Cheesecake and Chocolate Mistakes

Zested Sugar

For the last two years, I focused my photography on shooting people. When The Big Move took us to Idaho, I shut down my teeny barely-a-business; although bittersweet, it was one of my smartest moves.

You see, I jumped into a business too fast.

Hindsight, this is what I’d tell me two years ago, “Just shoot for the love of it. The business side of photography can suck the love for it dry before it even has a chance to grow roots”.

So now, I have no business, I shoot what I love, all for me and no one else.

I love food. I love to eat it, and I love to be in the kitchen. My interest in food photography is purely motivated by my love of these two mediums. I’m excited to learn all about the way FP works.

Gear and Deets:

Rebel T4i w/ 50mm compact macro

ISO 200–F10–1/200sec

OCF w/Gary Fong Lightsphere

The Sitch:

I decided to shoot this (beginnings of a cheesecake) on a whim. I put little thought into the set up. I didn’t take out my tripod or spend an extended amount of time setting up. Posing stationary items, how hard can that be, right?

BWHAHAHAHAHAHA. It’s like learning photography for the first time all over again. This shot is plain, and lacks any real interest, but it is my first attempt at a legit FP image. It is going to be interesting to see where this takes me. Tomorrow I will be photographing my home made chocolate truffles, along with my finished cheesecake. In the meantime, I am studying up on how to make my paltry equipment work hard for me.

Thank you for stopping by, Happy Thanksgiving!

Cheers,

N.

Moxie

An image a day exercises are so great. I haven’t done one in a long time, so here goes. This is Moxie. Our 8 month old Rhodesian Ridgeback. She is feisty and smart. Clearly, she is also beautiful.

Gear and Deets:                                                                                                                                                                  50mm macro @3.5 — SS 1/125 — ISO 400                                                                                                                                Tethered speedlight, with Gary Fong lightsphere with dome attached camera left, and window light behind for rim lighting.

CC

1) Have her other paw in the frame

2) Have her lower mouth in the frame

3) Reduce shadows to her eye and face ever so slightly

A

The Big Move

I planned on living in my little house forever. We had talked romantically about moving to other parts of the country. We talked fantasy-like, as if a move was like going on a cruise or winning the lottery. This dreamy chatter had sprinkled our marriage for years. In March, it became a real possibility. By June, we were looking at houses in Idaho. Suddenly, The Big Move was a reality. We were really talking to agents, painting, paring down, packing, and shifting.
When I tell you it went fast, I mean effing fast. Father’s Day weekend, we put a contingent offer on a home in Emmett, ID. That gave us from mid-June until September to have our home market ready, offer made, and closed.
EEEK.
We busted ass (along with loads of help from friends), got our home on market July 19th, and accepted an offer three days later.
We shared this home for 11 years. This is where I brought my babies home, learned how to cook, laughed, cried, labored with my children, and made love to my husband. I fought my depression, won, lost, discovered photography, had drinks with friends, and made my first cheesecake. We had dogs, sent them over the Rainbow Bridge, brought home puppies, and with Tim made a life worth being proud of.

The Big Move was exhilarating, scary, mournful, and bittersweet. It was full of painting 16 hour days, tears, panic attacks, conquered projects, and hard work. I got excited, and cried over loss. It was not the fantasy feeling of winning the lottery; it was quite the opposite.

My last night before the trek into the unknown, I had an epiphany. As Jessie and I were driving to the store it occurred to me, “I’ve done all the growing I can here; it is time to move on”.