Hello, friday

Summer Fridays are a pretty glorious thing (we get to leave at 12:30), especially when the weather is as nice as it is today. I was able to have a nice lunch at Kaffe 1668 and then I swung by Buffalo Exchange (my go-to used clothing/accessories store) where I swooped up this little gem of a bangle seen below. Still selling for $72 at Rachel Leigh, it was mine for just $20 at Buffalo - or rather, "free" with the ridiculous amount of store credit I have there from selling my clothes to them. Hooray. :)

These new books will keep me happy for quite some time as well. I am starting with Plate to Pixel which is written by the amazing Helene of Tartelette. I even read the chapter on camera basics because it was interesting to see it in the context of food photography specifically. I can't wait to try to apply some of the techniques detailed in the book!

How terribly cute is this little giraffe accessory holder? After one too many missing rings from haphazardly leaving them around the apartment, it was about time to get one of these.

Thanks for the comments and empathy about my bokeh addiction in the last post. I'll see what I can do the next few times I'm doing some personal shooting but I just don't know if I can pull off a shot at f/22 heh. Oof!

Happy weekend, everyone!

For the love of farms... and misc. notes on photography

I had the pleasure of enjoying the magic of Stone Barns again over the long weekend. Although this trip wasn't quite as extensive as the last (with an overnight stay in Tarrytown), it was a welcome break from city life. This time was also not quite as pleasant as the last because it was hot, hot, hot. And when you're walking around the farm center, there's not much shade to seek.

I have to admit that I think I chose a poor film to capture the colors of this place. I should have went with slide film or maybe the Portra 400 but I used the Fuji Pro 400H here (overexposed a stop), and some of the pictures came out very one-dimensional. Even the ones I've selected here, they are just all very... erm, green. Now, that's not necessarily BAD, but I was hoping for punchier colors. That red barn house near the end of the collage should be popping with color, but it's not. OR maybe I'm just bad at scanning! I'm sure Richard Photo Lab could fix these up real good. :P They seem to know what they're doing...

I also need to step away from the bokeh, like seriously just step away. A bit of a digression, but I was at an art fair the day after Stone Barns, and one photographer's work really struck me (we ordered a large silver gelatin framed print from him and I'm very very excited to get it this weekend). The photo we ordered relies completely on light and composition. Every bit of that picture is in focus. I have relied so much on shallow depth of field to create my pictures and focus my viewer's attention, and it really has become a crutch. Of course I won't abandon my lovely f2.0 on the Contax completely, but I must be able to take a good picture without the bokeh element. In a way, that's "too easy." Everyone enjoys those shots but they're not really special. In no way is this a criticism of everyone's bokeh shots - just an observation that I have to get out of this comfort zone. I suspect that had I gone to this art fair before Stone Barns, these shots would have come out very differently.

The blades of grass and the shot under are taken with a +2 close-up filter. And possibly the last dandelion shot (which is sadly not focused).

I'm kind of shocked it's Friday already tomorrow. Wohoo!

A pseudo his and hers post

This is a bit of a cheat post, because these were just some miscellaneous gratuitous portraits from Sunday up at Blue Hill at Stone Barns (MUCH more to come on that). It also lacks coherency pretty badly. The first shot was on Fuji Pro 400H, the second on Kodak Portra 400, and the last two are digital (you can probably even tell the dimensions aren't the same!). This really does not meet the standards of the blog, but I am pooped tonight, and it's been way too long since the last installment in this series. Also, that portrait looks nothing like me, hah.

This is Jimmy's new summery H&M suit I picked out. He'll need to ditch those desert boots in favor of boat shoes asap given these temperatures. He's also toting a new camera bag - the Think Tank Retrospective 10. So far, it's pretty user-friendly and not TOO ugly. It fit the 5dmkii + 24-70mm, the 50mm f1.4, the Contax with 80mm, and a ton of film and misc. accessories - not too shabby at all.

I'm not sure why I have such an icy glare going on there. Better content to come soon.