This shot of the Seine River in Paris (from September 2004) was pure luck. The sun had just barely set as we were crossing a bridge to Notre Dame and I set my camera (which takes fantastically horrible night shots on most occasions) on a pillar of the bridge to get a longer exposure of Paris at dusk. I think this is one of my most favorite photographs I've ever taken, mostly because of the muted hues of the sky, the lights reflecting in the water and the way the lights create different shapes and shadows.
This is the view of the street from the bedroom window of my apartment in Rome during my study abroad in 2004. I loved how the shutters (which actually functioned!) framed the shot. I just wish the buildings hadn't created such long shadows on the other buildings and obscured the people down below. To me, this is what Italy looks like and when I think about Italy, I often envision it as if seen through wooden shutters.
The Iwo Jima memorial in Arlington, Virginia. I took this photograph in May 2008, right at twilight. I love that the memorial is just a silhouette of the men, but that the colors of the American flag can still be seen. Plus, I think the clouds and the sky behind the statue are pretty.
I really love the color of these leaves and their translucence. But more particularly, I love the juxtaposition of the blue sky and the green leaves. I just think it looks really cool. I took this photograph in May 2008 during a visit to the Civil War battlefields in and around Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville and Spotsylvania.
I couldn't decide if I liked this photograph better in black or white, so I included both. This is from the Confederate cemetery in Fredericksburg. I love old cemeteries. I love how the thin headstones slant and slide in the ground and how their inscriptions are faded and worn from years and years of rain and snow and time. Modern cemeteries with their highly polished marble headstones creep me out, but I love old cemeteries. I find them oddly peaceful and calm.
Again, this is from Fredericksburg (or just outside of it....I think this was closer to Spotslyvania actually) from my trip in May 2008. You might recognize it. I love the green grass, the faded old fence, the dirt road and the billowing tree in the background. This photograph makes me feel like it's still 1863 in this rural area. I don't think this photograph would be half so interesting without the fence jutting in.
Again with old cemeteries. This was taken at the Mission Delores cemetery in San Francisco in the summer of 2006. It was just a small plot of land, full of beautiful pink and purple roses and other flowers.
So this is my cat, Emerson. The most adorable and wonderful, and yes, slightly neurotic cat that ever was. Some may say that I am obsessed but I only say that he makes a wonderful subject. I got on the ground to photograph him from his little cat scratcher. I think he looks rather kingly and dignified in this picture. 
So here's my kitty again. He really hated this cone. But I love the red of his cone and the blue of the sheets and my sister's wrought iron bedstead in the background. Mostly, I just think my kitty is cute.
This is the Salt Lake Assembly Hall in Temple Square (March 2008). I went to Utah to research Mormon tabernacles for a paper and I took lots of interesting shots of the tabernacles, but I think this is my favorite. I like the verticality of the spires, the interesting architectural lines and the tree branches that impede the view.
(Edited to add: Sorry about the weird text issues with this post. Blogger and I do not get along. I really don't think its posting formats are very user friendly and it always takes me twice as long to post something here as it does in any other blog-type program. Hate. I just got too fed up to spend hours fiddling with it to get it right.
This is what I wrote about the two pictures from the cemetery since it's being stupid: I couldn't decide if I liked this photograph better in black or white, so I included both. This is from the Confederate cemetery in Fredericksburg. I love old cemeteries. I love how the thin headstones slant and slide in the ground and how their inscriptions are faded and worn from years and years of rain and snow and time. Modern cemeteries with their highly polished marble headstones creep me out, but I love old cemeteries. I find them oddly peaceful and calm. )
11 comments:
Nice pics! I've always thought it would be fun to take another photography class, but again with the whole time thing...maybe one day. But first comes culinary school!
Thanks! I would love to take more photography classes. Mr. Harris was a much better photography teacher than English teacher (still despise that man) but I know there's ton I didn't learn. I'd love to take a class or two. But I'd loooove to go to culinary school. I've looked into some cooking classes, but they all have weird times. I'd really love to learn all the basics and how to create my own dishes and to know what flavors work well and what different ingredients will do to produce certain flavors. But if I went to culinary school, I'd most love to be a pastry chef. I love to bake!
Yeah, Harris was definitely a better photo teacher...still can't stand him either. Anyway, my plan is to go to culinary school to become a pastry chef and then open my own bakery. This is of course quite a bit in the future, once all my kiddos are in school. But I can't wait to do it, and John is behind me 100%...in fact, he's the one who suggested I open my own bakery. I actually just had someone ask me to do their daughter's wedding cake (hah!) which would be soooo fun, but it's not something I've ever attempted...it's scary to imagine being responsible for that kind of thing. :) Have you ever worked with fondant? That's something I really want to learn. Anyway, I love baking, I just need to start giving away the things I bake or I'm never going to lose the baby weight.
You know, I've often thought about opening a bakery as well. Everytime I go to a bakery, I always think about how I make better cookies. That would be so awesome if you opened a bakery! I'd come visit all the time. :-) I wish I could bake more than I do but David doesn't eat a lot of sugar and I always end up eating everything myself and then feeling horribly guilty. And I would love to decorate cakes. I've gotten a few baking cookbooks from the library and one on cake decorating. I really want to buy some frosting tips and try it out. If only I had a reason to make a three layer cake....I've never used fondant before but it looks like some pretty amazing stuff. Have you ever seen Ace of Cakes on the Food Network? That guy makes the most amazing and creative cakes. But the one thing I don't think I could handle is the early hours most bakers have to keep...
I WAS going to comment on the pictures, but your discussion of baking has now also drawn me in. First, the pictures: those are great! I especially like the one of Paris and the Iwo Jima one. I think there were more that especially caught my eye but now I'm not on that page anymore.
I really wanted to start a wedding cake business, all stemming from our frustrations trying to find a wedding cake we liked when we got married. Then I started realizing how seriously difficult it would be. I have some tips and I made myself some royal frosting to start playing with. Fondant... um, all I remember is that cornstarch works well for it to not stick while you roll it out and stuff. I've never found a good reason to justify buying some just to play with, and I suspect I would dislike the taste.
I have the same issue with baking. Adrian only eats some sweet things, and when he does he doesn't eat much, so either I have to find lots of friends to share with or I eat it all myself. Bad bad idea.
Most of the time, I make David take cookies or sweets to work with him. That generally takes care of some of the goodies, but I still manage to eat the majority of those that are left behind.
As for cakes, I would love to make wedding cakes. I think it would combine my love of baking and my artistic aspirations. I'm with you about finding good wedding cakes though. I've only had one or two wedding cakes that I've actually enjoyed. I don't understand why wedding cakes can't be pretty AND tasty, but apparently it's very difficult to do. I didn't really love my own wedding cake, but I didn't want to spend all the time shopping around for a better cake when all my siblings have gone to the same baker and they don't charge an arm and a leg. But wedding cakes are incredibly difficult to make but I'd love to start playing around with them.
Man, all this talk about baking and cakes has really made me want to start experimenting!
After going to a couple places and realizing how much we'd have to spend to get a really nice cake... we opted out of one and had a chocolate mousse cake thing that we preferred to cake anyhow. Plus the restaurant would have charged us a cutting and plating fee on top of the basic cake cost--it was just ridiculous. It's funny with wedding cakes how it's more tradition than taste sometimes. And I think it would be great to start changing that. Though what I truly love are receptions with whole dessert bars, with all kinds of fun yummy things like pies and cookies and such. Maybe I just need to hope for all daughters so that I can someday do what I'd have liked to have done. The same budgeting issues will still probably apply, though. HA!
Ace of Cakes is incredible...I don't know how that guys does stuff like that! I also saw a Food Network Cake Challenge that was amazing.
It's funny, Maren and I were just having a discussion about why stuff from bakeries often does not taste as good as homemade baked goods. Is that the price you have to pay for mass production? I don't remember how my wedding cake tasted, though I remember liking the samples we tried. Fondant just isn't good, though it is very pretty. I just found a buttercream fondant recipe that I want to try. Supposedly it's good, but there's good and then there's AMAZING and I don't think fondant could ever be that.
Anyway...dessert bars. Now there's my kind of wedding reception! I keep telling Michelle that when she gets married I want to help plan her wedding since I didn't really get to appreciate planning mine.
I think, from what I've heard, that buttercream fondant still doesn't quite have the super smooth look of fondant. It just gets you close and tastes better, so it's probably worth looking into. I've heard that most fondants are just removed before serving, and there's a matching layer of buttercream underneath for actual taste. That way you get yumminess, too. It would be SO FUN to experiment with all this stuff.
Kara, I remember liking your wedding cake. And I don't remember it being a creepy red velvet, like those ones that you just wonder how much food coloring it would take to get that kind of red. When we went cake tasting, every cake either wasn't that great--dry or whatever--and we couldn't find anyone who did a real buttercream. They tasted like Crisco and coated the tops of our mouths, which just really isn't what you want for such an expensive cake. Same with the place that was highly recommended to us that didn't actually have cream fillings, just "non dairy whipped topping". That's great for some things, but not when you're telling me that I have to pay you a thousand dollars for a cake.
Okay. I'm done with that.
Liz, I have this Martha Stewart holiday cookie special magazine that's awesome because it is organized by texture (chewy, dense, crunchy, etc.) and it also has a little symbol in the PICTURE table of contents next to recipes that freeze well, so you can make the dough before and then cook them all when you're ready to give them out or bring them to a party or whatever. I am pretty sure that this magazine was the basis for the new Martha Stewart Cookies book. I know many of the cookies are the same, and it has the same fabulous picture table of contents. I assume it also has the freeze ahead info, which might be really helpful for the sisters at Enrichment.
Someday maybe I'll move away from adoring every Martha book, but not yet.
Emily, I've seen that Martha Stewart Cookie book and I WANT it. I love love love cookies. I can't believe you couldn't find a cake with real buttercream or real cream filling...that's ridiculous! And yes, in the pictures I've seen of the buttercream fondant, it's not as smooth as regular fondant, it looks a little bit different. But that would be OK for me as long as it tasted better.
Wow, look at this lengthy baking discussion we're having on your blog post about photography!
I don't mind having a discussion about baking. I love baking! I made red velvet cupcakes once and it took a whole bottle of red food coloring. I can't imagine what a massive cake would take. But red velvet is pretty tasty, especially with a creamcheese frosting. Mmmm.
Emily, I'll have to look into that Martha Steward cookies book/magazine. I'm always on the hunt for new cookie recipes. I'm reading one baking cookbook right now called Baking, From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan who worked with Julia Child. I haven't tried any of the recipes yet but they all look incredible. Plus there are lots of pictures. I love it when cookbooks have photographs of the food. I like to know what food is going to look like, especially desserts. To me, presentation is very important and I like for my food to look nice and taste great.
As for the buttercream/fondant/whipped frosting thing: what's the deal? I love LOOOVE buttercream frosting and it generally has a pretty thick and stable consistency so I don't understand why more bakers don't use it. (Except for Costco...I love their cakes with buttercream frosting. That is where it's at!) I understand that fondant is smoother and prettier, especially for wedding cakes, but I don't think that taste has to be compromised for great tasting cake. My wedding cake had a whipped frosting which is fine for some people, but I really wish I'd pushed for buttercream frosting. I was more preoccupied with fillings that I never even asked about the frostings. But that is what you get when you plan a wedding being held in San Diego when you live in Virginia. Oh well.
Kara, I'm so with you about planning other people's weddings. I had tons of ideas for my own, but by the end, I just got so frustrated by not being in California to plan, the exorbitant price of everything, and not being to find exactly what I wanted that I just gave up. I'd love to give it another shot, but sadly, I have no more sisters left to get married. Maybe when I have daughters...though I'm sure we still won't be able to afford what I want. Oh well.
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