Sunday Breakfast

I love to cook Sunday breakfast. There is always something special about it. This morning is mild and bright and French toast seems to fit the bill. It seems there are a lot of different versions to this classic but my favourite is the one that frequents the menus of Sydney cafés. Thick cut fresh bread, grilled banana, crispy bacon (or even better, pancetta) and gallons of syrup.

I eagerly mop up the last of the sweetness clinging to my plate with the warm, egg-soaked, fried bread as the church bells start to sound.

Alleluia.

Food for thought… regarding food.

I remember a couple of months ago, standing in the crisps aisle of my local Asda store and thinking: “What a waste of human and natural resource”.

I actually found myself lost for words at how much crap was in this store. I don’t mean Asda specifically, of course. I usually enjoy shopping there (never again on a Saturday). Just generally we waste so much effort and resource in producing that which has no real value.

I might read more into it and say that this was an epiphany about life in general and wasted effort, but in this case, I was really just thinking about food. You might argue that gaining pleasure from food is a worthwhile use of resource. I watch a young girl stuff a fist full of chips in her mouth and think, yes, but it’s the type of greedy pleasure that is too close to gluttony to be cherished.

I love to cook, and I love food. I enjoy my fat and sugar as much as anyone. In recent years information has trickled into my consciousness that is changing the way I look at these things though. The above video is from a talk given four years ago. I can’t remember if I’ve seen it before but it reminded me of a whimsical statement I made after seeing another of these talks about becoming a ‘weekday vegetarian’.

I am renewing this now as a commitment on the public forum. Five days a week, I can reduce or remove my consumption of animal products and feast on flesh on my days off. Seems achievable and, if enough people take up this crazy habit, we are essentially cutting the demand for animal products by about 70%. Good for us, good for the environment.

Read more great TED stuff here.

43 days until the Edinburgh marathon and I’m scared

Its my first post in a while and it’s not about photography.

Its about pain.

I like to exercise and all that but a marathon? How the heck do I make these decisions? I am running in the Edinburgh Marathon this year and I am totally unprepared. I mean, I run, I have an active job, I cycle, I walk everywhere. But a marathon. Even the name makes me think of Mount Olympus and Achilles. Greek god/ athlete I am not.

But I am determined. I will be raising money for the charity Help the Hospices through my  JustGiving page. I hope to raise £1000 to help them with their extraordinary work supporting UK hospices.

Every little helps.

You can follow my progress on my twitter page where I will be updating my training, fundraising progress and my general pain for all to see. There are about another 140 runners for Help the Hospices. We hope to really make a difference through our personal suffering and our generous donations.

26.2 miles is a long, painful way to run but helping the ones you love when they are ill is a real test of endurance. I hope we can add just a little comfort and support to their day.

Thanks for reading and give generously at my JustGiving page.

Recipe for Decilicious

Serendipity x Providence + Inspiration = Delicious!

Taking inspiration from one of my favourite blogs, Sprouted Kitchen, I decided to do a little blurb about tonight’s dinner. This entry is a bit different from that wonderful site however in that, where sprouted kitchen is all planned out with great recipes made from raw, fresh ingredients, my post will be… serendipitous. Man I love that word!

Earlier today, after an great deal of stress (long story. I’ll tell you later) I decided to pop down to Asda to pick up something quick. Providence put a few lovely little bits in my way though leaving me salivating anticipation down my shirt front.

Whole Trout: £1.00 (bagged incorrectly from what I could tell), Mediterranean Veg: £1.50 (full price), 200mL Asda Cava: £1.64.

I don’t like to keep any business affiliations, that is, I am pretty neutral in fact particularly disloyal when it comes to grocery shopping, but £4.14 is pretty bloody good for a dinner in! With wine.

Get it home, throw it all in a baking dish. Add a little chilli to the vegetables in olive oil with herbs. Some parsley and lemon on that whole trout and in the oven at 180° for about 45 minutes. No mess, no fuss.

This is not usually my style. I like to chop, marinate, sizzle and drizzle but this really was just a fortunate series of events which ended in exactly what I wanted. So, Whole baked trout with mediterranean vegetables and a balsamic reduction. I’m sure I’ve paid fifteen quid for that somewhere.

Be Good!

Benjamin Button

benjamin button

Originally uploaded by Jeff Armstrong Photography

Well, I’ve been putting off watching this movie for a long time. Mainly because I didn’t think I’d like it.

Occasionally we have the opportunity to see theater, movies, performances that really speak to us in a way that others do not. To get to the point, sometimes, rarely We might feel like a movie was written just we, and only we, would be able to see it. As if it were written just for our attention.

In many ways, ‘The Curious Case of Benjamin Button‘ was the one that caught me by surprise. As stated, I didn’t think I’d like it. Brad in his southern accent and Cate looking strangely alluring, it seemed a bit done before. Somewhere.

But not so, entirely. An adaption from a 1920’s short story, the movie had only a smattering the obvious racial and cultural puritanism of the time. The story supersedes this simply by not bothering that much with it. And the ‘curious case’ in the medical and psychological sense, is met with beautiful pragmatism and true acceptance.

What could easily have become a Sci-fi thriller turns out to be the story of every man. The 20’s prose was, amongst other things, a commentary on motherhood and relationships. The Hollywood adaption, despite being well funded, retains a heart of poignancy.

As I watched it I felt that it was written and played, truly, just for me. That someone looked at my life and said: ‘You know what? I have a story to define you.’ Don’t get me wrong, there are no physical or sociological parallels there. Only a feeling I get that somehow things are back to front and that the more I experience, the less I know and the older I get the younger (or, perhaps, the more immature) I feel.

And so, as I sit here and grow younger and more immature and forget the things I used to know and realize the truths that elude us all I am comfortable in the knowledge that, even eighty years ago, and therefore at anytime in history, someone, somewhere felt, more or less, the same way.

Comforting.

Be Good,

Jeff

Maria’s mother’s pierogi

Maria’s mother’s pierogi

Originally uploaded by Jeff Armstrong Photography

mmm… Pierogi.

I love it.

There are really only a handful of things that define a culture. Art, poetry, prose, drama, architecture, language, war to name some. Only a few of these can create true bridges between people, history, families and even nations.

I love food photography and food generally. I was in the industry for many years and now that I am on the periphery, trying to become a food photographer, I can finally remind myself why it is so important to me.

To me a true sign of culture is when the ordinary becomes art (a sign of decline then might be when art becomes ordinary but I’ve not thought about this enough to write about it). A perfect example for me is the Japanese tea ceremony. It is truly beautiful. Full of perfect movement, subtlety, complexity and meaning. In the end, it’s just a cup of tea. But that ‘just tea’ is delivered to the realm of art and culture from the everyday. And the habits of subtlety from this spill over into everyday life.

For me, modern food in many restaurants and even homes, has taken the same cultural significance of art. My partner has stories of making pierogi at her mothers side for her father and three brothers. It’s significance is inherent by the ritual and memory of the making rather than the eating of the meal.

For modern chef’s in restaurant kitchens I think it has become a similar experience. Preparing the meal has gone from a necessary chore, through this stage of inherent cultural value, to a status of high art. One only needs to look at the work of Heston Blumenthal (one of my favorite cook books of all time), Ferran Adrià of El Bulli, Martin Whishart, Tom Kitchen or the humble Stuart Muir whom I had the opportunity to work with at Harvey Nichols, to know that food has not been ‘just sustenance’ or even a mothers gift for a long time. Please forgive the Edinburgh bias. I talk about what I know about.

The ordinary becoming art can be pretentious (often in photography) but also, it can be truly beautiful (dance) or at the very least: engaging (the karma sutra for example, not that this is the least of the arts 🙂 ).

In the culinary experience, when food becomes art, it is not just an exquisite journey of taste and aroma often accompanied by that other wonderful art: vinification, it can also be a journey through time and space.

I love this scene at the end Ratatouille (one of my favorite quotes: ‘I don’t like food. I love it. If I don’t love it, I don’t swallow’) Where the hardened critic sits down to the simple and provincial dish and, in a mouthful, he is a child at his mother’s side, loved and happy. That is the art of food. Like music, it can give you a glimpse into the composers soul. Or maybe even your own.

Thanks and be good, Jeff

mediterranian morning

mediterranian morning

Originally uploaded by Jeff Armstrong Photography

I have made a return, of sorts. From Cyprus I am now in Poland for a few weeks. I may pick up some work here but if not I can spend some time doing my own stuff, which is cool.

The image above was taken early in the morning from Kourion Beach near Episkopi, Cyprus, the village in which we have been working the last two months. It ranks as one of my favorites. It feels exactly like it felt to be there. Subtle colors. Cool and smooth. We swam there but not for very long. A bit chilly but refreshing.

At f22 my meter wanted to give me 1/4 to 1/2 second which froze the water and just made it a bit boring. I was at my highest available aperture and lowest ISO with a polariser on. So in the absence of a neutral gray filter, what to do to get up to the required 2 seconds for that beautiful silky water?

Just blow it out. Actually, shooting in RAW there is a lot more information in the highlighted areas and the shadows so it makes a bit of sense to shoot a little brighter than what your camera might suggest. So even if you’ve got clipping in your info screen, as long as the histogram is good you will have an image.

In fact in the RGB histogram many images will have a lot more of one color that the other two. You can push the dominant colour to the very edge and still get a great image.

Now, I don’t carry a light meter. I usually set to aperture priority see the result and take it from there. I got mildly ridiculed for this once but realized that in studio work I would take a dozen meter readings before ever taking a shot. Shooting in Av is about the same thing in my opinion and I use it as a tool a lot.

If one takes the argument to its logical conclusion then even shooting fully automatic seems reasonable if the results are what you intend. My intention here was to portray a cool, serene and silvery morning. I could only do that using manual settings. So the tool works for me.

What’s the point? No idea. Just the thought’s in my head. I’m printing this image to canvas as a gift for some friends of ours today. I hope the results are good.

Thanks and be good,

Jeff.

Kourion Cliff Walk

kourion cliff walk pano

Originally uploaded by Jeff Armstrong Photography

Did panoramic just get too easy?

I got Photoshop CS4 a few months ago and was immediately amazed at how easy it is create panoramic images. Even hand held I can stitch 3, 4, 5 images together almost effortlessly. As many as I like.

I guess this is good. I kind of liked the challenge of stitching and then blending a panoramic manually. It was fun. Now it’s just a click…

There is a trick though. Well two: 1) Take the images with PLENTY of overlap and 2) pick to right combine mode i.e spherical, cylindrical etc… Fortunately, with patience you can try them all, if you get the images right in the first place. That’s it. Simple. Hehehehe…

I guess I am just going to have to combine my other favorite digital technique, HDR, and find some new challenges in this area.

I’m still in Cyprus. Having a great life. The dream comes to an end soon though. Or another begins. Off to Poland for a while. Postponing reality for a bit longer. where will that next pay check come from?

That’s all for now. Talk soon.

Be good, Jeff

Scooter Visit

scooter visit

Originally uploaded by Jeff Armstrong Photography

The manually inserted vignette seems to be all the rage these days.

I find it a little ironic how much research and development and money consumers pay to avoid the vignette in camera only to put it back in post production. For or against? As always: it depends.

Many images, especially those with a lot of peripheral detail, do well with a vignette. It helps focus the viewers attention and damp down extraneous information.

For me, it is more of a comment of the skill of working withing the limits of the camera. The more advanced our cameras get, the more information they capture and the more flexibility we have. the camera still has limits like dynamic range and pixel count. Know these, however, puts a photographer in a great position to work around them or, this is the great bit, exploit them.

the image below was shot on a point and shoot just for fun. The auto-focus makes it difficult to create interesting composure so the main subject of the rocks was slightly out of the focal plane. Also the poorer optics and smaller file gave a grainy look to the image.

I know this and so in post production I used this grainy feel and emphasized it to give a grungy kind of ruptured feel that I enjoy even though the limitations initially pissed me off!

Beginning with the end in mind is important and knowing the extend of you equipment, including post production, will make images or break them.

Thanks and be good, Jeff.

A day trip to Lefkara, Cyprus

Lefkara, Cypus

Originally uploaded by Jeff Armstrong Photography

Doing this on a Saturday without a car requires hiking or, in our case, hitchhiking, something I am new to.

There are so many beautiful shots in Cyprus I am spoiled for choice. That got me to thinking about inspiration and motivation.

At the moment things are pretty easy. I’ve got enough money to get by. Somebody cooks for me during the week. It’s a 20 minute walk to the beach in the heat past terraced grape vines and olive groves. Beer is cheap. My girls is here and I am content.

It’s really been tough to find things to write about amongst all this goodness. Not that I am always complain-blogging but my ideas often come when I’m pissed about something. Maybe life is too good or I’m just not used to being completely content.

So, what does a photo blog become without things to bitch about? Let’s see…

I find it difficult to delete.

I have spent the last couple of days cleaning up my storage devices of images in raw format that I have not looked at in two years. So: delete: delete: delete. Get rid of those repetitions, misfires, if I ranked it with a two or three; out it goes. If it never got used; bye-bye. If, after two years, I can’t see a new angle or editing technique or apply a new useful idea to it, it’s G.O.N.E baby!

To be fair I only cleared up 14GB of memory. Not bad but compared to the couple of hundred gig I have stored away, not a big deal. I guess I’ll have another go next spring.

BTW, Scott Kelby gave some great advice. If your doing a job. Instead of using you hard drives external or otherwise, separate these onto pen drives. They are stable, cheap, reliable and easy to store.

Maybe it can work for personal images as well. These can even be named electronically, some can be physically labelled and if your using an LCD picture frame for example, they can be easily changed depending on your mood or your visitors i.e. mother, ex-gilfriend, new girlfriend 😀

Something to ponder.

Be good, Dzeffski