprout shot today’. gggggrrrrrrr. I did my best to graciously smile and say ‘excellent idea, I’d thought I might do it but you go ahead’ while thinking ‘drat, there goes my shot’. He’d spotted the bag with a few sprouts left over from Christmas on the work surface in the kitchen and thought ‘what the heck’. Anyway, he conceded to me because he had another idea too.

I found this pretty tricky in as much as controlling the light reflections was hard for a technically incompetent person like me but I got there eventually with the aid of a polarising filter, more backdrop material and a change in angle of camera so some of the reflections were lost. My plan for the next few weeks is to really work hard on the lighting of my subjects to see if I can close the gap between my crummy shots and those of Delia’s photographers. I’m not expecting to get as good as they are but I’m hoping to bring about enough of an improvement to make me feel as though progress is being made. I am feeling buoyed up because after I’d had so much anguish about the difference in quality, David observed that he felt that I was ‘nearly’ there and that there was no reason why I shouldn’t be able to get shots of the quality of the ones in the book with a bit of care and practice. He has given me a real boost because he doesn’t ‘suffer fools gladly’ as they say and he won’t comment unless he thinks something is worthy. So that’s one of my New Year missions (I don’t make resolutions) – to learn from others and to try to put some of the things I learn from them into practice.

By the time I post this photo, the sprouts will have a very limited life remaining – they are going to be eaten tonight, with pies and new potatoes freshly dug from the garden, roasted with rosemary and garlic. Phew – now only a couple of pounds of parsnips to find a use for!!!


A year ago today, I was at WHL watching the Spurs beat the pants off Crystal Palace!