A Food Styling & Photography Retreat in Gotland, Sweden – An Experience Report by Kati of black.white.vivid.

09/24/2017 by Kati | black.white.vivid. Leave a Comment

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black.white.vivid is a seasonal food blog with plant-based recipes from home and away.

A love story between images and words, my travel adventures take readers to unknown places, local eats and my kitchen in Dubai.

Follow along for delicious stories, magical travel guides and dishes around the world that you never thought could be vegan.
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Launching in summer 2018, an online shop for food styling and photography props. Discover gorgeous goods by my favourite makers as well as vintage finds. Shipping from Europe and Dubai. Register now to receive shop updates and dates for pop-up sales in Europe and Dubai.

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First of all, thank you all so much for your sweet ‘welcome back’ comments on my last post. It literally means the world to me and I’m super happy to be back. You might be wondering what I’ve been up to for 4 long months without Instagram. Well, among other things I learned how to be a better cook. Now you might be wondering “But Kati, you’ve had a food blog for 3 years now, I thought you know how to cook.” Ha, this is what I thought too until I decided to take my culinary skills to the next level. I think it all started when I dreamt of hosting dinners for groups of friends more often. It’s not that I’m afraid to cook and I don’t mind doing it for super close family and friends but cooking for people whos heart and soul I don’t know inside out, is kind of scary to me. And what’s the best tool that helps against anxiety, self-doubt and self-consciousness? Knowledge! And that’s even true when you simply want to get better at cooking (and not just overcome your inner critic), no matter if it’s for yourself or to nurture others. So I’ve compiled a short list of resources that brought new inspiration and a ton of knowledge into my tiny Dubai kitchen: • If there is one book that taught me more about good cooking than all other cookbooks and cooking courses combined, it’s “Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat” by @ciaosamin . It really makes you understand what you are doing and why. • Masterclass: I know this is more on the pricy side but @masterclass offers a diversity of online courses that are really well made and produced. I love their cooking classes like the one with Alice Waters or Gordon Ramsey but they also have non-food related lectures like a photography course with Anne Leibovitz which is super inspiring. To be continued in comments... . . . . . . #saveur #lifeandthyme #foodandwine #onthetable #appetitejournal #beautifulcuisines #eattheworld #theartofslowliving #seasonalfood #kinfolklife #plantstrong #wholefoods #veganfoodporn #dubaifood #gatheringslikethese #plantfueled #vegantreats #cntravelereats #diaryfree #veganfoodlovers #plantbased

I’ve been dragging myself through life lately and I’m dying to get out of that dark hole again. I’m not very good with handling those phases, though I know they are important and necessary to progress and evolve. I usually don’t share these kind of feelings on Instagram, all I do is stay away because I’ve learned that forcing it makes everything worse. So I don’t do photo shoots and share images I hate anyway but I put my phone away and have screen-free days or hours. I go on long evening walks (even when it’s 37C / 99 F outside), bake cakes and sit on the balcony doing nothing. Have you tried that lately. It’s so hard in the beginning but doing nothing other than maybe thinking has been one of the best exercises to clear my head. Since this week I’m seeing light again at the end of the tunnel. I picked up my camera again, started writing for my blog and came across some pretty amazing podcasts that gave me the right pep talk at the right time. If you like podcasts and want to feel inspired and motivated I can highly recommend listening to @onegirlband_ and @local_milk latest episodes. What are the books or podcasts or accounts or blogs that inspire and motivate you? . . . . . #saveur #lifeandthyme #onthetable #appetitejournal #theartofslowliving #kinfolklife #gatheringslikethese #cntravelereats #tablesituation #documentyourdays #gatheredstyle #vzcomade #makeitdelicious #seekthesimplicity #teamcanon #shareyourtable #thatsdarling #makemoments #dubaieats #untoldvisuals #pursuepretty #click_vision #smallthings #ourplatesdaily #darlingdaily #persuepretty #finditliveit #f52grams

Guess how long I’ve been delaying this very first post after my four-months Instagram break? 3 weeks! It’s been sitting here for 3 long weeks and I somehow didn’t have the courage to post it. Do you know that feeling? Like when you didn’t go to the gym for the past year (true story) and dread the exhaustion and sore muscles and therefore decide to maybe wait a little longer. Just until you feel super fit and ready. Guess what, ready never comes and you won’t get fit until you start exercising again. Or when you didn’t sit behind a steering wheel for the past 10 years (also true story) but now live in Dubai and nothing is fun without driving. It’s scary at first and you have way too many self-doubts but then you wonder why you thought you would be bad at something millions of people do each day. Or the time when you didn’t see and haven’t really talked to a (back then good) friend for 8 years and are afraid the chemistry won’t be the same. And then it feels like it was only yesterday you saw each other the last time. Those were all moments that felt scary or at least uncomfortable at first. But they all had a somewhat happy ending (if you consider feeling stiff and aching a happy moment ). So I just hope that I’ll also survive this post (I heard a lot of things have changed again on Instagram). But I’m mostly excited, I’ve done some soul searching, mood searching and subject searching. The result is a bunch of new photos, new content and new inspiration. It’s all been sitting here for 3 long weeks too. For now I’m just happy I’ve finally shared my first post again and I’m finally back (true story ).

TAP

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