Thursday, April 7, 2011

Salmon and Lion Egg Bento

Today I'm finally using the slender two tier stainless steel bento box set I got from Bento & Co during their sale. I didn't have one of this size and shape yet, so I was pleased to see it works beautifully for my 7 year old. I'm using only one tier for him, and I was able to fit a good amount of brown rice mixed with furikake, tricolor carrots, steamed broccoli and peapods, butter-fried salmon in lettuce leaves, and a strawberry plus grapes to round it out. You can't see it, but the box comes with a removable stainless steel divider to keep the fruit separate from the rest of the food. To decorate the rice I fried a quail egg in a flower shaped cutter, and applied nori facial details and picks for ears. Isn't it cute? It's not my idea; I saw it here at Asami's site yesterday and wanted to try it for myself. Her ideas are oh-so-cute! I also tried to vary the picture angle for a change, since I *always* seem to take a straight-down shot. I've seen megan over at bento zen take these long views (she does them so well). I still stubbornly stuck with my depth of focus though. But I do love this box a lot, so maybe I'll experiment with the angles more in the future.

10 comments:

  1. The lion egg is so adorable! Looks too good to eat!

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  2. I love how you layered everything in this really beautiful box.. Does it clip close? That lion egg is so adorable! Maybe it's a lion cub, he's so tiny.. : ) I never noticed if you only took straight on shots, they're all so beautifully shot..

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  3. Such a lovely bento with the friendly lion! Love that stainless steel bento box too! Hope I can find it over here.

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  4. yum, that fried salmon looks absolutely perfect and delectable. great inaugural use for the slender box, it's just as beautifully packed as every other shape in your bento box arsenal. love the three colors of carrot and the heart-ears on the lion cub, too :-)

    have a great weekend sheri!

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  5. love the tasty and cheerful arrangements in this slender box format! smiling lion and deftly placed salmon look wonderful. inspired by your artful arrangements of vibrantly healthy foods!

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  6. bento looks healthy and yummy! your bentos always make me smile! I love your pic with a new angle!

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  7. Salmon is always so good... and the egg lion , so cute!
    Very nice inaugural use for your stainless box! It is so fancy...
    Have a great wknd and I hope you will get better soon ^__^

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  8. The lion egg is sooooo adorable ^__^ and I love your new stainless box.

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  9. I'm not a professional photographer by any means, but I think the answer to your implied question is a larger f-stop/smaller aperture. This will give you greater depth of field, to keep those chopsticks from blurring out, but it will also require more light/longer exposure. Your DMC-LX5 has an aperture-priority mode so, using that, you can crank it down and let the camera figure out the correct shutter speed. If you don't have enough light, the longer exposure will cause blurring if you're shooting handheld, so a small tripod and the camera's built-in countdown timer will help.

    I say you've already got a great eye for staging and composition, so take it to the next level: A light tent. You can build one for practically nothing out of regular craft supplies. It'll give consistent lighting to your projects while allowing you to take more control over your camera, as above. In this example, it'll help keep the grapes and purple carrot from looking muddy and should get that strawberry to really pop. You can google "DIY light tent" for a couple of results, but there's no need to look beyond digital photography school. I have no connection with any of that, nor do I mean to criticize. Just a helpful stranger passing through town, ma'am. *hat tip*

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  10. Thanks Shaz, Chantale, KidsDreamWork, megan, Bentobird, Mrs P, karaimame, Lina and tinyhands.
    Appreciate all your kind comments :D

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