Friday Finds: A New White Pitcher

I used a medium grey Kim Klassen texture from the Febtrio collection.
Multiply Blend Mode at 75% opacity.  

The first piece of advice from this week’s “Be Still 52” assignment on Prop Shopping was DO NOT purchase everything you see.   Fall in love first, and then decide.  I started shopping on Thursday - it was a therapeutic session because I was upset and decided a little shopping would give me the opportunity to calm down and "be still." 

I was about 25 miles from home but ran into one of the stores on the list for great prop bargains.  Restricting myself to the clearance aisle I picked up and examined cups, dishtowels, table runners and breadboards. I popped a couple in my basket then made my way to the "full price” aisles.  

There I found a wonderful white pitcher with blue lettering. PITCHER was written across the top as if one needed help identifying it's purpose.

The lettering and the pitcher were beautiful, but full price.  I already had a breadboard, a cup, some labels, a journal, and some note paper in my basket, so I put the pitcher back on the shelf and ran quickly to the cashier to pay for my bounty.  I walked out of the store content that I had done a great job - everything on sale.  

This morning I took my items out for a second look and was soooooo sorry I did not have the beautiful pitcher.  I couldn’t possibly drive the 25 miles back to the store where I had seen the pitcher,  but decided to spend sometime at a store in my neighborhood – just in case I could find the same pitcher.  I did not fit the Blue Beauty, but, I found this little gem.  It works well with the last rose from my garden and I don’t think the Blue Beauty would have worked at all.  My Friday Find....

A Lady in Waiting

I thought this would be a great year for the little girls (Zoe is seven and Dakota is eight) to participate in the Orange County Chapter of Links, Inc. Debutante Program. Not as Debs of course, but as "Ladies in Waiting".  Ms. Dakota is such an active little one and likes to play so many sports I wasn't sure I could get her full cooperation with something so "girly".  Nor did I have a clue what I would do with her hair since she had recently taken a pair of scissors and "experimented" with a new hair style.   

We were able to work it out with a little color on the cheek, a bit of pencil on the eyelids and pink lip gloss.  She was perfect.   

Zoe's Valentine Chocolate

What a sweetie pie.  Zoe was with us for the weekend but as an only child she is very content playing by herself and doesn't need very much entertaining. She came in to the studio to see what I was doing and stayed to help me with a set up for a still life of strawberries and cream then helped herself to  the chocolate that I thought I might use to add some detail to the story.  The chocolate didn't work out for the still life - but Zoe really enjoyed it.

Details - Details - Details

I am always amazed at how careful food photographers have to be about details.  I shadowed Sylvia Bissonnette, an Irvine product and food photographer, a couple of years ago and was blown away at the work she put into the image we were working on.  Not only did she have someone at the computer watching as every shot was created, there was a food stylist, the food stylist assistant and the art director for the client.  What a team - all focused on the details.

I thought this bowl of strawberries  was going to make an awesome image but......  now that the image is edited and uploaded, I can see that the cream pitcher is much too close to the camera.  It competes with the bowl of strawberries for attention.  This one deserves a do over.

Southern California Strawberries

We already have ripe strawberries and it is only the middle of February. 

These came from the little pocket farm on the corner of 166th and Studebaker.  

 I bought three boxes. They were not as sweet as I like and needed just a bit of sugar, 

but in a couple of weeks I bet they will be perfect.  

Today was the day... Artichauts.

Texture: Kim Klassen "Nested"

Attending classes online is a convenient way of making sure I take the lens cap off and create something interesting with my camera every week. What is tricky is making time to complete all the lessons.  Although I read lessons one, two, AND three for the Be Still 52 course  by Kim Klassen, In the month since I enrolled, I had only put aside enough time to create an image for lesson one.  

Today, I was determined to focus on lesson four.   I had purchased the artichokes a couple of days ago and placed them in the refrigerator. There, they had waited patiently for me to bring them upstairs to my "studio" and today was the day.   I gathered all the props and arranged everything on a folding table in front of a south facing window.  I threw a dishtowel across the study carrel I use for a tabletop background. The root-carving bowl was perfect for the artichokes but... perhaps it was the dish towel.  I tried another one, and even added some bright red peppers in front of the bowl but nothing seemed interesting to me.  I kept moving everything around, and around, and around. The sun was sinking and I was getting anxious.  

I took a break to answer a knock at my front door.   There stood a friend, her arms full of stuff, balancing a paper cup with a little wilted flower swaddled inside a wet paper napkin.  She was bringing the flower to me in hopes I could identify it. I cut the stem, found a cute bottle for it, poured some water into the bottle and brought the flower upstairs to my desk to recover.   I decided to try the little wilted flower in the "Be Still" composition.  It worked... 

Week four - Take Action - Make it happen.  

Be Still

Photography is such an active endeavor, moving around, capturing images, editing, printing - always something to do.  The idea of being still seemed to be the anthesis of my kind of photography. Little kids and families, street and travel images and small events.  Always so much to do, classes to take, editing my favorite images, and keeping promises to people who have worked with me on one project or another.  

Even with a bunch of work sitting on my desktop, when I saw the title "Be Still_52" I was intrigued, and when I saw it was a workshop hosted by Kim Klassen I was hooked.  I have been downloading her textures for a while, always planning to find an image where I could use at least one of the textures - but you know how the story goes when you are in the "planning" stage.  Kim's textures, and a bunch of others I harvested from here and there across the internet, have been waiting patiently  in a folder on my hard drive.  

Tonight I used "Pie Pan".  (soft light 60% opacity)   

Here's hoping I can complete the series of 52 still life images this year.

#1 Breathe