That is the title of a great article from blogger, celebrity TV chef and photographer Benjamin Christie.

He opens with "most of us don't have the time to go to great lengths to create the perfect shot, so here are a few ideas, tips and more on how you can achieve your perfect food photo" which about sums up the post - he covers the equipment he uses and the reasons why, the three types of food photography (Close in (food only) and all in focus, Close in with limited depth of field and Table setting elements providing character and a reference situation). Each has a great photograph as an illustration.

He concludes with a few hints in regards to lighting. Worth a read for all budding foodporn image takers.

The wonderful Fanny is hosting the next round of my favourite blogging event - Does My Blog Look Good In This.

Fanny writes at Foodbeam, a lovely blog I recommend you go visit, and has all the details of how to enter in a recent post. She has set up a flickr group to host all the entries (each host is free to deal with the mass of submissions as they see fit; some set up galleries on their blog for example) .

Cakes and desserts are always popular entries in this competition - and several are already displayed. One I particularly like is entry 9 a passion fruit cake, oh and have a look at the creativity behind entry 16, shame the photo is a little blurred. My entry is not a dessert, though but my sausage and peppadew salad picture (shown here). As this round is hosted on flickr you can easily leave comments against each entry.

Some super submissions to the latest round of foodography photography challenge over on flickr. I particularly liked this one from the Abstract Gourmet. Matt is the guy behind the blog - which you should go look at too - and has caught a get shot with his Canon EOS30D. Those highlights on the rim and on the wine certainly add much to the image. Not so much foodporn, more glass porn. Very professional.

Some time ago I set up a flickr group for food pron photos. The original intent was to use the group to add any pictures to a streaming RSS feed - yeh, geeky stuff - but for one reason or another it never happened. Instead I opened the group to all with the instructions that, true to its name, it would be for food bloggers to link to their best posts.

It is turning out to be a nice little treasure trove of links to an interesting group of bloggers and their recipes. I find I am using it to discover great recipes more than my RSS reader! Recently for example MeetaA has added a nice picture of lentils leading to a spicy daal recipe. Then MatthewA posted this image of snails, admittedly not something I actually eat, but it led me to his blog (Matt Bites) for the first time. The there is Alicat3 who doesn't appear to have a blog but posts some great quick recipes under her photos such as this prawn taco recipe.

[Photo Andrew Barrow for Still Life With... flickr group]

While the 2nd round of foodography (the digital photo challenge on flickr) has drawn to a close (the theme was Dairy) round 3 (Tools of the Trade) is marching on. I must though point out this lovely photo that was submitted to the group.

Lucullian Delights blogs from Italy (in English) and submitted this wonderful image of Mousse di Ricotta con Cioccolate, Cedro Candito o Basilico. Pure food porn. You can add your own comments on flickr. Lucullian Delights is full of such wonderful images - not all food either -  and if you haven't come across it before why not pop over and say slashfood sent you!

Great name for a company is Choccywoccydoodah - they of fabulous towering cakes of all descriptions. They supplied several creations for the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory film.

They do chocolate too. Which is what this rather plump ballerina is made from. So, no its not one of those hideous china collectibles your maiden aunt relishes but chocolate and plenty of pink colouring. Costs £32.50.

One of my favorite crafty bloggers made this deliciousness and photographed it. The swirly sweet colors, the closeup on the sugar, the physics of it all - both my foodie and photographic selves are drooling. Photo on flickr uploaded by Jess Hutch.