A reader wrote to me saying she is never quite sure how to comment on an image. I realized that my many years of art training helps me comment on photography and art. So I’m hoping that with this post we can help those who would like help with imagery commenting ideas. If you have suggestions to offer, please leave some in the comments. I may add to the post with some of your ideas.

Using a list of formal elements I learned from an art teacher, here are some ideas:

• Medium and materials: what did the artist/photographer use to create the image? One could ask a question or comment about the camera, the lighting, the photo editing software.
• Composition: what is placed where in the composition? How is the rectangle (if it is one, and it usually is) broken up? Example: “An expected composition, with a diagonal going down one side where one would expect a vertical”
• Color: is it one color? Many colors? Bright colors? Contrasting colors? Do they colors appeal to you? Example: “Love the combination of purples with reds and greens”
• Light: What is the light source of the subject? How does it effect the overall presentation? Is it warm, cool, natural, artificial?
• Style: Does it remind you of a certain style or school of artists? Is it realistic or fantasy-like? Pop art? Classical?
• Depth: How far back does the photo/painting take you? Are you close to the subject or far away? How did the artist achieve those results? Example: “Wow, that field is vast” or “the dog looks like he’s going to jump right out of the picture and unto me!”
• Motion: Did the artist/photographer create motion in the image? Does that feel good or make you dizzy?
• Theme, Mood: Is there a basic theme to the image? Loneliness? Glee? Serenity? Chaos? Disconnect? Family bonding? If you think a photo has a certain theme, you can ask if that’s what the photographer intended. Or just say, “serene”, if you are staring at a calm lake surrounded by colorful fall trees.

For further reading:
Formal Visual Analysis
Composition and Design Principles

If you would like to test out some of these descriptive ideas, you may comment on the painting in the upper right corner by Van Gogh. Click on it to see a larger version and more information.

I took these photos yesterday in various spots around our little borough of Highland Park, New Jersey. The above photo is looking down North Fifth Avenue.

This one was taken outside the supermarket. Hard to believe we had snow here on Tuesday.

The flag is flying high above the Highland Park Public Library.

For more Skywatch participants, please visit:

This is a photo of my grandfather(1879 – 1938) whom I never met. When my father moved to Highland Park from the Boston area, he gave me a photo album that had belonged to my mother. The photos are from the late 19th century through the 1940′s. I have been going through the album a little at a time, and I only had the emotional energy to scan in one photo. I was going to scan another Mariampole photo, but somehow I got stuck on this one.

My grandfather’s name was Solon Friede. There was a blog discussion recently about names; in the discussion the question of naming after a relative came up. I can’t imagine having a child named Solon. As his Hebrew name is translated to Shlomo, my brother received that name as a middle name. My father had a brother named Shlomo who had died in his twenties, so the Shlomo was also for him. Do you have a naming tradition in your family? I am glad that my eldest and youngest bear the names of precious dead relatives. My middle son, who was born a few months after my paternal grandmother died, received a Hebraicized, masculine version of her name as a middle name. But there is an Aidel (her Yiddish name, in English she was Ida) in Brooklyn who is named for my paternal grandmother.

More on my grandfather in this post
About the Jews of Lithuania, where my grandfather was born

As this photo is sepia, I am including it in this new meme called Sepia Scenes.
Thank you, Mary!

I like the idea that we can use diet to maintain our health. Many people don’t realize that how one prepares the food can effect how nutritious the food is. I found the following essay by Dr. Joel Fuhrman, a doctor located in Flemington, New Jersey who specializes in preventing and reversing disease through nutritional and natural methods.

He writes regarding eating exclusively raw:

Certainly, there are benefits to consuming plenty of raw fruits and vegetables. These foods supply us with high nutrient levels and are generally low in calories too. Eating lots of raw foods is a key feature of an anti-cancer diet style and a long life. But are there advantages to eating a diet of all raw foods and excluding all cooked foods? The answer is a resounding “No”. In fact, eating an exclusively raw-food diet is a disadvantage. Excluding all steamed vegetables and vegetable soups from your diet narrows your nutrient diversity and has a tendency to reduce the percentage of calories from vegetables in favor of nuts and fruits which are lower in nutrients per calorie.

He explains about the sort of cooked food that is unhealthy:

Unfortunately, sloppy science prevails in the raw-food movement. Raw food advocates mistakenly conclude that since many cooked foods are not healthy for us, then all cooked foods are bad. This is not true.

The idea that stirs the most enthusiasm for this diet is the contention that cooking both destroys about fifty percent of the nutrients in food, and destroys all or most of the life promoting enzymes. It is true that when food is baked at high temperatures—and especially when it is fried or barbecued—toxic compounds are formed and most important nutrients are lost. Many vitamins are water-soluble, and a significant percent can be lost with cooking, especially overcooking. Similarly, many plant enzymes function as phytochemical nutrients in our body and are useful to maximize health. They, too, can be destroyed by overcooking. However, we cannot paint with this brush of negativity over every form of cooking.

Here he tells us that we can get even more nutrients by preparing a food in soup:

Only small amounts of nutrients are lost with conservative cooking like making a soup, but many more nutrients are made more absorbable. These nutrients would have been lost if those vegetables had been consumed raw. When we heat, soften and moisturize the vegetables and beans we dramatically increase the potential digestibility and absorption of many beneficial and nutritious compounds. We also increase the plant proteins in the diet, especially important for those eating a plant-based diet with limited or no animal products.

Steamed is good, roasting not so good:

In many cases, cooking actually destroys some of the harmful anti-nutrients that bind minerals in the gut and interfere with the utilization of nutrients. Destruction of these anti-nutrients increases absorption. Steaming vegetables and making vegetable soups breaks down cellulose and alters the plants’ cell structures so that fewer of your own enzymes are needed to digest the food, not more. On the other hand, the roasting of nuts and the baking of cereals does reduce availability and absorbability of protein.

Read the whole essay.

The snow in October, unusual for Central New Jersey, inspired me to take these photos. It’s my neighbor’s tree; most probably a “burning bush” (thanks, EG Wow and Carletta). The yellow-leafed plants with green “sticks” are what’s left of my hostas.

My son just called and told me it is RAINING in northern New Jersey.

For more photos with a little red or a LOT of red, visit Mary the Teach at http://workofthepoet.blogspot.com/.

Riva Ben-Ezra started Dulce Catering as a means of serving the smaller events in people’s lives – Shabbat dinners, birthday parties, Sheva brachot*, and other small gatherings. Based in Hashmonaim, Israel, Dulce Catering makes mouth-watering meals for small groups, artistic dessert platters, and eye-catching birthday cakes for your special occasion. All food is strictly kosher. Dulce also packages gift baskets for Purim and all year round.

Before moving to Israel, Riva and her family lived in Highland Park, New Jersey.

How did you get started in catering? I love to cook, and especially to bake. Someone has to eat all that food! Seriously, after the birth of Renatya (my second child), I wanted to find a more flexible work schedule, something that would keep me at home more and would be the creative outlet I felt was lacking in my present profession (veterinarian).

What types of catering do you do? I am not interested in giant cookie cutter affairs (pardon the pun) – I like to see the expressions on people’s faces when they eat my food, and I like to give people the feeling of being spoiled by receiving a scrumptious meal as a gift. For that reason, I prefer to do family dinners, sheva brachot, and other parties of less than 50 people. I also make designer birthday cakes and Purim baskets customized to your theme. My newest venture is children’s baking workshops and birthday parties for lower-elementary-school-aged children. Those are a lot of fun. I sell homemade ricotta cheese as well.

Where would you like to see your business in five years? I would love to have my own kitchen storefront to sell takeout and baked goods and a web site where people can order meals for their friends and family overseas. I would also like to expand to personal chef work.

What would you recommend to someone interested in catering? It isn’t just making good food. You need a strong business sense, willingness to put in a lot of unpaid/unrecognized hours, and you have to be a real people person. You must also be a stickler for detail, and be an extremely organized person. As Ina Garten says, it doesn’t matter how good the cake is if they don’t have forks to eat it with.

Visit the Dulce Catering Facebook Group

*Sheva Brachot are celebration meals the week after a wedding (literally, “seven blessings”)