Can you tell I'm a fan of peanut butter?

I love cooking but like most people this usually only happens at night, which is great for dinner but not so much for photography (however I did manage to find this blog post with great tips on shooting food without natural light...I haven't tried any of these techniques). I spent the past couple of weekends doing some baking so I made sure to snap some shots of delicious (if I may say so myself) results. 

Peanut Blossoms with mini Reese's Cups

PB&J Bars

If you are interested in the recipes: 

• Peanut Blossoms
• PB&J Bars

Speaking of food and photography, foodgawker is a great site. Just a warning, it'll make you say "me want food", Jenna Maroney-style. 

Let it snow

We got about a foot of snow this week. I had to rush to take these to avoid my camera getting wet so these are a bit underexposed. These were taken at one stop above what the camera was metering but snow (being white and all) is tricky. 

Concert photography - Charles Jischke

In the spirit of great photography, I am sprucing up my blog of my amateur pictures and incorporating photos taken from...actual photographers. 

Anytime I go to a concert I manage to take a blurry cell phone picture. I don't see the point because you can never make anything out (not to mention I am never close enough...don't even get me started). 

Charles Jischke is a really talented concert photographer who went on tour with Billy Idol and his band last year (believe it or not being a photographer for the band was sort of a side-gig and he was actually there for some music-related thing that I will just butcher if I try and talk about it)...he's been really helpful in me getting up to speed with photography and since I am a huge Charles fan I thought I'd include some of his photos here. I can only imagine how challenging it is to shoot concerts (with the tricky lighting, limited time and space, etc) but he manages to do it really well. See for yourself...

 

Sorry for another cat picture but its all about bokeh!

Taken with my 50mm f/1.8.

Gorillapod (photo archives)

I really like shooting night shots without flash but carrying cumbersome tripods can be really inconvenient, especially if you are on vacation. Last January I went on a weekend getaway to Disney with my mom, so I thought I would give the Gorillapod a try. You obviously don't have as much flexibility as with a standard tripod but it gets the job done and you can get some great shots. 

This was taken at Port Orleans Resort where we were staying. There is a little foot bridge that takes you to the main lobby and restaurants from the rooms. I wrapped the gorillapod around a support beam from the bridge and ended up with this shot (8 second exposure). Hitting the shutter produced considerable camera shake since it wasn't on a flat surface so I had to use the camera timer. 

If you decide to get a gorillapod make sure you get the right size because the smaller ones won't support a heavy SLR camera. A couple of things to note is while its really light and portable its not very sturdy and it may be difficult to achieve the composition you want if you don't have an existing raised surface (like a table or bench) or something to wrap it around. 

Happy New Year!

Ok so it's been a while since my last post. For reals. I can give you the "I've been so busy" excuse but who wants to hear that? 
I just started a new class at NESOP - Advanced Digital - so I will be updating this more frequently for sure. The 4 people that read this blog should be very excited! I am especially excited to learn how to edit, something I have been scared to touch with a 10 foot pole. In fact we get great discounts on software so pretty soon I'll be purchasing editing software for the first time. Will keep you posted! 

Harvard Square night shots

Okay so admittedly these shots didn't come out as good as I had hoped (after all, I'm a newb), but I wanted to post them anyway. I welcome tips on how I can improve these images from any non-newbs! 

In the first two I obviously wanted to capture some movement. They were shot with 1.3 and 2 second exposures. You can see how much less than a second makes a big difference - you can barely see people in the second shot. I think I would be happier with an image somewhere in the middle of the two. 

I was happy with the lighting and composition in this next shot of the street artist but there was a bit of camera shake and there could have been more focus on his face. I suppose I could have used my tripod to prevent the camera shake with the slow shutter but then I would have been the creepy girl with a tripod.