General Photography Archives - Page 3 of 20

Walking in a Winter Wonderland in Whistler

January 2, 2013 By Paola 4 Comments

Good morning dear hearts and a happy new year to you all. I am BACK. Thank you so much for all your good wishes and butt repair tips here, on Facebook and via email. This thing has been a complete BITCH but I’ve got it down to mild sciatica in the morning and a sort of bruised feeling in my bum at all other times, so definitely making progress. I can also sit which is a Christmas miracle in and of itself.

In case others think they might have the same problem I’ll be writing a post in the near future about all the treatments I did and how they did or did not help.

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season in the meantime. We made our annual trek to Whistler, wherein I pack the Husband and the Minx off skiing and then take myself off on snowy walks with my camera and my thoughts. This year we had plenty of snow and plenty of sunshine and it was quite breathtakingly beautiful.

One thing I did in Whistler was to read This Year I Will… which is full of tips and tricks for actually sticking to New Year’s resolutions. One tip that is resonating hugely with me at the moment is to concentrate the mind and give the year a title.

So for me this year is going to be The Year of Getting Organised, The Year of Photography, and The Year of Getting Fit. I like the idea of not making specific resolutions, but instead choosing areas of focus and attention. That way I can accommodate my butterfly mind by doing lots of different things in a certain category and not have to beat myself up if I fail to keep specific resolutions.

Have you made any resolutions for 2013? What will be your areas of focus? Do you think I’ll actually manage to tidy my desk this year?

The United Colors of Autumn

November 5, 2012 By Paola 3 Comments

There’s no denying that Seattle know how to change seasons BEAUTIFULLY.

Saturday Link Love

September 29, 2012 By Paola 3 Comments

At Piebox, they create raw pine boxes designed to transport a 9 inch pie safely and easily. I may well be investing in one of these.

Inaki Aliste Lizarralde draws incredibly detailed floorplans of the dwellings in famous TV shows. The post I wrote several years ago about Carrie Bradshaw’s apartment still gets hundreds of hits a week.

In Fictitious Dishes, Dinah Fried recreates iconic food of literature in her food photography. Here’s the grilled cheese from ‘Heidi’ that sounded so delicious when I was a child.

Sheri Silver has been making fruit leather from all the excess fruit sitting in her fridge and I must do the same, since we’ve been going a little crazy picking wild blackberries recently.

Lotta Jansdotter is launching a new line at Fishs Eddy. The above invitation is from her Facebook page.

Have a great weekend! I will be going to the North West Chocolate Fest tomorrow. Anyone else got some exciting plans?

Seattle’s Great Wheel

September 19, 2012 By Paola 7 Comments

Yesterday was my birthday and for a special treat we decided to take a spin on Seattle’s Great Wheel – the new super Ferris wheel which opened this summer on Seattle’s waterfront.

It’s not quite the London Eye, but the views over downtown Seattle and Elliott Bay are just as spectacular. The sun shone for me yesterday and we were lucky enough to board just as the sun was setting over the Olympic mountains.

The Husband treated us to the exclusive, all black VIP Gondola – which was expensive but worth it I think for the super comfortable bucket seats, which for some reason made me feel much less nervous (I’m not so good with heights), the see-through glass floor and the fact that we didn’t have to share with another party. I think we also got a longer ride than others too (and some super uglyass tee-shirts).

Here’s the view down through the glass-bottom of the gondola

And here’s a gratuitous shot of some folks on the pier watching the sun going down, just because I like it really.

Seattle peeps, I highly recommend this if you haven’t been already. I understand the light show is pretty major too.

Les Jardins Macarons by Pierre Herme

September 6, 2012 By Paola 5 Comments

Since we’ve been chatting about both macarons and interesting food styling I thought I’d share the latest creations of master macaronier Pierre Herme’.

Through his online club ‘Les Jardins’ he is making a new limited edition flavour macaron available every month. Tragically they will only ship to the UK and Europe (which is officially NOT FAIR).

Us poor unfortunates in the US and elsewhere in the world will have to make do with gazing longingly at the breathtaking food photography of French photographer Bernhard Winkelmann or attempt to make our own using Pierre Herme’s book ‘Macarons’ which I have, but which has officially scared the sh*t out of me, starting as it does with a chapter entitled ‘Thirty Two Steps to Successful Macaron Shells’.

I’m also wondering if some of these flavour combinations aren’t in reality ‘a step too far.’ Does someone want to buy some and report back? I think I like the sound of Lime, Raspberry and Piment d’Espelette best. What do you chaps think? The full list of monthly flavours released so far is here.

Green Tea, Chanterelle and Lemon

Lemon and Caramelised Fennel

Lime, Raspberry, Piment d’Espelette

Chocolate & Lime

Violet & Aniseed

All pictures by the amazing Bernhard Winkelmann.

The End of Summer

September 6, 2012 By Paola 2 Comments

It’s a sparkly, warm day today in Seattle but the leaves are turning just round the edges, the evenings are growing cooler, the Minx and I spent yesterday picking blackberries and there’s definitely an undertone of autumn in the air.

We’re back after an incredible weekend at the Labor Day Family Weekend at Canoe Island French Camp in the San Juans and the Minx went back to school this morning. My little tiny, itty bitty scrap of a baby has just started third grade.

It’s been a wonderful summer, but I can’t wait to start a new year for me too. I have BIG PLANS and maybe this year I’ll even get to execute them.

In the meantime here are some photos of our weekend on Canoe Island. Man, that place is good for the soul.

Food Stylings: Charlotte Omnes

August 30, 2012 By Paola 3 Comments

What are you having for lunch today?

I was thinking of ham, cheese and mustard on white.

Or possibly cheese with mustard, mayo and ketchup or ham and mustard.

Followed by a selection of juicy citrus fruits.

I love it when food stylists do things a little bit differently.

All photos by ace food stylist Charlotte Omnes.

A Morning of Raspberry Macarons

August 28, 2012 By Paola 5 Comments

It is Tuesday and there are no freaking macarons in my house. I know this because for some reason I’ve been craving them all morning and a thorough excavation of my kitchen cupboards has not yielded a single delicate French confection. When the Minx goes back to school next week (may the heavens and all the saints and angels be praised), I will MAKE some.

But in the meantime all I have are some photos I took at Patisserie Camp, way back at the beginning of the summer. Sadly these will have to do.

Take it away Chef Jean-Marc.

Make a nice almondy macaron mix and colour it baby pink (I’ll put up a recipe when I’ve had a chance to make and test some, in the meantime just treat this as afternoon food porn).

Pipe hundreds of the little darlings out on a bunch of baking sheets and whip up a little raspberry jam.

Bake until crisp

Fill with jam

Sandwich them together and Robert est ton oncle. (Do Americans say ‘and Bob’s your uncle’ too? I’ve never had a clue where that comes from).

Project 52: Freedom

July 12, 2012 By Paola 4 Comments

About six months too late I’ve just started doing something called Project 52.

Every week awesome commercial photographer Don Giannatti sets a real life photography challenge via Flickr and then does a weekly live online critique of all entries.

The most amazing thing of all is that it’s completely free, no commitment, no worries if you miss an assignment, nada. You just show up on Flickr with your picture and then tune in for the online critique later, together with a chat room full of hugely talented and hugely helpful fellow photographers.

This week’s theme was for a single shot that sums up the words Independence, Freedom or Celebration.

The pic above was my first attempt – a random cute kid at Seattle’s Golden Gardens beach.

I also like this shot from the same afternoon.

Come and join me on Project 52. It would be great if there were more newbies in the room.

How To Photograph Fireworks

July 6, 2012 By Paola 8 Comments

I’ve had the summer cold from hell over the last week, AND I’ve been organising our big annual 4th July party, so over the last week I’ve been rushing around like a very grumpy crazy person.

Today though the house is clean and tidy, our roof deck is hosed down and looking beautiful, cherries are being picked from our tree, the second clafoutis of summer is being made, cats are gambolling on our vast acreage, a Brit is in the final at Wimbledon, THE. SUN. IS. SHINING. IN. SEATTLE, the oceans of sticky yellow snot in my head seem to be receding (possible TMI?) and all is right in my world.

So I thought I’d indulge in a little gentle bloggery.

This year I decided to make an effort photographing the 4th July fireworks at our party. In previous years I’ve generally been too outrageously drunk and inept to anything more than a pitiful job, so this year I armed myself with this blog post by the very lovely John Cornicello (whom I had the pleasure and privilege of meeting in person at a recent Creative Live workshop) and set to work.

This is what I learned.

1) Use a tripod

This year I took the trouble to set the tripod up on the deck before I got started on the margaritas. This is imperative as in previous years the tripod has defeated me in my drunken state and I’ve ended up leaning the camera on railings instead. That doesn’t work at all.

2) Use a GOOD tripod

I bought my tripod 6 years ago when I was just starting out doing product photography and I distinctly remember it being the cheapest one in the shop. Its flimsy and lightweight and not suitable at all for long exposures. If you’re serious about photographing fireworks you may need to SPEND MONEY. My next birthday present is sorted out now.

3) Find the BULB setting on your camera

This will allow you to push on the shutter release, hold open the exposure as long as you want and then release it when you think you’ve got the shot. I practised doing this the day before. Go me.

4) Use a low ISO and smallish apertures

Fireworks are BRIGHT and you don’t need to bump up the ISO number, or open the aperture miles wide to get the shot (mistakes I’ve always made in the past). I used the settings John C recommends – ISO 100 and apertures between f/13 and f/18 and they seemed to work well. I held the shutter open for anything between 1 sec and 6 seconds depending on how much was going on in the sky.

5) Use a remote control shutter release

This was the thing I didn’t do and regretted, instead relying on my margarita-fuelled finger to hold down the shutter, and thereby gently shaking the camera every time. So between that and the crappy tripod I got lots and lots and LOTS of photos full of movement blur as below.