Yes.

Yielded from a day at Food Not Bombs in November.

The bike of my dreams...

Perhaps the most Amanda-appropriate apron there ever was.

Since I've had my Pentax K20D, I have really been missing the ability to do macro shots. For my Nikon D50 (my previous dSLR) and my Nikon film cameras, I have something called macro extension tubes to do close-up work. I mainly use this type of photography for my food photos, but it occasionally comes in handy in other areas as well. Essentially these extension tubes screw onto your lens, and create a distance between the film plane (or in the case of digital, the image sensor) and it causes the lens to focus more closely than normal (there is a more scientific explanation for this, but I am not well-versed in science or mathematics. Alls I know is that the tubes work!) You can stack tubes of different heights together to make your lens focus closer and closer - and it can get REAL close, folks, if you use more than one tube. I generally don't do this because it's just not my thang. However, macro tubes have really defined my food photography (there I go again, giving away my secrets...) I love 'em. Both my new Pentax-mount tubes and the ones I used on my Nikon bodies (which, incidentally, were designed for a whole nother lens mount called m42 which I have an adapter to make fit on Nikon, but that's another topic for another day) are manual focus, generic tubes. They're cheap as chips. I paid around $10 for the m42 tubes and abotu $12 for the new ones I just got for the Pentax.

I thought I should bake something to show off/test out the new tubes. I made pumpkin muffins. I even tried out my new snowflake silicone muffin "tin" (not really a tin since it's not metal, eh?) I sprinkled some powdered sugar on top to add interest for the photo. I say the new extension tubes work pretty well! This was taken with the shortest tube attached - I told you it'll get ridiculously close if you put on more than one. Look how close just the shortest one got us!

Of course, the more closely you focus on something, the more shallow the depth of field is going to be. That means with extension tubes, your depth of field is going to be WHOA shallow. You'd have to really close your aperture down to get much in focus. I don't want too much in focus, so I keep my aperture pretty wide for this stuff.

So that's it for this Bokeh Wednesday. Shallow depth of field AND pumpkin muffins? Mmmmm. Doesn't get much better than that!

I honestly cannot hear the phrase "Happy Halloween" without hearing "Mama this is Happy Halloween, to you" to the tune of "Sex and Candy" by Marcy Playground. Thank you, Jimmy Fallon!

If you were  to say to me, "Hey Amanda. Who's your favorite band?", I'd have a few answers for that question (I'm not good at having only one favorite. It's a blessing and a curse.) My answer would go something like this, "Hey. Good question. My favorite band's The Beatles. And mewithoutYou. And anything David Bazan does. In no particular order."  I have already gushed about getting to see mewithoutYou (The Weiss Family) again back in August. And here we are, not even two months later, and I've just been able to see David Bazan. This made me so stinking happy. So, so happy.

Bazan could've played anything from any album and I'd have been stoked, because I don't know if there's a song on any of his records that I DON'T like. But I was pleased with the mixture of songs he did. A lot of the new album. Some from the EP. And some from his work with Pedro the Lion. I was quite pleased.

It's nice when something you've so looked forward to meets and even exceeds your expectations. Thank you, Mr. Bazan.

(Pssssst. More photos from this show are HERE)

(Pentax K20D. Smc Pentax-a 50mm/2)

I have a dizzying array of photos and blogs that I am working  on for Shoot With Personality.  Tales of mystery and intrigue and magnicent adventures in the world of photography. Not really. I did attend Cooper-Young Fest recently and did some street-style photography, did a photo shoot for a musician I know, and I also acquired a "new to me" Polaroid-style instant camera, so blogs about those things (and more) are in the works.

(these two were taken Monday, but I was trying to be a minimalist in Monday's post)

Bokeh-a-licious

Bonus:
Part Bokeh Wednesday shot, part food porn shot. All delicious. Blueberry pancakes I brunched on at home this morning.

]]> http://www.shootwithpersonality.com/2009/09/16/unofficial-bokeh-wednesday/feed/ 0 http://www.shootwithpersonality.com/2009/09/14/rainy-monday/ http://www.shootwithpersonality.com/2009/09/14/rainy-monday/#comments Mon, 14 Sep 2009 21:17:39 +0000 araney http://www.shootwithpersonality.com/?p=204

Today is a rainy day. It is also a Monday, which means it is my day off. I am spending this rainy Monday with a great friend, avoiding doing my laundry, watching the aforementioned rain through the big windows at Otherlands, and being contemplative about youth ministry.

This is probably my favorite cake I have ever made, cuteness-wise. I have meant to post it on SWP for a few weeks. I thought it would be appropriate to do so today, because it is Labor Day and apparently that means Americans can eat a lot.

It tasted delicious, too. I got the recipie from kittie a few years ago. She is the bomb and my cake-making idol.

I am super obsessed with dew droplets on plants right now. This was taken outside my job, on my way in for the morning. It also looks good Viewed On Black. Look at that bokeh! Look at that shallow depth of field! Look at all the photographic terms you are learning by reading my blog!

*I took this before 8 a.m. this morning. It might be jumping the gun a bit to call a "shot of the day" this early on, but it is a risk I am willing to take.