Earth's Crust Bakery
Then disaster struck - there was a fire in the garage and everything was lost.
Not ones to give up in the face of adversity, a Kickstarter project was set up to raise money for new equipment, and money could be donated in exchange for loaves for bread once they were up and running again.
A sign of their popularity in the local community was they hit their target in less than a week, and went on to raise a fair bit more besides. This allowed them to expand their options and earlier this year, they relocated to Castle Douglas, with space many times larger than the shed they had been operating out of.
Breads, pastries, focaccias, tarts, quiches, cheesecakes - soon their counter was heaving with a wide range of mouth-watering delights as they had the space to spread out and try new things.
During their fundraising period, I offered up my photography to help with profile raising, once they felt ready, and a few weeks ago we finally got round to arranging a date.
A Saturday afternoon was decided on, as there tended to be fewer customers about, and they wouldn't be busy preparing for the following day either. However, we did run the risk there might not be a lot of food left.
Careful arrangement of the remaining produce, plus a couple of friends called in to act as customers, and we were ready to go.
The natural lighting wasn't particularly good for the style of photo I had in mind, so I set up 2 lights at the front of the shop and one at the back. I wanted an impression of depth to the picture, to give an idea of the space. I also wanted the composition to have a slightly painterly feel, with that sense that you might be looking at a natural scene, but at the same time it's still been clearly arranged.
Ben was tasked with coming in through the back door with a bag of flour over his shoulder, while I wanted Jacqui to be doing something where a cloud of flour might appear. Different options were tried, from banging tins of flour on the table, to tossing handfuls into the air, but eventually pouring it seemed to work the best. Additionally, we discovered it worked much better with the back door open so the flour stood out against the black background - when the door was shut, there wasn't enough contrast against the grey door.
It was a fun afternoon, but one of the highlights was carrying away armfuls of leftovers once we'd finished and packed up. Muffled approval came from family members through mouthfuls of baked delights.
Feel free to click on the image for a larger version
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