Greetings all!
Sorry for the delay in posting some new material. I am a mere 19 days away from graduating with my Bachelors of Science in Commercial Photography from the University of Central Missouri. Needless to say, I have been busy completing my last photo projects of my educational career. I’m so excited to graduate and find myself a job doing what I love more than I could possibly imagine. So keep me in your thoughts as I take my next steps towards a better and brighter future. 🙂
I have been wanting to photograph ice cream for a very long time, but I could never decide exactly how I wanted to present it visually. I stumbled across a food blog which had a tutorial on creating homemade chocolate bowls/shells. As soon as I saw it my mind instantly flashed to a bunch of scoops of mint chocolate chip ice cream served in a big chocolate shell with mint leaves and shavings of chocolate as accents. I just now had the opportunity to bring this vision to life.
Creating the chocolate bowls was as with most of my food shoots incredibly labor intensive. First I blew up 8 white balloons to a nice softball size shape. Next, I took melting chocolate and melted it in the microwave. It was very important to let the chocolate cool just a bit, that way my balloons wouldn’t explode sending chocolate all over the kitchen. Once I knew the chocolate was cool enough, I dipped each balloon in the chocolate. I made sure to twirl the balloon all around to get a nice even coating. Then each balloon had to be put aside to allow the chocolate to set.
Once the chocolate had set (I let it be for about 20 mins or so) I had to take a thumbtack and very gentle poke a small hole in the top of the balloon. Slowly the air would let out and the balloon would start to deflate. At first I was impatient and let the air out too fast and my chocolate shell collapsed and crumbled before my eyes. This happened to all but 2 bowls. So it was a good thing I made 8 because I ruined 6 of them. The ones that were successful I was much more patient with. I let the air out slowly and very gently peeled the balloon from the sides of the shell.
While I think the bowls turned out beautifully, unless you are really wanting to feel the love and sweat you put into making them, perhaps purchasing something similar from your grocery store might be easier. Anyway, I hope you enjoy the images!
Charlene Champion Photography 
Looks delicious and quite difficult!!! I love all the bits of chocolate you scattered around, and the pretty, pretty mint leaves! 🙂
Really enjoy your photography! Thank you for sharing!