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Friday Randomness : Cheddar Shredder
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A s a kid, my mom threw me into every play, stage performance, and musical (never mind I had a voice of Charlie Brown's teacher and I couldn't, like, actually sing). She figured putting her kid in front of people forced me to develop confidence and remain composed under pressure...I'm sure she read that in some parenting magazine at the dentist's office. Except the opposite happened. Where other kids pranced on the stage and fought for the leads, I remained in the chorus. Always. Okay, once I was casted as the bearded inn keeper for the Christmas play, but I didn't have any lines.
All these years later, I'm thankful I was thrusted onto a stage for memory's sake, but confidence and composure? Still working on that.
Case in point: we rented a house in Seattle and it came with about 274 trash cans for various materials and recyclables. In California, we have two: trash and recyclables. We did the best we could, but when we put the garbage cans on the street for the Monday morning pick up, we saw our neighbor organizing our trash. Should I repeat that last part?! WHO ORGANIZES TRASH?! Later that day she stopped us as we got into our car and explained how we should be dividing our trash and (wait for it...wait for it...) wash our to-go containers before throwing them away.
JD noticed I'd become a puddle of humiliation so he scooped me up and poured me into the car. This made me think had my mother forced me into one more play, I might have smiled and kick-ball-changed my way to some witty answer, ending with jazz hands. And tap routine.
This leads me to another Friday Randomness...
Ladies...you better start practicing your backflips... |
| And if you can't do a backflip, just hope the guy has THIS kind of wingman... |
| Annnnd if you find yourself on a date, make sure he has this planned for the evening... |
| My friend Ginger posted this on Facebook and I love flow charts I can actually understand! |
| A blog reader, Nicole, sent the Dog-Shaming.com website my way and I couldn't stop laughing... |
| This? This might be the only thing that makes me excited to get into the kitchen and cook...although I'd conversely name it the CHEDDAR SHREDDER. |
    
T he one thing I wanted to do while in Seattle was take a boat ride. It was the top of my Seattle Bucket List (along with eating every ounce of cheese I came across and knitting a scarf...no luck with the latter), so one might imagine my disappointment when I realized I needed a boat license to rent a boat (WHO KNEW?!) and every electronic duffy boat in the city was reserved for the weekend (don't hate on the duffy boat...they're cute in that I-don't-have-a-boating-license-kinda-way). Whoa, I'm really loving parenthesis today, huh?
Much to my delight and surprise, our friends Kate and Chase Jarvis invited us on their boat and we spent the duration of sunset parked in the middle of Lake Union. I tried to act all nautical (I even packed an anchor-printed scarf, but didn't wear it because it made me look like a Hispanic Gilligan...gone wrong), but realized a plastic cup of bubbly, great conversation, and a plate of hummus was all a person needs on the water.
Do you like how I wrote "on the water" like I'm now a boating pro? (Wow). |
| This is JD when he's acting pensive and way deep in thought... |
| Speaking of pensive...so not me! I requested JD refer to me as SKIPPER for the remainder of our time in Seattle since I did such a great job navigating our anchored boat...he cropped this photo so well you can't tell we're docked! |
| This view? Holds a special place in my heart and I want to make this city my new BFF, complete with a two-part broken heart necklace. |
I 'm embarrassed to admit something. Publicly. So out there and uncovered. But I'll say it because there isn't a reason to hide and I figure there may be people who feel like me. Maybe. So here is it goes...
There were (okay...okay...there are) days when the only thing I want to be is Artistic. Yes, a captital letter because it's a noun in my mind; a person, a place, a thing. Artistic in a way that I can look at my images and think I made some impression, left some dent, in the art world. There are times when I find someone else's images and they leave me breathless in a swimming-at-the-bottom-of-a-pool kind of way. Deep, aching breaths. And I know I'm no where near that level of oxygen deprivation.
There are moments I battle with myself because I don't know if I'll ever have that thing in me. That thing that feels like black-rimmed glasses, clove cigarettes, and oil splatters on a canvas. The thing that tastes like duck pâté and whiskey.
But then. And this is a pretty big BUT. But then I'm reminded (usually by JD) that talent is nothing without ambition...and the smallest bit of talent can be carried on the wings of sheer desire and hard work. Sure, it's not as glamorous as leaving someone breathless, but it's enough to make people happy. And the satisfaction of happiness is the salve I pour on my insecurity, making me stronger in the process.
I'll continue to work so one day I might feel like the noun I aspire to, but until then I am content sipping on a cocktail of ambition, drive, and the audacity of dreams. |
| Photos taken during those golden hours of the day (just before sunrise and just after sunset) have a stunning quality to them. This light can create dynamic and dramatic effects and changes the mood of pictures taken with flat or, worse, overhead lighting. I've found great freedom shooting at sunset as it provides artistic flexibility and natural photos. |
| To achieve backlit photos, the sun must be behind the subject. A huge benefit to having portraits backlit with the sun is that lovely rim lighting--where the edges of your model(s) are outlined by a thin thread of light. The key is to stand at the right angle (I've said this before, but knowing the right angle simply comes with lots of practice, but you can try finding the right angle by taking an object in your backyard at sunset and seeing where you must stand for it to be truly backlit and, separately, where you must stand to see the rim light). Rim lighting is most prominent on subjects that have a thin profile, such as grass and hair (be careful because if you're photographing a subject with blond hair, it'll be easy to blow out the highlights, making her look like she's missing hair). |
| I prefer to shoot at sunset with wide apertures because I love the shallow depth of field and the amazing bokeh it produces. Bokeh is more prominent when dealing with light sources (which is why I love the setting sun as my light source because of the golden effect is gives), so it's common for me to shoot a subject at f/2.0 or wider to establish my focal point and blur out distractions in the background. A word of caution: Depending on how much light you're working with, it's easy to let too much light into your sensor and overexpose the image. |
A Few Tips for Shooting Backlit
1. Compose the Shot
A nice trick I use is to compose the shot with my subject blocking the sun, adjusting my settings, then quickly sidestep or shift my camera to recompose the photo. |
2. Only Show a Portion of the Sun
It might be a good idea to have only a portion of the sun viewable and keep the majority of it blocked your your subject to avoid flooding the photo with too much light. There's delicate balance to find the right amount of light you prefer, golden tones, and lens flare, so practice is key...but don't hesitate to experiment as well. I'll never forget the first photo I experimented with sun flare and backlighting subjects (back in 2007!)...in a moving vehicle. I was nervous but I loved the results. |
3. Manual Mode is Best
Exposing backlit could be an exposure nightmare (exposing for the subject as well as balancing the sun in the photo and the dramatic light across the image), but I found that practicing really helped me.
How I Practiced:
I fired off a few test shots in Auto Mode and made note of my settings (aperture, ISO, and shutter speed), then put these settings into Manual Mode, adjusting as I saw fit to correct my exposure. Since I wanted to emphasize depth of field, I didn't adjust my aperture and instead selected my aperture for the effect I wanted and adjusted my shutter speed to move my exposure around. (Yes, I realize this was the most ghetto fab approach to learning how to shoot backlit, but I didn't know how else to approach it, so I just made up my own rules and made them work!). In the years since, I no longer have to use this method because of all the practice, but it was a good place for me to start and understand how to approach it. |
I hope this helps a little bit...if you'd like to see these practices in motion, feel free to check out this photography tutorial video!
Stay Fabulous,
j*
**Updated to Add**
I didn't (and don't) use fill flash for backlit photos...thanks for asking! :) |
F or as long as I can remember, JD--who was a cartologist in another life--mapped out a perfect road trip. In his mind. Up the California coast with the Pacific to the left of us and wild mustard flowers to our right...pitstops at lunch trucks profiled on the Food Network...waving to kids stuck in the back of a minivan. What he didn't factor into his daydream was a cantankerous wife, who sings off-key and packs whole grain snacks, and petulant dog. It was shaping up to be less Old Spice Man and more Griswold Vacation than he pictured, but once we arrived to Seattle, we took a collective breath and felt at home.
We came to Seattle for work, but we've been able to relax and enjoy the glorious state of Washington...a workcation, if you will. When we launched the photography tutorials for theSTORE last week, we worked from a new space and allowed us to focus solely on getting it off the ground. I'm also shooting while I'm here (more on that later), but we've carved out time to soak up Seattle in the summer.
We rented a cottage and it has a yard, so Polo has made himself right at home... |
| During my time off, I scour used book stores like Twice Told Tales and Elliott Bay Book company...this sometimes drives JD crazy, but I promise him reading makes me a better photographer. And a nicer wife. And a better cook (okay, so this is a bit of a stretch, but a girl's gotta do what she can to get more time while shopping!). |
| We also spend way too much time eating great food. JD said I shouldn't post this photo, but I just have to because it was one amazing spring roll! Life changing. I want to remember this spring roll for the rest of my life. Amen. |
| We carve out time to talk about business, projects, and planning for the second half of the year...lucky for us there's a bevy of locations willing to provide inspiration of the libation sorts... |
| I asked JD to set up the timer for a self-portrait and this is my please-hurry-up face...which is just a tiny bit nicer than my I'm-a-hungry-girl face. |
| Our {slanted} self-portrait. |
| We're trying to submerse ourselves in the Seattle culture, so yesterday we went to a farmer's market to pick up groceries and support our local farmers. Yes, I said "our" like I freaking own the city. |
| The Ballard farmer's market boasts to be the best outdoor market in Seattle and it didn't let us down...where else can you find cranberry peas, soap, honey, salted ham hocks, and a boysenberry pie?! |
| Oh, JD. My sweet JD who carries a reusable and recyclable grocery bag and buys a bouquet of flowers...he's a classic guy with a hipster heart. |
| This is the view from our backyard at sunset...the scope and magnitude have served as a place for introspective moments and deep breaths. I'm thrilled to go home rejuvenated with a fresh perspective for what's to come... |
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