Super Saturday

Looking out through the Original Cabin's Windows this morning

January 7, 2011 8:45 34 degrees and Cloudy at the Cottage by the Bay

Cottage Living

One of the things that I've picked up this last year is  a light tent. It's a pop-up nylon cube with a variety of different colored velvet backdrops developed to make photographing objects or products much easier without a lot of shadows. They really became popular when Ebay came about. People needed good clear photographs of the objects that they were trying to sell. I think Ebay was a major factor in the digital camera boom. Everyone needed quick upload-able photos. I acquired this light tent shortly after I did a bottle shoot for a  Winery. Taking pictures of reflective bottles can be quite a chore. The light tent makes it much easier because it diffuses the light and you can avoid quite a few of the unwanted reflections. Seeing the photographer in your wine bottle is not really very professional. Notice that I mentioned that I acquired this after I completed the bottle shoot. Another great help to "product shooting" is that my new Canon 7D has the capability to trigger stand alone flashes off camera, Something Nikon owners have had for quite a while.

I decided to clear off our kitchen table and experiment with the tent and camera adjustments. I was able to hookup my laptop to the camera so that I could see the results without having to squint into the little screen on the back of the camera. The first thing I did was to put in the black backdrop. I then grabbed an old brass lamp. This first shot was taken without using a diffuser, note the reflection but I liked how the brass photographed.

Next up I put some bottles in. I knew that the black would not show off the colors but snapped it anyway... things appear to float on black as the background seems disappear.

Changed out the backdrop to white and threw some stuff in. Wasn't real particular. I will be able to completely remove the background wrinkles in photoshop. so here they are out of camera...

 

 

Before and After Project 365

Still playing with the light tent... here is the slightly crooked out of camera version.

Before

After

Here I've straightened it, cropped it to make it off-center, and added some highlights and lowlights in photoshop to give it a little punch.

Living Low Carb

This morning I made another non-muffin muffin. This time I winged it with a recipe of my own. If you have a regular size oven you can certainly double it if you want. Once again I used a small cake pan for mine.

Rhondi's Blueberry Lowcarb eat all you want muffins

1 cup of Almond meal (really cheap at trader Joe's)

2 eggs

1/4 cup of flax meal

1/3 cup of splenda

tsp vanilla

sprinkle of cinnamon

pinch of salt

1/3 tsp baking soda

1/2 cup heavy cream (you can use  some melted butter and milk instead)

mix that all together, then fold in

1/2 cup of frozen or fresh blueberries.

1/2 cup of walnuts if you'd like

bake at 350 until springy. In my toaster convection oven it doesn't take that long.

these are really good and moist, and they are completely guilt-free.

I'm finding that It's a lot easier to keep with the program if you aren't feeing deprived.

Pause for thought...

Okay so you can see where my focus is...it is the beginning of the New Year after all :-)

Top ten low carb diet mistakes

Until Next Time...

Okay you don't need to speak the language. She's 72 years old.

72 year old female body builder working out by UZI4you