Dad's Birthday Cake

For many of you reading out there, March 20th is the first day of Spring.  A day that I know many of you out there have been waiting for to arrive. March 20th has a different meaning for me though, as it's my Dad's birthday.  We had a little birthday party for him this weekend and My Lovely Assistant made one of her delicious cakes for the occasion.  Of course, I took advantage of her cooking to continue playing in the kitchen with my camera.  This was a chocolate cake with pear halves baked into the crust.  She added some sparkles and chocolate shavings onto the chocolate mousse topping to make a surefire hit for any chocolate lovers out there, but still something light and fruity that doesn't feel overly heavy to eat.  In order to get my photographs, I had to be a little more creative with certain things as the cake was wider than the white background that I usually use.  It came in handy for the first photograph, which was taken at f/5.6, 1/250sec, ISO 100 at 40mm.  I tried to follow the line of the plate with this shot, while also showing the toppings.  For the second photograph, taken at f/5.6, 1/250sec, ISO 100 at 43mm, I listened to a suggestion from My Lovely Assistant, who lived up to her title, who suggested that I use the kitchen wall as a background. This allowed me to get the entire cake into a shot.  I used a simple cloth for dish drying to cover the table and add a little colour and texture to the bottom of the frame.  The third photograph, taken at f/16, 1/25sec, ISO 800 at 60mm was a fun close-up of the sparkler and chocolate toppings.  My Lovely Assistant did a great job with the chocolate shavings, melting some dark chocolate into a fine layer before chipping at it with a knife.  I wanted to capture her handy work and my little Macro lens did the job almost as well as she did.  As with most of her creations, this one didn't last very long after being served.  As for my Dad, I think that he had a good evening surrounded by family.  Happy Birthday Dad, I hope that there are many more of My Lovely Assistant's desserts waiting for you in the future.

Dessert Is Served

We take a little break from cookies for this update, to take a look at another of My Lovely Assistant's creations.  When I asked her how to describe this dessert, she said that it was a kind of yogurt/pudding treat.  It's made with almond milk and a selection of fruits and nuts.  In this case, My Lovely Assistant used a diced pear, flaked almonds, chia seeds and some honey.  It then passes the night in the fridge and is ready to be eaten, or in this case photographed, the next day.  For this series, I had initially wanted to photograph the dessert on a shiny platter to get a reflection of the service dishes.  I couldn't find anything shiny enough in the house so I improvised and went in the other direction of finding a colourful patterned dish towel on the table while putting the desserts on a fancy plate and adding some spoons to complete the image.  I also shot the dessert from different angles as the straight-on shot failed to properly show the texture of the dessert toppings in the first photograph.  Everybody likes a good two-for-one deal, so you get two photographs for the price of one with this update.  Both photographs were taken at f/3.5, 1/250sec, ISO 100 at 24mm.  The dessert dishes were actually quite small, so a Macro lens helped make everything look a little larger and a little bit of bounced flash brought out some added colour and texture in the finished product.  As an alternative, the almond milk could be replaced with chocolate milk.  A nice, cool little light dessert.

Several Servings

It's time to feature another of My Lovely Assistant's recent cookie creations here on the old blog.  This tasty creation was initially supposed to be one huge cookie, but she decided to break it up into several individual sized portions instead.  Probably a good idea since in its originally planned size, it would have never fit into this jar.  The jar is kind of a key element for me since I always struggle with finding a way to present the things she cooks.  As soon as I saw the jar, I was reminded of a photograph that I took of some candies coming out of a jar that was placed on its side.  It worked for the candy, so I was pretty sure that it would work for the cookies as well.  The idea for the first photograph, taken at f/4, 1/250sec, ISO 100 at 32mm, was stolen from something that I saw on the internet, but I added my own little touch by placing one of the cookies outside of the jar, leaning against it.  The second photograph, seen below and taken at f/5.6, 1/250sec, ISO 100 at 24mm, was the repeat of my candy photograph from a few years back.  Both photographs were taken by bouncing some flash off of the ceiling to get better lighting.  As for the cookie itself, it's a buckwheat and molasses mix, with sunflower seeds, coconut shavings, raisins, walnut pieces and chocolate chips all mixed together.  Tasty and good for me.

Tasty Boost Of Energy

My Lovely Assistant, as it has well been noted on these pages, enjoys creating in the kitchen.  She recently came home with a new cookbook full of cookie ideas.  When My Lovely Assistant gets to work in the kitchen, it often inspires me to grab my gear and try to get a little creative as well.  Food Photography has always been a subject that mystifies me, though I think that over the past few years I have gotten better at it.  Thankfully, My Lovely Assistant is a whiz in the kitchen, which means that there is often a selection of tasty treats around that I can practice shooting.  It also means lots of snacks as well.  These cookies, called Énergie de fer, were a mix of peanut butter and molasses, with some apple sauce, date puree and some nuts and seeds tossed into the mix.  To make the photograph, I piled a bunch of them together, got out my white background, put the cookies on a little pan holder which was made by my mother and shot everything using a new flash that was given to me by my brother.  As you can see, I kept the whole production in the family.  The photograph was shot at f/8, 1/160sec, ISO 100 at 30mm.  There were a few more of these that were created, so expect to see them up here as well as I continue to collect photographs for her first cookbook.

Snow Coated

Some people can be attracted to stranger things.  For instance, as I have mentioned here in the past, I've always liked seeing things covered with a little coat of snow.  Trees and benches are my favourites, and this past week we had a little dusting of some of the white stuff.  Just enough to give this bench a little cover-up, but so thick that the separations on the back of the bench created some nice snow ripples.  It's maybe not everyone's idea of an interesting photograph, but since this is my blog, I get to put up the things that interest my eyes.  The photograph was taken at f/10, 1/125sec, ISO 100 at 45mm.  Spring snow tends to work the best for these kinds of photographs as it is a little more wet and more apt to sticking to surfaces.  There's nothing like a fresh coat of snow to make things look nice and fresh.

Another Blast Of Winter

We're into the month of March so it can be said that we've rounded the final corner of Winter and Spring will soon be upon us.  However, as I have learned over the years, there is always one last storm before the seasons officially change.  With that in mind, here's another photographic blast of Arctic air.  Taken back in January, the ice fog completely covered the St. Lawrence River.  I stood in the snow for a few minutes waiting for a break in the fog so that I could see the structure of the Victoria Bridge.  My timing worked out as the winds picked up a little bit, and let the bridge peak out from behind the fog.  As an added bonus, the clouds cleared out a little bit as well, giving me a nice blue sky.  The photograph was taken at f/16, 1/1250sec, ISO 100 at 70mm as the temperature outside got even colder with the wind that cleared out the fog and made this photograph possible.

Different Points Of View

From time to time, I like to put up two similar photographs and showing some little differences.  The photographs you see below are the latest example.  I took them during one of the winter Fire On Ice fireworks shows that happen down at the Old Port of Montreal.  You can see some of the other photographs that I took of that set by following this link.  Since I was shooting the fireworks from across the river and I wanted to make sure to get as much of the fireworks and the downtown buildings into the shot as possible, I was using a wide angle lens, knowing that some cropping would have to be done later.  This year, there was a new element in the landscape as a large Ferris Wheel was added to the Old Port.  While cropping, I wanted to keep the image tight, but I also wanted to get the wheel into my final image as well.  If I want to look with a more objective eye, I think that the first photograph is probably the better final image because everything looks nice and tight, compared to the large open space in the top right hand side of the second photograph.  However, there's also a part of me that prefers the second photograph because more of the wheel and city can be seen.  The photograph was taken at f/16, 13sec, ISO 100 at 32mm and cropped to 24" x 36", though to include more of the city in the second.  I still like both of them which makes it a good thing that this is my blog since I get to put both up.  Feel free to decide among yourselves.