'Tis the season

One of our favorite Christmas traditions is our annual trip to Strawberry Hill, a Christmas tree farm just west of Lawrence.  We decided to make the trek out there late this afternoon to pick up a fresh wreath for the house.  Here the proprietress is creating a bow for me.  I tried to figure out how she did it, but couldn't.  I am hopeless at bows.  The wreath is on the wall right above my computer, and I will be enjoying its fragrance for the rest of December while blogging.

Nikon D90
Nikkor 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6
45mm - ISO 200
1/30s - f/4.8

Sweet goodnight

Tomorrow my family will say goodbye to my beloved aunt.  My mother baked us these cookies from the first recipe Aunt Barbara shared with her.  They are sweet, in more ways than one.

Nikon D90

Nikkor 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6

105mm - ISO 200

1/40s - f/5.6

Nikon SB900

1/16 power

105mm zoom

Bounced up

Tram City

Detroit is one of my favorite airports, partially because of the red tram that runs across the concourses.  (And partially because the shopping is good!)  Here is the view from the back of the train.

Nikon D90
Nikkor 50mm - f/1.8
50mm - ISO 200
1/25s - f/2.8

Not-so-scenic NYC

You probably wouldn't believe that I spent most of the day in NYC, based on today's photo.  We were unfortunately doing photo-unfriendly activities today, so my camera took a long snooze in a parking garage.  I spent most of the day feeling like I had forgotten my right hand somewhere.  Finally, after returning to the parking garage, and desperate to find some photo, any photo, we attempted to visit Liberty State Park.  Across the Hudson in New Jersey from the city, it supposedly has fantastic skyline views, but the park had already closed.  So we snuck in, evading security, and took one or two shots of a building or two between a bunch of boats.  As skylines go, not so much.  Oh well.  Here's hoping I will be back there soon!

Nikon D90
Nikkor 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6
45mm - ISO 200
1/20s - f/4.8

Early signs of the season

It is that time of year - two days after Thanksgiving, and the Christmas carols are already ringing through the mall.  Another sign of an early Christmas is the annual blooming of the family Christmas cactus.  Jessica's cactus started as a cutting from my mother's plant, who started hers as a cutting from my Grandmother's.  So who knows how old it actually is!  It blooms every year, sometimes at Christmas, other times at Easter, and some years not at all.

Nikon D90

Nikkor 50mm f/1.5

50mm - ISO 200

1/125s - f/1.8

Crafty Cathy

Jessica and I spent an enjoyable afternoon painting today.  She is doing a fun series of four paintings of a tree in winter, spring, summer and fall.  The spring one is pictured below.  I like the dreamy, idyllic look that the 50mm brought to the scene.  Although in this case, real life was pretty idyllic too!

Nikon D90
Nikkor 50mm f/1.8
50mm - ISO 200
1/200-f/1.8

Happy Thanksgiving!

We had a busy, delicious day, with lots of turkey, stuffing, and of course, dessert!  Here is a before-and-after of one of the desserts, and a bonus photo snapped by my husband of my sister Jessica and me as we rushed around putting the finishing touches on dinner.  A lot was going on, as you can tell by our motion blurs!

Nikon D90

Nikkor 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6

Top:  26mm ISO 200 1/30s f/4

Middle:  105mm ISO 200 1/30s f/5.6

Left:  18mm ISO 200 1/30s f/3.5

Nikon SB900

1/8 power

Variable zoom

Bounced up

It was a cold, windswept afternoon in Hockessin...

Okay, so this is Newark, not Hockessin.  I just like saying Hockessin.  And we were there earlier in the day, so that counts, right?  This is one of the buildings on the University of Delaware campus.  Delaware is so rainy and wet that moss grows everywhere.  Everywhere. 

Nikon D90
Nikkor 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6
32mm - ISO 200
1/30s - f/4.2

Jammit!

Tomorrow we are making strawberry jam.  So tonight, the mission was to drown several pounds of berries in sugar in preparation.  It smells delicious - I was begging everyone to go out and buy an angel food cake so I could dig right in!

Nikon D90

Nikkor 18-105mm - f/3.5-5.6

105mm - ISO 200

1/30s - f/5.6

Nikon SB900

1/8 power

105mm zoom

Bounced up

Trio for a duo

It has been a nice day of relaxing at my sister's house.  We roused ourselves enough to do some shopping and get a bite to eat at a nearby Italian place. And of course we couldn't say no to the tiramisu!  (Or the chocolate torte, or the limoncello...)

Nikon D90

Nikkor 18-105mm - f/3.5-5.6

32mm - ISO 200

1/30s -f/4.2

LOTR

Some parts of Delaware in the fall make me think of the Lord of the Ring movies; especially the scene in the first one when Frodo, Sam and the other two Hobbits spend what seems like 20 minutes running down the longest hill on the planet.  The parks and natural areas have some of the tallest trees I have ever seen, and this one was especially interesting because so much of its root system is exposed.

Nikon D90
Nikkor 50mm f/1.8
50mm - ISO 200
1/80s - f/1.8

Pizza pie

Tonight's dinner was provided courtesy of my brother-in-law Ben, who made us pizza.  He really isn't that messy of a cook; we just threw some flour on him for the shot.

Nikon D90

Nikkor 50mm f/1.8

50mm - ISO 200

1/20 - f/6.3

Nikon SB900

1/8 power

50mm zoom

Bounced up to ceiling

Vacation begins

Every year my husband and I take a Thanksgiving-week trip back East to see my twin sister and her husband.  We have been doing it for eight or nine years now.  One of our traditions is to have dinner at one of the first restaurants they ever tried when moving to Delaware.  

Why did they pick it?  Well, let's just say that the sign, on a dark stretch of highway, is pretty inviting!  It actually took me about five years to realize that the name of the restaurant isn't actually EAT (but instead Jose's Border Cafe).

Nikon D90

Nikkor 50mm f/1.8

50mm - ISO 200

1/10s - f/6.3

Fly away

Just a pretty picture today - too busy packing for vacation!

Nikon D90

Nikkor 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6

105mm - ISO 200

1/15s - f/5.6

Follow this thread

I love old wooden spools of thread.  They are so much cooler than the plastic ones of today!

Nikon D90

Nikkor 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6

105mm - ISO 200

1/30s - f/5.6

Nikon SB900

1/16 power

105mm zoom

Bounced to camera right

Nifty fifty

I read an article that challenged me this weekend to spend some more time with my 50mm lens.  Its fixed distance can make things a little more challenging, but the nice big aperture is a real plus. This is a photo of a railing and it's shadow on a stucco wall.  I love the clean lines and the color palette.

Nikon D90

Nikkor 50mm f/1.8

50mm - ISO 400

1/20s - f/1.8

Where there's smoke

Cory used a lot of mesquite chips on the grill tonight, and they were putting off some serious smoke as he lifted the lid!  We experimented with different rates of lid lift, with some interesting results.  I liked this one the best.

Nikon D90

Nikkor 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6

52mm - ISO 400

1/60s - f/5

Nikon SB900

TTL

Bounced up to sky

Pretty pony

Remember when I said to always reset your settings back to a normal range at the end of a shoot, because you never know what is coming tomorrow?  Well, today is a good example of that.  We came upon a beautiful vintage Mustang today, in front of a crappy background, and I brought a small aperture to the party.  I'm kicking myself because I even thought about putting my 50mm f/1.8 on the camera before we headed over, but didn't.  I could have killed a lot of that background by opening up my aperture and speeding up my shutter.  F/11 was just a ridiculous choice, but I was trying to be fast (because the owner was trying to leave!) and didn't take the time to adjust.

Nikon D90

Nikkor 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6

42mm - ISO 400

1/500s - f/11

Snow control

Today we worked on installing climate-control curtains on my mom's front porch.  It will help block the wind and rain and keep a lot of the snow off her porch this winter.  It was my job to document the process.  Here is one of the curtains in its tied-down state.

Canon 5D Mark II
24-105mm f/4
58mm - ISO 200
1/160s - f/7.1

Honoring all who served

Veterans, thank you.

This is a neat collection of official Veteran's Day posters.

Nikon D90

Nikon 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6

50mm - ISO 400

1/200s - f/11

Nikon SB900

1/8 power

50mm zoom f/11

Bounced to camera right

A little crabby

Today's lesson: never buy canned crab!  These crab cakes look better than they tasted.  They held together nicely, but the crab just wasn't very good.  I wish I could have eliminated the highlight on the middle of the plate, but couldn't figure out how to get the direct overhead light without it.

Nikon D90

Nikkor 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6

26mm - ISO 400

1/200s - f/11

Nikon SB900

1/8 power

Zoomed to 200mm

Bounced straight overhead

"Harvest"

I know this is a weird picture.  But it is an example of the principle of "with enough light I can turn a black wall white."  Or, the black cutting board nearly white, as the case may be.  This is one of two similar tomatoes that are the sum total of my first attempt at a vegetable garden.  Sad, I know. 

Nikon D90

Nikkor 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6

105mm - ISO 400

1/160s - f/5.6

Nikon SB900

1/4 power

105mm zoom

Pointed 90 degrees above the lens

And now for something completely different

This, believe it or not, is an omelette.  And a darn good one too!  Start a small saucepan of water boiling.  Then drop two eggs and a variety of your favorite toppings (chopped mushrooms, green onions, tomatoes, ham, grated Parmesan were my choices tonight) into a quart-size Ziploc bag, zip it, and set it inside the pot of boiling water for 10 minutes.  When time is up, simply empty the bag onto your plate, and enjoy!  No muss, no fuss, and no skillet to clean up!

Nikon D90
Nikkor 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6
75mm - ISO 400
1/160s - f/5.3

Nikon SB900
1/8 power
Bounced up and back

And worms REALLY made this?

This is a shallow depth-of field shot of a silk painting that I did last year with my sister Jessica.  It was a fun activity.  Silk takes paint really well, and creates these beautifully muted colors.  We used stamps to create more defined images.  I cannot comprehend how worms make silk.  It is just a mystery to me that something so beautiful can come from a bug.

Nikon D90
Nikkor 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6
50mm - ISO 400
1/50s - f/1.8

Pulleys...in....space!

I was doing some photography for an instruction manual today, which included some shots of all the little parts and pieces required for assembly.  I have used a lighting tent before to shoot small objects, but suspending them appropriately in mid-air has always been a challenge.  A lighting tent gives you a seamless background to shoot items against, and five surfaces to shoot lights through to create nice even lighting.  My husband had an ingenious idea of placing the objects on a piece of glass.  We went to Lowe's to get some kind of supports to hold the glass at an angle, and found two brackets which have 45-degree angled slits.  The glass fits perfectly inside of the slots, and is held at the a great angle to show small objects.  I used some glue dots left over from a scrapbooking project to attach the parts to the glass.  

I used a 50mm prime lens at a wide aperture to make the background as blurry as possible, since there were some wrinkles in the fabric.  You can see the amazing depth of field in the far edges of the brackets, which disappear into nothingness.  It will be very easy to crop closely into the object, or remove the background entirely, as the project warrants.  It is a pretty great technique.  You don't even really need the lighting tent either, just something to keep the reflections off the glass, and a nice white (or black, depending on the object) background underneath.

Canon 5D Mark II

Canon 50mm f/1.4

50mm - ISO 100

1/200s - f/3.2

Going Green, Red & Yellow

My friends Jason and Angie are adopting a child from Ethiopia through All God's Children.  They are holding fundraisers to defray the expenses of an international adoption, including a hot dog sale this afternoon.  They are truly great people, and I know they will be wonderful parents to this orphaned child.  Check out their blog here. 

Nikon D90

Nikkor 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6

32mm - ISO 400

1/1000s - f/4.2

More peanut butter

I totally know that I already did a picture like this, but I made a ton of these peanut butter popcorn balls for a fundraiser tomorrow, and didn't have time to take a picture of anything else!  It was a very sweet evening!  I wanted to get more detail and texture on the popcorn, which is why I chose a tight aperture at f/14.  On a side note, I think peanut butter is now tied with my pets for the greatest number of blog posts this year! 

Nikon D90

Nikkor 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6

30mm - ISO 400

1/14s - f/14

Nikon SB900

1/8 power - 30mm zoom

Bounced up and backwards

Midnight snack

This chocolate bar might be worth getting up at midnight to enjoy!  I liked the way the gold foil glows in the dim light.

Nikon D90

Nikkor 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6

58mm - ISO 200

1/20s - f/5.6

Snow?

I had been hearing all day about the 1-2" of snow that we are supposed to get today, so I had hoped to get some photos of the white stuff tonight.  However, anyone living in Topeka knows that at least by 10 p.m., we hadn't seen a flake.  I headed out to take a long exposure of the "snow sky" to encourage it along.  I wasn't excited about the results, so was playing around with the photo a bit in Nikon's editing software.  I accidentally hit the wrong button, with some surprising results.

For all you Nikon shooters out there, the top picture was created using the D-Lighting HS tool in View NX.  It is basically a shadow-recovery tool.  Here is a good article about the basics.  The bottom picture was the picture prior to the D-Lighting "snow."  Pretty interesting effect.  It only affects the shadowed area of the photo - which you can see if you look at the tree trunks.  Pretty interesting.

So, not a good picture today, but an interesting discovery nonetheless.

Nikon D90

Nikkor 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6

18mm - ISO 200

20s - f/5.6

Autumn blaze

The title of this post sounds like the name of a soap opera heroine, but all I have for you today is a pretty picture of a fiery red bush. I wish I had spent more time on the framing so you could see more of the green grass in the background, but I was in a hurry.  I'll keep an eye out for a passing soap star tomorrow...

Canon 5D Mark II

Canon 24-105mm f/4

105mm - ISO 200

1/500s - f/4