F Train Graffiti Crawl

One of these days I'm going to have to spend some time going along the F train line looking for these advertisement modifications. They're all over the line, and it kills me to have to stay on the train to get to school after seeing some great bit of art.

The tags and gang signs aren't that interesting to me - they tell a story that really can't be told by still pictures and not really by me. But there are some strongly opinionated people riding the lines with pens using the advertisements as a record for the little thoughts that pop into their minds. I like that there's an outlet for that. It makes the city feel more alive. When you pull into a station and it's filled with unadulterated and cheesy ads, it makes me realize how much of the space we traverse is ad-space. This kind of modification provides a minor distraction from the grind.

More Food

When I was a kid we had a grape vine in the back of our yard that never bore a lot of fruit. I took a branch from it and planted it on the other side of the yard while I was playing back there. Years later, both of the vines have taken over each side of our fence and fruit every year, giving us a gigantic bowl of grapes which only ever last a week or so.

Chess and Squirrels

It's been a while! I've gotten a new camera and a new lense - a D90 and Nikkons 18-200mm zoom respectively. They're both pretty sweet.

Decided to head to Union Square and try them both out with some available light.

I liked the pin-striped businessman playing chess against a street person. That juxtaposition is pretty cool, but for this it was more the crowd they attracted that interested me.

I got this shot without the guy looking by making it look like I was just going for a shot of the squirrel, but he ended up framing the final picture really well so I kept him in.

(more on tha' flickr!)

Makin' Dough (Into Bread)

First loaf of bread ever! Made with a sponge of 2:1 water:flour along with a little yeast and some honey to feed it left overnight. Then incorporate that with enough flour to get a 2:3 water:flour mixture in the final result, let rise, knead, rise, punch down, make into loaf, glaze with diluted corn syrup and corn meal, bake for 45 some-odd minutes, et voila!

Pictures of the innards to come, when it cools.

Edit: Tasted pretty good for a first try. Need to let it rise more and cook a little longer. No pictures as its been eaten. Maybe tomorrow?

No Sense Crying Over Spilt Wine

Really pleased with how this one came out. The roughest part was figuring out how to disguise the umbrella-ness of the umbrella without fudging the lines out in Photoshop (the specular highlight it makes is really obvious and unattractive). Putting some plain white shopping bags from a grocery store over it killed most of it, although you can still see it faintly.

After that it was just a matter of getting the perspective and framing correct to get to this point.

How Fortunate!

Part of a series, maybe? I just hope I don't get one like 'triceratops' or 'horse'.

Triceratops would be pretty weird for a fortune cookie word.

Food!

Been doing a lot of food/drink pictures to practice for the Strobist Contest. Probably going to be a lot of boring pictures here in the coming days, hopefully ramping up into something good. Definitely a lot different than all the people photography I've been doing up until now.

Firstly, coffee!

And what goes really well with coffee? Why, olives! Of course!