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

1×400 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

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.

Ricotta salad

Related Posts:

• White bean salad with bacon and rocket
• Bruschetta with arugulapesto – DHSPC #6
• Sage and prosciutto corn cakes – Donna Hay Styling and photo Challenge #4
• Apple and caramel dumplings, I think
• Donna Hay styling and photography challenge #1