Category Archives: Food

Slowing Down

★ Posted on at 09:34 pm ★

pasta

The batteries in the flash gun were flat so I had to improvise with my lighting. Just grabbed the plate of pasta and brought it to a window to get a nice soft diffused look.

Had plenty of rocket leaves left over, so that was tossed in with some artichoke hearts, serrano ham, ricotta cheese, mushrooms with garlic and onions. Plenty of parmesan on top made it a really tasty dish.

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Nothing much happening of late, and I think the hayfever is behind me. Cut up the last of the grass over the weekend and I’m glad I don’t have to touch it for another few months.

Work is strange with new staff coming on. I try to be as objective as possible when viewing how people like to implement new work processes or strategies. It is easy to rely on past practices or experiences but one has to believe that everyone has a genuine interest in improving the organisation one way or the other. I do view things with some scepticism as one tries to change the inherent culture of the workplace. We shall see how things unfold over the next few months.

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I am currently in the state where I just want to do things but it feels like I’m banging against a wall. There is the inertia to start something totally new even if I have a few ideas floating around.

It’s been a while since I’ve just sat down and done nothing. It occurs every once in a while where I need the boredom to set in, so that I can feel rejuvenated to do something else. Heh, it’s that lack of quiet time these days that keeps my mind occupied, but at the same time my mind hasn’t had the time to question other things in life. It’s sort of a sanity check, to ensure that you don’t take things for granted, and that you are constantly reminding yourself to continue to strive to become a better person.

Just feels like I need one of those breaks now.

Perfecting Stuff

★ Posted on at 09:35 pm ★

20101107-0001

Best rosetta to date that I’ve made on a cup of coffee. My coffee is still inconsistent, but only because I don’t want to waste anything, so even if it’s not as good as it can be, I just drink 98% of the shots I pull.

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by the river

Tried out my new neutral density filter. I just wanted to get the mirror image of the river flowing. Diffraction is horribly visible at f11, which this was shot at, but I can’t even get a 1s exposure at that without the filter. So it’s definitely better than nothing.

I’m starting to feel that if you want better image quality that you need to migrate to a full frame camera. Better wide angle lenses compared to the crop factor, no diffraction until f16, giving you more options for getting sharp landscapes. High ISO may not be a great factor at the moment but the better dynamic range of FF sensors definitely help produce a better quality image. Heh, none of this is substitute for having a good eye to capture these images though.

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Did some late night cooking just about an hour ago. Marinated some chicken winglets and drumlets with lots of honey and soy, with a little Thai chilli flakes for some spiciness. I let those sit for about 20 minutes before baking them in the oven. I’ve been tweaking my cooking time and temperature for these over the last few tries and I think I’ve got a method which I think produces pretty good baked chicken. You need it to be hot enough so that the sugars caramelise and cook the meat through, without burning the outer skin and leaving the flesh inside all dried out.

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It’s just the way I like to learn things, from trial and error. It sticks with me better when I can analyse the outcome from what I’ve done and I feel proud when I achieve what I’ve set out to do.

Going With the Flow

★ Posted on at 08:50 pm ★

mount sturgeon

Gave this image the High Dynamic Range treatment. A lot of times I see a scene that I’d like to frame and these days I feel that I’m getting better at framing something visually interesting. The original image had a lot less contrast and colour, although I think the blue sky here is a little over the top. Other than that, I’m quite happy with the processing of the image, and it’s closer to what I remember seeing on the day when I took the picture.

This is Mount Sturgeon, and on the second day of our trip to Dunkeld. After returning home in the evening, I took a walk out to grab some shots, and here is the restaurant we dined at, the Royal Mail Hotel.

royal mail hotel

The image becomes a little more interesting once you tweak the colours a bit and you get a little more detail in the mountain behind to give it a backdrop. Even without the context of the image, the mountain behind gives you the sense that you are at the country side, but the modernist architecture of the Royal Mail Hotel makes it stand out and provides interest to the picture.

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Having a little more spark in life these days. The weather is still crummy, where it is still raining pretty much every day but I’m rediscovering the joy I get from doing stuff like editing photographs and cooking. Trying to get used to the wok my mom brought over from Malaysia and it’s very different to using a frying pan. It is true what my mom indicated, that you need to have all your ingredients ready before you start cooking as the wok can concentrate so much heat in your food that you will have no time to chop up other stuff while things are already cooking.

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Some days I just keep planning the future. Heh, just don’t want to spend too much time planning it. Like they say, you need to ship your product, to get it out the door. Being a little more productive now, learning new things, trying new stuff, I just want to get the motivation to start again, and bring the enjoyment back to living. Life definitely feels more fulfilling that way.