I’m going to skip day 16 and come back to it later, it’s going to require my buying a new tripod and some careful planning to get the right shot.
So day 15, silhouette.
This is a photoshoot from a friend of mine that I am cheating with again, but it’s not like anyone has ever seen these and they are only a couple of weeks old.
F/11
ISO 200
f/stop 1/200
Eyes…
I knew exactly who I wanted to shoot for this, he is responsible for the delay in this post. Sade has the coolest eyes. They are a true hazel, I used to think hazel was a color for those that didn’t want to admit their eyes were brown. Sade’s eyes started as a greyish blue when he was a baby then changed up until he was 3. We weren’t sure what color his eyes settle on, but then they settled and yet still changed depending on what he was wearing. We tell him he has the smolder, he can kill you with those eyes and make you love him all at the same time. The most amazing thing was last year when I met my sister Melanie, one of my first impressions of her was her eyes, I looked in her eyes and saw my son, it was a breathtaking moment that caught me off guard.
Me with 13 things, how appropriate.
I hemmed and hawed over what to shoot. I went to my roots and the thing I tend to do the best, my knitting. The sock I am currently procrastinating in finishing (I don’t really enjoy knitting socks), the yarn for my next project I am about to start, and many of the sweaters I have knit over the last few years.
I got lazy and didn’t even check my ISO, I just shot and adjusted the shutter speed. I did shoot in RAW again because it was already set there. After checking the properties I was at:
f/stop: 4
ISO: 1600
Speed 1/80
Something Blue. Cheating again.
You would think that with school in I would have oodles of free time on my hands, but instead I’m catching up on all the things that are harder to get done with three munchkins around. Hopefully things slow down a bit next week.
This is a photo of the dress I made my niece and just for a bonus I’m adding one Melanie took of my niece in the dress because, well because she’s seriously adorable.
A childhood memory:
One of my favorite things about my childhood was fruit picking. I grew up in oregon and there were berries and fruit trees, picking your own and going home with it was the norm instead of merely going to the store. My very favorite to pick were peaches. I loved peaches, climbing up in the tree to find the perfect ripe peaches and tossing them down to my mom. Coming home with boxes of peaches that I ate freely while my mom canned them. Peaches smell like my childhood, they smell like summer, they were and remain my very favorite fruit.
I decided to turn my childhood memory into a tart.
Recipe for the tart and the crust follows
Shot in RAW this time, which is a good thing because my settings were off when I did the slice and was able to semi-repair the photo.
The Great Unshrinkable Sweet Tart Shell
Adapted from Dorie Greenspan
My favorite part about this shell recipe and technique is that it doesn’t require pie weights. How cool is that?!
Makes enough for one 9-inch tart crust
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup confectioner’s sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 stick plus 1 tablespoon (9 tablespoons; 4 1/2 ounces) very cold (or frozen) unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
1 large egg*
1. Pulse the flour, sugar and salt together in the bowl of a food processor. Scatter the pieces of butter over the dry ingredients and pulse until the butter is coarsely cut in. (You’re looking for some pieces the size of oatmeal flakes and some the size of peas.) Stir the yolk, just to break it up, and add it a little at a time, pulsing after each addition. When the egg is in, process in long pulses–about 10 seconds each–until the dough, which will look granular soon after the egg is added, forms clumps and curds. Just before you reach this stage, the sound of the machine working the dough will change–heads up. Turn the dough out onto a work surface and, very lightly and sparingly, knead the dough just to incorporate any dry ingredients that might have escaped mixing. Chill the dough, wrapped in plastic, for about 2 hours before rolling.
2. To roll the dough: Butter a 9-inch fluted tart pan with a removable bottom. Roll out chilled dough on floured sheet of parchment paper to 12-inch round, lifting and turning dough occasionally to free from paper. (Alternately, you can roll this out between two pieces of plastic, though flour the dough a bit anyway.) Using paper as aid, turn dough into 9-inch-diameter tart pan with removable bottom; peel off paper. Seal any cracks in dough. Trim overhang to 1/2 inch. Fold overhang in, making double-thick sides. Pierce crust all over with fork.
Alternately, you can press the dough in as soon as it is processed: Press it evenly across the bottom and up the sides of the tart shell. You want to press hard enough that the pieces cling to one another, but not so hard that it loses its crumbly texture.
3. Freeze the crust for at least 30 minutes, preferably longer, before baking.
4. To fully or partially bake the crust: Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Butter the shiny side of a piece of aluminum foil (or use nonstick foil) and fit the foil, buttered side down, tightly against the crust. And here is the very best part: Since you froze the crust, you can bake it without weights. Put the tart pan on a baking sheet and bake the crust for 20 to 25 minutes.
5. Carefully remove the foil. If the crust has puffed, press it down gently with the back of a spoon. Bake the crust about 10 minutes longer to fully bake it, or until it is firm and golden brown, brown being the important word: a pale crust doesn’t have a lot of flavor. (To partially bake it, only an additional 5 minutes is needed.) Transfer the pan to a rack and cool the crust to room temperature, and proceed with the rest of your recipe.
Do ahead: The dough can be wrapped and kept in the refrigerator for up to 5 days or frozen for up to 2 months. While the fully baked crust can be packed airtight and frozen for up to 2 months, the flavor will be fresher bake it directly from the freezer, already rolled out.
Someone I love…
This picture was not easy to get. Some people just don’t like their photo taken so I have to get stealthy about it. I’m going to be completely cliche and pick the first person that comes to my mind when I think of someone I love, my husband. We have been friends for 13 years now. It’ s been a long crazy journey and I wouldn’t trade a moment of it. He was my best friend before he was anything else and still is. He knows my crazy and loves me anyway, I honestly never knew someone could love me like he does.
A bad habit.
I bet you all thought I was going to take a picture of diet coke. Wrong! I love diet coke, I indulge probably more than I should but I don’t consider it bad in the sense that it’s my vice. Instead I decided to go way back to the habit that has been plaguing me for as long as I can remember.
Shot in portrait mode again because it’s the easiest when shooting myself.
ISO 800
Aperture 2.8
Today’s challenge is fruit. I decided to keep these really clean and do very little editing to them. I was surprised it only took a minimal amount of pleading to get them to agree to being shot, you’d think I was forcing them to go to the dentist with they way they act about getting their picture taken.
Settings are
ISO: 200
Aperture (I finally learned to spell that without spell check 
): 2.8 (seems to be my lens’s sweet spot)
Speed: 1/640 slightly over exposed, but I’m learning that slightly over exposing is my camera’s sweet spot.
Something green and something from a high angle.
When I first read something green, my mind went to nature, I was thinking grass, trees, my tomato plants, but I decided on something a bit different and less predictable. I decided to shoot one of my favorite things ever, my Kindle, in it’s green case.
Day 5 is something from a high angle. I’m going back to my easy model here. This picture is about 2 weeks old and I’m totally cheating, but hey, I’ve been busy so this will have to do.
Getting that perfect shot is awesome and when you are a budding photographer it’s even more exciting. One of my favorite parts about photography is the editing process, I love photoshop and all that it can do.
The following is a photo of my very photogenic sister. She lets me log in hundreds of pictures of her often for practice, I know it is painstaking for her but someone has to do and my kids are sick of it, except Drew, he is always asking for me to take a picture while dances.
Okay so here is her photo completely unedited. It’s a good shot, I’m mostly excited about the lighting on it. Lighting is where I struggle the most as a photographer and I feel that just shooting her that day I learned so much about light and it’s position. So then I started fiddling with it in photoshop and came out with some other versions.
This one I added a touch of sunshine to bring out the light and the Pioneer woman’s seventies action.
I washed this one out a little bit just messing around and thought it was a nice touch as well.
Burnt the edges and gave it a retro feel
This was a poloroid action that I love
A lightly different poloroid action that washed it out a little more
I like the distortion of color in this even if it does give her skin more of a red undertone
I’m not in love with this one at all but I had to include it for research purposes
This one was one action that was pretty similar to the first one I did, I like it.
And the final one because I know everyone is thinking it
Photoshop is so fun, it is even better when you have a great photo to start with though, like this one.
