Ricotta and white bean salad; Donna Hay remake
Ricotta and white bean salad
I’ve been meaning to try out a few things by replicating an original photo. I’ve done this for the first time last year and was planning to do it every month, but work kind of got in the way of things. I then bumped into the SLW remake group on Flickr and thought I continue where I left of. The other day Christie of Coco Bean and me asked if I thought buying the Donna Hay magazine was worth it…. To which I can only reply with a wholeheartedly; YES! I think the photography is absolutely beautiful as is the styling. I actually took a subscription to this australian magazine and received my first copy last week! Soooo much quicker then trying to find it here in Holland as that is close to impossible. To give an example; I received issue 44 by mail last week and I managed to find issue 42 (the christmas issue) in the store the same week. Just out!!
I picked a recipe that was easy to make and what I could eat for lunch. The original recipe is from issue 42 (that is the christmas issue) and is featured on page 64. My main goal here was to duplicate the lighting and most of the styling. It’s one of the things that I admire about the photographers that are working with Donna Hay; there ability to control the light. This particular image is taken by Chris Court, one of my heroes, styling by Justine Poole. I am actually quite pleased with the end result although the colors of my background was a little more blueish and my bowl and fork are slightly different, but I think I managed to stay quite close to the original!
Donna Hay remake
The colors tend to come out wrong in my scan so believe me if I say that the colors are not too different from eachother! I wanted to light this scene with studioflash as I felt that would give me more control then daylight. I even remember to take a photo of my lighting setup, so here is how it looked in my studio.
Lighting setup for Donna Hay remake
The dish was eaten by the time I remember to take the shot, but the setup is the same. (minus the camera as that is what I had to use to take the photo… 
)I should have lit the scene from the right, but I only noticed that after I was finished so that was a mistake. I made my photo slightly lighter to more resemble the original photo.
In addition to the reflector of foamboard that you see in the photo I also used a bit of mirror to add a tiny bit more light inside the dish. I am quite pleased with the end results. I think it’s a truly great exercise as it forces you to really look at an image and try to define how it is lit. I will try and do this again as I feel it enhances my own skills ultimately by understanding the whole process (including the styling)
After having eaten the ricotta salad, which was delicious by the way; I continued on with styling and making a dish of my own, but I will post about that tomorrow…
Here is the recipe for the ricotta salad!
Ricotta and white bean salad
Yield: 2
Ingredients:
1x400 gr can white (cannellini) beans, rinsed and drained
1 small red onion. thinly sliced
1/4 cup (30g) pitted black olives, halved
1/4 cup flat leaf parsley leaves
1-2 small red chillies, sliced
125 g cherry tomatoes, halved
sea salt and cracked black pepper
100 g fresh ricotta
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 teaspoons red wine vinegar
Directions:
Place the beans, onion, olives, parsley, chilli, tomato, salt and pepper in a bowl and toss gently to combine. Divide between serving plates and top with fresh ricotta. Combine the oil and vinegar and spoon over the salad to serve. Serves 2.
Recipe from Donna Hay magazine
Ricotta salad
Appetizer
Asian
Bread
Breakfast
Desserts & other sweets
Healthy
I perfer your picture. Looks really healthy and tasty.
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Yeah, I agree with Helene, I like your picture more. I’m sure that Ian is going to learn alot from this post. We should be doing something like that, so that I can learn better food styling skills. I am seriously going down the street right now to buy the magazine…
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oh yeah, you should send this post in for magazine Mondays…. it would be perfect.
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Simone (junglefrog) — April 16th, 2009 at 07:53
Thanks for the tip! I just submitted this for magazine mondays…:)
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Hi – thanks for your comment on my blog today. Nice to meet you & adding you to my reader as well.
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I like your remake too! I try remaking pictures once in a while too. Nice way to learn and practice. I’m envious of your gear. I really need some stands and lights but they sure don’t come cheap!
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Simone (junglefrog) — April 16th, 2009 at 07:55
Thanks Maki… Yes, they are not cheap. I’ve acquired most over the years, but I still don’t have everything I want! It never stops really.
Thanks Donalyn!
Thanks Helene! I think my photo just looks better because of the bad quality of the scan though..
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Simone, this salad is a super salad!! I have made the same recipe a couple of times & I loved it! I use sheep ricotta because it has more flavour! MMMMMMMMM..
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He Sophie! That’s a good idea to make it with sheep ricotta! I might try that thanks. It’s indeed delicious and soooo easy to make too!
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You make simple things seem so sophisticated!!!!A great salad and well done with the photography!!!
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a nice blend of colors-nice photo.
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Just happened by your site and I am very impressed. Oh I how wish I could take photos like you – truly gorgeous. And as far as the salads go – I like yours better!
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Wow … that looks just like the magazine! Amazing! And the salad is delish!
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I am new to food photography – I am trying to look at an image and determine the lighting set up used. Your image is wonderful. I cannot tell by the lighting image though, if the light is shor through anything? Some of the shadows look soft to me so I initially thought it was a softbnox… but now I see that there was no softbox. How were you able to achieve such soft lighting – with the white foam board kicking light back in?
Thank you for your insight
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