Food

Food Photography Tips for Instagram

December 12, 2018

Instagram has quickly taken over as THE social media platform to be on, and it is easy to understand why. Tapping into the millennial’s penchant for photos and live updates, Instagram has grown from a mere photo sharing app to a colossal social giant.

For the field of photography, this is a second lease of life where photographers can showcase their work and build their skills/reputation in a way that was unimaginable until recently. But the best thing about Instagram is that there’s no specific genre that you need to subscribe to. You can post photos/blogs on anything you’re passionate about and like minded people who are interested would congregate around the page.

This is how food photography had burgeoned overnight in a big way. Everybody relishes food, and turns out they all love looking at delicious gourmet as well. To that end we’re lucky enough to have Paul the in-house photography expert from Canvas Factory here to give us some tips on food photography for Instagram.

1. Natural is the way to go

Very few people actually take into consideration that lighting plays as big a role in food photographs as it does on portraits. Indeed, for a beautiful image, you need the right lightning. So try to avoid indoor lighting when possible, as they tend to make your food look flat or give it an unappealing tone.

Try and use natural lightning as much as possible. This means restaurants (though unavoidable for a food blogger) aren’t always the best venue for photos, but cafes can often work well.

2. Apps are the perfect photo hacks

Filters have become ubiquitous with Instagram, and there’s a very good reason for it. While the photos on your iPhone won’t have great sharpness or white balance as one taken by a DSLR, you can still use various filters to make them look amazing. Just be careful with choosing the right filters because you don’t want your food to look pink or green. Use multiple apps like Snapseed to edit the brightness, temperature, horizon of the photo and then add in filters on top of it. Make sure you don’t overdo it because you want your blog to look authentic and not tacky.

3. Reflectors can be handy

While most people can’t take DSLR photos without a reflector, they seem quite content without one when it comes to food photography on their iPhone, which is ludicrous. Reflectors can be as cheap as a foam board, yet it’ll allow you to bounce off the light into the shadows of your frame, and sometimes even diffuse the light. These days they can be acquired at a very cheap price also, so don’t let that hold you back.

4. Everybody loves a story

Food photography isn’t just taking pictures of your afternoon lunch, or sumptuous but meaningless meal. Every photograph needs a story to captivate the audience, so try and construct a story behind it. Whether it’s the chaos of a birthday party, exotic food you’re tasting in a foreign locale or the everyday sweetness of your SO making you breakfast, try and tell a tale that resonates with your fans.

5. Take your time

Even thought it’s just a picture of the food you’re going to eat, and you’re sort of worried of it becoming cold, it’s highly recommended to take your time with the shots. Set them up, and compose each shot; use ideas like rule of thirds or leading lines to serve as inspiration.

6. Shadows aren’t all bad

While natural lightning is amazing, don’t be wary of the shadows either. Shadows can be a significant asset, especially if you use the right app to edit the photos. In fact, with split lightning, your phone could actually meter off the light in the photo, making much easier to bring out the contrast in the pictures.

Culture

Bridal Traditions From Around The World

December 4, 2018

Understanding wedding traditions from across the globe

Wherever you are in the world, marriage will be seen as a special occasion. From country to country though, cultures will have different ways of getting ready for and then actually celebrating two people getting married. Join going out dresses retailer QUIZ as they shine the spotlight on some of the weird yet wonderful wedding traditions from across the globe…

Wedding traditions in China

Wedding traditions will vary from region to region across China simply because of the size of the country. However, each has their own special meaning.

During every day of a month in the run-up to their wedding, Tujia bridges must cry for an hour per day. After the first ten days, the bride’s mother joins her in crying daily before being joined by her grandmother. As the other women join in, it’s seen as an expression of their joy.

Grooms in China’s Yugar culture will actually shoot their brides with a bow and arrow. Thankfully, the arrows are free from their arrowheads! After shooting their bride three times, the arrows are broken, showing that the couple will always love each other.

Then there is the ‘good luck woman’, who will assist the bride in doing her hair while she is getting ready on the day of her wedding. This woman is considered lucky if she has living parents, a spouse and children, and it is hoped she will pass on some of this good fortune to the bride.

The bride will then be collected from her home by the groom. Upon arriving at the bride’s home though, he will be greeted by the bride’s friends, who block his entry into the home (it’s all in good spirits). The groom is required to prove his love for his future wife through answering a series of questions about her or even by offering money in red envelopes to buy his way into the house.

A red dress, or Qi Pao, which is embroidered with gold and silver detailing is traditionally worn by brides across northern China. In southern China, brides wear a two-piece outfit — a Qun Gua, Kwa or Cheongsam — featuring a gold phoenix or dragon detailing.

Once the night of the wedding comes around, the bride is presented with a half-cooked dumpling. This is a signifier of family prosperity, as the word raw is linked to child birth.

Wedding traditions in Germany

There are so many wedding traditions to be aware of in Germany. Many of them start before the big day even begins too. For example, before a future bride-to-be is even engaged, she saves away pennies, which will then be used to purchase her wedding shoes. This tradition is said to help the happy couple get off on the right foot.

Couples in Germany don’t just send out their wedding invites in the post either. They send out a Hochzeitslader, a gentleman dressed in formal, fancy wear complete with ribbons and flowers, to hand-deliver their invitations. Guests accept the invitations by pinning a ribbon from the Hochzeitslader’s outfit onto his hat, before inviting him into their home for a drink. Depending on the guest list, this can take quite some time!

A civil ceremony must also be held by German couples at their town registry office. Then, in the days following, a church ceremony can be held, although this isn’t required. Generally, few guests will attend the civil ceremony and the bride and groom will dress relatively simply.

For German couples planning a church ceremony, a tradition is that a Polterabend is held a few days after the civil ceremony. Believing that negative spirits are attracted to brides, Polterabend takes place to scare them aware. On the night before the church ceremony, the bride and groom gather with their friends and family where they smash china and porcelain. The noise made is said to scare away the spirits, while illustrating that their marriage will never break. Glass is never broken, as this is believed to be bad luck.

Don’t be surprised to see German newlyweds sawing logs after a church service either. A log is set up on a sawhorses and the bride and groom must work together to saw through it, illustrating their teamwork. Instead of confetti, wedding guests throw grains of rice over the bride and groom, with legend being that each grain of rice that lands in the bride’s hair symbolises a future child!

Then there’s the reception. There, the bride’s veil is held up and the bride and groom dance underneath it. When the music stops, single women will tear pieces off the veil. The lady left with the biggest piece is said to be the next to marry. Alternatively, instead of ripping the veil, guests simply throw money into it while it is held up.

Wedding traditions in India

Depending on the region where the ceremony takes place, Indian weddings will differ. As a result, bridal traditions are different too. It’s not uncommon for Indian weddings to take place over several days — different to the couple’s one special day in other countries.

A Mehendi ceremony will be undertaken by the bride in the days leading up to the wedding. This is where family and friends gather to apply the beautifully intricate henna. Tradition says that the deepness of the colour of the henna determines the bond between husband and wife and how well the bride will get along with her mother-in-law. Hidden within the henna are the names of the happy couple and it’s often painted on the palms, hands, forearms and legs.

How about the bride’s outfit? Well, this will again depend on where the bride was born. In some regions, the women will wear a saree (long drape) for her wedding and in others she wears a lehenga (a long skirt). It’s common for the bride to be dressed in red or another bright colour and her clothing is stitched with an outstanding design.

Walking around the fire is a key element of Indian weddings. The marriage becomes official when the bride and groom walk around the fire four times as verses are chanted, and the couple is tied together. The husband and wife then race back to their seats, as the one who sits first is said to be the most dominant.

Wedding traditions in Spain

Traditional Spanish weddings are quite different to those held in the UK too. For example, they don’t include bridesmaids, groomsmen, a maid of honour or best man, and the mother of the groom walks her son down the aisle. Likewise, there are no speeches and wedding rings are worn on the ring finger of the right hand.

Black lace was traditionally used to make both the wedding dress and veil. However, modern times have seen more brides wearing a white lace dress and mantilla, a type of lace headdress. The mantilla is traditionally given by the mother of the bride, who will have it embroidered especially. The mantilla is worn with a peineta — a high comb.

It’s also tradition that a Spanish wedding will get underway in the early evening and then continue into the early hours of the next day. Often, the groom will present his bride with 13 gold coins, each blessed by a priest. This act is said to bring the couple good fortune and symbolise the groom’s commitment to support his bride.

Flowers are a key element to traditional Spanish weddings. In fact, many ceremonies see the orange blossom chosen to symbolise purity. The bride will give a small flower corsage to her girlfriends. If a lady is single, she must wear her corsage upside down and if she loses it during the night, it’s believed that she will be next to be married!

Sources

https://www.thelocal.de/20160613/10-things-you-need-to-know-before-attending-a-german-wedding

https://pairedlife.com/relationships/German-Wedding-Customs

https://www.donquijote.org/spanish-culture/traditions/spanish-weddings/

https://www.countryhouseweddings.co.uk/2017/06/spanish-wedding-traditions/

http://www.chinabridal.com/etiquette/guide.htm

Technology

Email Marketing Tips for Small Businesses

October 22, 2018

By virtue of having a limited budget in a very competitive landscape, small companies do not have access to a plethora of marketing strategies. This is why email marketing is very crucial for such local businesses. It gives them the opportunity to establish long-term success and to reach a great many people with a limited budget.

The following describes some important email marketing tips to improve your business metrics:

Promotions

Fair promotions are always likely to get some traction from the customers. Timely promotions will have a positive influence on sales and create more site traffic. Research has shown that people are interested in hearing about discounts and promotions offered by local businesses and 64% of them prefer to receive such offers via email. Promotions have a high success rate of kick-starting sales growth. For instance, a restaurant could email its subscribers special offers like coupons or lunch discounts.

Easy Subscription

Your customers should not struggle to subscribe to your newsletter. A difficult subscription process will put off many potential customers which will eventually hurt the business’s sales. The sign-up process can be made easier through:

Minimizing the fields on sign-up boxes to make the registration process easier
Including the social share buttons in your emails. This will allow subscribers to share the email content with other people and thus increase your subscribers, as well as, create brand awareness
Add CTAs (Call To Action) on your blog posts and on your social media pages

Let People Have Information Beforehand on What to Expect

Be transparent and forthcoming with your content. This helps prevent your emails from being viewed as spam or just irrelevant. People should be aware of the content to expect before they subscribe. The newsletter subscription form should clearly detail what the subscriber can expect to receive by signing up. This will not only protect you from legal repercussions but also lessen the likelihood of your audience unsubscribing.

Audience Segmentation

Ensure your email campaigns targets a specific customer base. Your marketing strategy must consider the different needs of the customers. Get to understand your target audience. This will help you to create smaller sub-groups with offers and content designed specifically to match their unique needs and wants. Segmentation can be done through a number of ways including personalization, geo-targeting, and demographics.

Approximately 760% revenue boost is expected from segmented campaigns. It is hugely profitable. Elements like visuals, subject line, CTA, and offers can be extremely helpful in establishing audience segmentation.

A/B Testing

As a business, it’s vital to know what your customers want. In the same way, it’s important to know which strategies are working and which ones are not. This is where the A/B testing method comes in. An effective A/B testing will require knowing exactly what to test. Things to test include the subject line, call to action, personalization, testimonials to include, and body text.

Testing will help you gather valuable information on your customers, which will be very important in decision-making. A/B testing will also improve user engagement, boost conversion rates, and improve the content. Data analysis will be needed afterward to measure certain metrics like conversion rates, unsubscribe rates, CTR rates, and open rates. The results will tell you what you are doing right or wrong.

Hobbies

Have A Nice Home Garden Through Ten Steps

October 19, 2018

Gardening is both a good hobby and a very productive project. To have a small home garden of your own is a wonderful idea. It proves a very adventurous task as well because it is also not too easy to undertake at times. You will have to be very vigilant about this from time to time. We have worked out the various steps involved in the creation of a small home garden. These are ten very useful steps to make it possible for you to dig into your first garden adventure.

When to plant

You cannot plant each and everything at each and every time if you want to get perfect results. You should start your planning before the snow melts and begin digging and planting just at the start of spring, the best time for growing. You will spend your whole spring digging and planting your new plants and the summer watering, weeding and watching your young plants grow handsomely. However, it is much better to plant trees, shrubs, bulbs and some perennials during the autumn. So, when to plant depends on what to plant.

Decide what to plant

You may develop a vegetable garden, an herb garden, a flower garden or an all-round garden depending upon your inclination and the availability of space in your house. Whatever you choose, start at a small scale because it is always better to succeed a little than to fail grandly.

Pick a place

You must select the portion of your house most suitable for gardening. It must receive sunlight for most of the time of the day because almost all the vegetables and most flowers need about six hours of full sun every day. Watch how the sun moves across your selected space before you finalize it for your upcoming garden. Still no need to worry if you do not have a full sunny place, for many plants can grow in shade as well. You can consult with your local garden centre to find out how much sunlight a plant requires.

Secondly, your garden will need your rapt attention frequently, so it has to be within your eye-reach, and also close enough to a water spigot to be watered easily.

Dig the ground

No sod should be there covering the area you want to plant. So get rid of all the sod at once. For the quick results, you can dig out the ground with a spade or spading fork bought from some legends like Bradshaws Direct, etc. The top 8 to 12 inches of soil must be removed but only when the soil is neither too wet nor too dry. Rather, it must be moist enough to form a loose ball in your fist but dry enough to fall apart when you drop it. Turn the soil only once a year if you have a vegetable garden or beds of annual flowers.

Improve the fertility of soil

The fertility of all sorts of soil improves naturally and can be boosted by adding a 2 to 3 inch layer of simple organic matter. It includes compost, decayed leaves, dry grass clippings, old manure, etc. Nowadays, soil tests have been introduced to check what your soil lacks and how to enrich it.

Select your plants

Always select the plants which suit the climate, soil and the span of sunlight in your garden place. Though you may search online, we have prepared a list for you to choose from.

Vegetables

Lettuce, Tomatoes, Cucumbers, Pumpkins, Chillies, etc.

Annuals

Sunflowers, Marigolds, Cosmos, Geraniums, Zinnias, etc.

Perennials

Russian sage, Lamb’s ears, Phlox, Pansies, Day lilies, Coneflowers, etc.

Sow the seeds or plant the seedlings

You can sow the seeds or dig a hole and plunk the young plant or seedling in the ground. Sowing the seeds is not the same for various plants. You must get the information from the seed packet about when to plant, how deep to plant and how far apart to plant the seed. Also, the seeds and the seedlings should be moist but not wet, for they may rot if they are wet.

Water frequently

Water your seeds, seedlings or transplants daily in the beginning for their rapid growth. Later on, their water needs depend upon your soil, climate, rain-fall, etc. Water slowly and deeply so that they may absorb or diffuse it inside. Watering early in the morning minimizes evaporation.

Mulch

Mulch always helps keep the weeds out and water in. So cover your soil with a couple of inches of Mulch. Pine needles, Cocoa halts and bark chips may be used as Mulch.

Be consistent

Your garden is quite ready now. You only need to be consistent with watering and weeding. Also fertilize it with a dry fertilizer halfway through the season. In case of a liquid fertilizer, use it every month.

In this way, you can plant a home garden of your own and proceed with it quite smoothly.

Food

The Growing Culture of Foodies

October 9, 2018

Thanks to a variety of phenomena, such as different kinds of wealth distribution, different uses of time for various people in society and the abundance of restaurants that continue to crop up, we’ve seen an emergence of a new hobby, a new interest to jot down on a dating profile or even on a resume if one felt so compelled to do so. If you haven’t figured it out by now, it’s that of a foodie.

This trend is fanned by shows such as Top Chef, Hells Kitchen, The Food Network, Rachel Ray, travels with the late Bourdain, and many other cooking and eating shows in the market.

Being a foodie is not something to take lightly either, food is a staple of our lives and being a card-carrying member of the foodie club requires more, it requires a bit more Joie de vivre and a longing for je ne sais quoi, a search for the interesting and the distinct, a yearning to continue to strive and discover more about the world and more about life through the joy of food.

This new interest in treating food as not just an input and as something more, as something that can be enriching to our lives in more ways than one, something that transcends many boundaries in life and unites people from all backgrounds.

A common cause, united for the love of great artisanal, organic and natural food. A hobby that is sought not only to feed the stomach but to feed the mind and the soul as well.

The rising craze defeats many a bland purveyor of cuisine, the traditional chain restaurants that have been around lament the loss of the dollars of the new class of food lovers and seek to find ways to innovate and capture their interest once more. They seek to draw the millennial and their insatiable wants into their fine or not so fine establishments once more.

Let’s talk more about how foodies came about and the sorts of changes that they will bring to the food sector.

A brief history foodies and their impact on the restaurant landscape

This is a time where we not only have pizzas but pizzas of all sorts and styles made from different regions and places, pizzas with stuffed crust, gluten-free, or pizzas that are woodfired, this is a time of many different food innovations that stroke the inner fire of many a foodie.

But where did the foodie come from? Who was the first foodie? We may never know but we can try and understand how the trend came to be.

The first theory is that of loneliness and homesickness. This theory was posed by the great and late Anthony Bourdain. There is certainly a lot of credence to this theory, due to globalization many people had to move from one place to another. They might not have had the same networks, experiences, and events that they had when they were back home and so food comes in and plays the role of a comforter and a connection to something that once was.

Sites such as Instagram and Yelp might have had something to do with it as well.

Instagram allows one to take beautiful pictures of their food and show it to the rest of the world. Not too many people are Instagramming a twinkie or a peanut butter sandwich that they made at the house. They are Instagramming finely created and presented meals from various restaurants across the world.

Yelp provides a review platform for one to consciously think about their food and write about how great or poor it was, the reviews can go on about experiences, the food, the presentation and even more.

A culmination of a variety of these factors might have led to the rise of the foodie. We know that depending on their interests and wants, food suppliers, restaurants and others in the industry will have to follow to thrive and succeed.

Yet it is also important that foodies have a resource to go to in regard to making sure that they are following positive and healthy trends. This is where an important resource such as the Consumer Health Digest comes in.

The Consumer Health Digest

The Consumer Health Digest is a resource that allows people to manage their health and the different aspect tied to their health in a fresh and rejuvenating manner. Individuals can find that they will be able to see a medley of different types of information that will be relevant for their lives and the lives of the people around them.

Individuals can find research and information related to issues such as weight loss, sleep disorders, fitness tips and interesting topics such as an examination of bone broth and its relevance to your health.

Foodies can turn to such a resource to have a well-balanced life that accounts for overall health from fitness to the necessary nutrients and combating obesity and other matters as well.

The Consumer Health Digest is a valuable resource for foodies, their friends, and their families to learn more about health and how to maintain it in the best ways possible.

While we may never know where the first foodie came from we do know that with resources such as Consumer Health Digest we can keep people healthy and keep the trend going for years to come.

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