Green Thumbs.

I haven’t got those. Usually when I try to maintain plants they die.
Not so this year. This small box represents the beginnings of what I hope will be a good summer for mixed greens, tomatoes, carrots, and green beans. Wish me luck.

Waterproofing.

Some friends of mine are getting me to shoot their wedding at the end of the month. It’s cool ’cause a couple of other photographers are invited as guests and I think they’ll probably bring their cameras along so there will be a slew of points of view to explore.

So anyway, we went out to the space and wandered around. I brought my point-n-shoot and had to work pretty hard to shield it from the rain. It was cool ’cause there was this mist floating across the water behind them and there were lots of cool places for portraits. I’m definitely gonna try to go back for a different project or two.

The other thing that’s interesting is that I used this software to make this collage. It was recommended to me by the woman who publishes this cool food blog. While I’m not sure that the software’s exactly what I need, I can be certain that I’ll be checking out the blog on a regular basis.

The Catering Job.

My son was christened this past weekend and my wife hired some local caterers to do the food. The setup was so pretty that I had to shoot a few images.

This was not the first time I’d shot images of food. A notable other time was here. I find its harder to shoot do without natural light, but it’s still an interesting challenge.

One of my favorite photographers had this to say about shooting food. And I think she’s right. And besides that, “pie-ness” is a killer word. (grin)

All Jammed Up.

Mulberries. That’s how this all started.

Now that school’s out and since I’m not shooting all the time, I walk with my son around our neighborhood in the mornings. One of the things I’ve noticed a lot of is mulberry trees. They grow wild in the alleys of Woodland Heights.

I figured there was something I could do with them if I collected enough. I grabbed something like five cups of them over the course of two trips and then I prevailed upon my buddy, The Mommy Gourmet, of Mommy Gourmet blog fame, to help me make jam.

I confess: I was completely worried that there was some highly technical procedure and I’d botch it on my own. My own mother-in-law, who’s a wizard in the kitchen wryly said, “I believe that they’re edible,” quietly implying that she’d never mess with the ugly little berries. MG allayed my fears though, and we hung out for an afternoon. It was really just a little boiling and mixing, nothing I couldn’t do on my own next time. We haven’t eaten any yet, but I’ll post a note here when I get a taste.

Here are a couple of snaps from the day.

Before.

After.

The Next Contestant Is…

Vanessa over at the Mommy Gourmet (a Richmond, Virginia-based food blog) is a neighbor of mine, as I’ve pointed out before.
She’s apparently entered one of her culinary creations in a contest for which she had to use three ingredients (asparagus, prosciutto, and lemongrass). She asked me if I could shoot pictures of it so she’d have some to upload her entry and host on her blog
Naturally, I said yes. Head over to her post about it to see how it’s made. I think we picked the same images though. 🙂

And here they are.

The Mommy Gourmet.

Having a new baby around the house means a lot of being stuck inside, minding him. Especially for my wife. This might not be a big deal if we lived somewhere that was always really cold or dark. But we don’t. In fact, spring is doing its best to show up here in Richmond and so today, it was really hard for my wife to be stuck inside with our new son screaming his head off.

Cue the neighbors who invited us over for drinks this afternoon.

My wife’s day got better by a factor of a bajillion when she had a chance to talk to other adults while someone else (namely me) held her screaming son she as sat outside in the niceness and had a drink.

To sweeten the deal, our neighbor, Vanessa, is a killer cook. She runs a blog chock full of stuff that she cooks regularly at her house like all the time.

I know, I know. “Gimme the picture” you’re saying. It’s comin’. Gimme a sec.

Anyway, Vanessa saw some of the food I’d shot, so I brought my camera to grab a few images at her house while we were there. She wanted me to help her figure some stuff out using her camera. This first is a spread she “just threw together.” It was two different kinds of fancy fried won tons, some chips and guacamole. She’s such a show off.

This was her daughter, double-dipping her chip in the honey mustard. But anyway, go check out Vanessa’s blog. Make some of her food. You’ll like it. www.mommygourmet.blogspot.com

More Grub.

I got down to the Six Burner Restaurant near the end of last week. After we shot together for their website, the head chef, Lee Gregory, and I conspired to have me come back from time to time to shoot stuff for their blog.

I enjoy the challenge of shooting food without natural light, so hanging out in their kitchen was a treat. Here are a couple of the dishes they served while I was there.

Fine Dining.

EDIT: Their site’s live here with the new images.

I recently finished post processing for the restaurant shoot I did last week. There’s nothing worse than shooting pictures of beautiful food when you’re hungry. Or thirsty, for that matter.

Slices of Life.

I was playing around with the new light.
This was dinner the other night. I think I’ll play around with the color balance some.

For what it’s worth, dinner was great.

This Goes Out to All the Little People.

I’ve been looking at a number of photographers lately who have an incredible way with miniatures and I decided to come up with a technique and give the idea a shot.

These images are another set of sketches. I was thinking about the things we enjoy to excess that eventually lead to (or at least, can lead to) our deaths. Because it was off the cuff the “sins” aren’t so bad, but I’m largely happy with the results.