Green Solo cup. I fill you up.
Happy Superbowl Sunday, ya’ll.
Ok, ok. There was only lemonade in the cup. And we were celebrating a friend’s birthday with the game on in the far background. I’ve been inspired by red solo cups for years. This cheery green one just begged to be photographed. Photo Copyright 2012, Karen Fayeth. Taken with my iPhone4s using the Hipstamatic app.
I was so impressed by a Hipstaphoto I saw in December where a photographer had used an Olloclip to capture a snowflake, that I just had to go out and purchase one of my very own.
After the Christmas holidays, they were on major backorder, so I wasn’t expecting my new iPhoneography device until February.
I did a little hop click of my heels when it arrived this week.
Super!
Between moving and the deluge of new projects at work, I haven’t had a bunch of time to play with the glass lenses and ingenious clip for my iPhone.
Yesterday, I sat in the work cafeteria slumped in my chair trying to get in some nutrition, and my eyes landed on this tableau:
Well, the light was nice and the shakers were interesting. So I decided no time like the present.
I dug the Olloclip out of my pocket, slid it on the iPhone, and took some quick snaps.
These aren’t well composed and in some cases, focus is a little wonky.
And yet, I’m deeply impressed.
These three shots were all using the macro lens:
Red pepper flakes. They almost look like jerky. The light streaks are from the sun bouncing off the ridges in the shaker
Pepper that looks like grains of sand.
Take this photo with a grain of salt
So far, I’m digging the Olloclip. I still have to try out the fish eye (though I’m not really a fan of fish eye lenses) and the wide angle. Honestly, I bought the Olloclip for the macro lens, so I expect the other lenses won’t see as much use.
I think the quality of the Olloclip is a bit better than the Macro Cell Lens Band (reviewed here) mainly because it’s made of actual glass and not plastic, but I find the lens band more portable.
Either way, they make delicious looking macro photos. Time to explore!
Happy Friday ya’ll.
It should be noted that I paid for the Olloclip myself and that this review was not solicited, nor was I compensated. I’m just a giddy fangirl and proud of it.
All photos Copyright 2011, Karen Fayeth and subject to the Creative Commons license found on the far right column of this page.
Today’s Theme Thurday theme is: produce.
So let’s produce the produce! (<- see what I did there?)
Photos taken in my cafeteria at work with my iPhone4s and the Hipstamatic app……and in the middle of an extraordinarily busy day.
Theme Thurday waits for no BossMan, no matter how demanding.
With the insanity of a more-than-full-time job, and the crush of the holidays, I’m a little sad that I wasn’t able to make a batch of my Blue Ribbon biscochitos this year. (Long time reader Ephraim has agreed to eat extra of his wife’s batch of biscochitos in order to bring balance back to the universe)
I also didn’t get a chance to make sugar cookies.
I didn’t manage to get to that chocolate covered peanut butter ball recipe I wanted to try.
And toffee. This year I was going to make toffee.
I didn’t get any of that done.
Thankfully, one family tradition did manage to squeeze through my kitchen as we near the holiday.
When I was growing up, my mom used to make these fabulous cream cheese mints. I always considered them to be so elegant and classy. Posh, as the Brits would say.
I remember my mom wrapped up a beautiful box of mints and gave them to my kindergarten teacher (who I idolized). She sent my mom a gushing thank you note. For some reason that stuck with me.
Through the magic of the internet, I was able to find myself a set of candy molds that approximated my mom’s collection, and Thursday night I put all else aside and whipped up a batch.
Tasty treats. Family lore.
Happy Christmas Eve to us all!!
This tin was supposed to make its way to work to share. It didn’t make it to work. More for me!
So pretty!!
Photos Copyright 2011, Karen Fayeth, and subject to the Creative Commons on the right column of this page. Photos taken with an iPhone4s and the Hipstamatic app.
…means something else entirely to me.
November 25th isn’t just the day after Thanksgiving, at least not in my family.
Today isn’t shopping in my world. What this day means to me trends more toward apple pie. No, not pumpkin. Apple.
That’s because today would have been my father’s 80th birthday. He was a rather cantankerous fella, and he didn’t like celebrating holidays or birthdays much. He didn’t like cake either.
Ice cream worked just fine. And occasionally an apple pie. That was his favorite. A simple apple pie and vanilla ice cream.
Dad always got a bit of short shrift by having a birthday that was either the day of Thanksgiving, or right nearby. Since he wasn’t much of a holiday kind of guy, I guess that didn’t matter.
Never one to be deterred by crankiness, mom would whip up an apple pie. Then after we ate dinner but before bedtime, we’d each get a slice of pie with some vanilla ice cream. If we were lucky, the pie was still hot from the oven and the ice cream would melt and we’d eat and have something like a nice family moment together.
Not long after I moved to the Bay Area, my mom, dad and sister came to visit me in my tiny apartment. I made Thanksgiving dinner, the full spread, in my ancient kitchen. And of course, I made an apple pie for dad.
It’s at the holidays when tradition seems to matter the most. So even though it was sometimes a little rocky living in the house with the incredibly strong personality that defined my dad, having pie on his birthday is still tradition.
Today, while the world shops and fights over deals on big screen TVs, I’m a little quieter. A little more thoughtful.
I asked The Good Man if he wanted me to make another pie (we already finished the pumpkin pie from yesterday). He said “maybe cherry?”
Yes. Cherry. Perhaps our new tradition begins today.
Photo by Crystal Woroniuk and used royalty free from stock.xchng.