Cherry Blossoms 2013

So here we are again. It’s time for pink flower loving hordes to descend upon Washington DC. A time in which DC metro locals get to deal with extra long commutes (already some of the longest in the country) and restricted access to some of the sights we hold as our own. This year, at least from my perspective, there were a particularly large amount of tourists in town to see the trees. 

While out fighting to stake my ground for picture making, I realized that its absolutely true that everyone owns a camera. Well, maybe not every single person in America, but it sure seemed like it given this particular sample of the population. Beyond that, I was positively numbed by the number of tripods; I never in my life as a photographer have seen so many in one location. As a stock shooter I compared the experience of shooting the blossoms this year to fishing a hole with ten thousand other poles in the water. It was a pretty thankless task to say the least. Its going to take a whole lot of convincing to make me do it again next year.

All whining aside I did manage to drop my three legs to the ground and shoot some new images of the blossoms for stock. This here is my favorite from the day.

Shooting macro images of small flowers in the wild is way harder than you might imagine. Especially when those flowers are on trees, by the river, on a particularly breezy morning. My hat is off to those who manage to get great macro’s in the wild on a regular basis. It takes great patience and skill.

In review the Cherry Blossoms were particularly nice this year. There was a very even bloom amongst the majority of the trees, the only drawback being that they were supposedly “late”. The trees bloomed two weeks after the festival that had carried on in their name while the blossoms were still tightly nestled in the branches. And this brings me to my final point. Why must we plan a natural phenomenon festival that ought to take place during a time when that particular wonder is taking place, a year in advance when there is no possible way to predict they exact time of arrival? Tourism.

A Good Run

Its amazing to consider how a chain of events might have changed your life. A simple visit from a close friend turns into an impromptu photo shoot. The results from the photo shoot turn into a long run of jobs. The long run of jobs spins off into a number of new jobs entirely unrelated to the look of the impromptu photo shoot with the close friend.

Its hard to believe how quickly two years have passed. It seems like only yesterday that Mark and Susan from the Keegan Theatre came into IOTA to see a band play, after catching up I showed them some photos from the aforementioned impromptu photo shoot which featured our friend who had, by the way, worked with Keegan in the past. On that night we rekindled our friendships and begun a new relationship.

From most recent to the very first these are all of the posters I’ve shot for the Keegan Theatre to date. I’ve chosen to show the finished design posters with copy because I think its important to see how a final image is used within a design concept. The fine design work was done by Matt Rippetoe, his website can be found here.

Cheers!

All My Sons

A Couple Of Blaguards

August: Osage County

Cuchullain

Spring Awakening

Working

Twelve Angry Men

Laughter On The 23rd Floor

An Irish Carol

The Crucible

National Pastime

Steel Magnolias

The Weir

The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee

A Shadow Of Honor

Derek Evry and his Misenthropes: CD Release Party @ IOTA Club and Cafe

I’m not going to get into a review of the show. I will say that it rocked like mad and that the crowd was really engaged with many people dancing and singing along.

What I will say about it is that I was well impressed. I’ve seen Derek play countless shows over the past 3-4 years and this was something different. This was a rock band coming into its own, and everybody was there to witness it.

Congratulations on the successful release Derek and the M’s, you guys worked hard putting it together and you kicked its ass into the world with style, bombast and kick in the pants rock and roll.

Buy this record Here or download it Here.
Enjoy the pics HERE!

 

 

Homemade hummus with olives

c/o Danielle

I’ve had a massive salt craving the last few months and have consequently been consuming a ton of olives (and evoo-sea-salt popcorn, but that is for another post).  I occasionally need to break down and balance them out with…something. Thankfully I have a killer hummus recipe that comes together in just a few minutes.

A few years ago, in search of the perfect hummus recipe, I ran across an article about how to make super-smooth hummus at home. For a long time, I avoided homemade hummus because the consistency just couldn’t compare with storebought, or even better, fresh hummus from some of my favorite mediterranean restaurants. The trick? You cream the tahini and lemon juice before adding chickpeas. I’ve also noticed that dried, soaked and cooked chickpeas** will give a much smoother consistency than canned. Needless to say, I haven’t gone back to storebought hummus since!

Recipe:  Basic Mediterranean Hummus

Ingredients
1/3 cup tahini
juice of 2-4 lemons (to taste – I like really  lemony hummus and use 4)
2 and 2/3 cups chick peas/garbanzo beans (or 2 cans)
1/3 cup to 1/2 cup cold-pressed olive oil
2 garlic cloves
Sea salt, to taste
Fresh cracked black pepper, to taste
Fresh parsley (optional)
Paprika (optional)

Supplies
Food processor
Citrus juicer, or fork
Paring knift

Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 5 minutes
Total Time 20 minutes

Directions
Juice your lemons, and then cream the tahini and lemon juice in a food processor (a high quality blender works as well). Once creamed, slowly pulse the chick peas and olive oil into the the tahini and lemon juice. I alternate about 1/3 cup of  beans, then 1-2 tablespoons of olive oil, then beans, etc. The exact amount of olive oil needed will depend on your desired consistency. Once all of the beans have been added and the texture is to your satisfaction, add garlic cloves and salt and pepper to taste. Paprika and fresh parsley are optional. Serve with olives, pita bread, sundried tomatoes, sliced vegetables…you can pretty much use hummus on anything. Enjoy!

**Regarding dried beans…
I gave up canned beans a few years ago and haven’t looked back. I know, I know – it appears as though they can be a hassle. But I promise you, it’s almost fool-proof, and the time investment is low. And the benefits?

• Dried beans are substantially cheaper than canned beans (even the organic dried beans I get from Whole Foods).
• You have complete control over what goes into your beans. We eat beans frequently, and knowing what’s in the food I feed my family is important to me. Most canned varieties include some, or all, of the following – salt, sugar, preservatives and calcium chloride. Many companies are also still using cans lined with BPA. No thanks. I like my beans to contain…well, beans.
• The taste difference is substantial – dried beans, cooked from scratch, taste “beanier” to me.

There are tons upon tons of blog posts out there detailing how to cook dried beans from scratch, so here is the quick and dirty version. I use the crockpot method. The method works below for most beans, but not for lentils:

• Sort through your beans and toss out any broken beans or pebbles.
• Pour beans into your crockpot, cover with cold water and let soak overnight – do not heat at this point, just soak.
• The next morning, drain the beans, recover with fresh water (I generally go about 2″ above the bean line) and set them to cook on low for 8 hours.
• When you return home from work/errands/school – whatever – you’ve got fresh, delicious cooked beans.
• I store beans in the freezer in BPA-free tupperware containers. In general, 1 and 1/3 cup cooked beans = 1 can. I can usually get 6-8 “cans” out of one round of crock-pot cooking.

Food and Photography: Roasted Peaches over Yogurt

c/o Danielle

A few months ago I finally took the plunge, tried something new, and in the process discovered how much I love yogurt – Greek yogurt, that is.

I know what most of you are thinking – “What?!? She only just discovered this?” I know, I know, I’m kind of a foodie – but sometimes I can be a super picky foodie. Like, feta cheese for example? Gross. Blech. I’ll admit that I have some strange, preconceived notions about what I like and don’t like; I chalk that up to a New Jersey childhood of rich, yet fairly mainstream, Italian food. From time to time, however, I stray outside my comfort zone, and can often surprise myself with what my adult self finds delicious, as I did recently with tangy, tart greek yogurt.

The last few weeks I’ve been experimenting with my new food crush, and came up with my own version of this classic. Peaches are everywhere right now, and we can’t stop eating them in this house. Cassian is particularly fond of Saturn peaches – I think their shape fits into his little hands just perfectly.

The clincher for this recipe came when I discovered the spice shop Penzeys in neighboring Falls Church, VA. There, I found the most amazing Madagascar vanilla beans and the plan took shape…

 

Recipe:  Roasted Peaches over Greek Yogurt

Ingredients

2 tablespoons organic and/or grass-fed butter

2 tablespoons organic brown sugar

1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar

1 whole vanilla bean

4 ripe peaches, preferably local and/or organic

1 – 1.5 cups greek yogurt (I prefer 2% Fage)

Fresh ground nutmeg, to taste

Supplies

Small saucepan

Whisk

Rubber spatula

Baking dish

Basting brush

Prep Time 10 minutes

Cooking Time 25 minutes

Total Time 1 hour

Preheat oven to 350 F. Combine the butter and brown sugar in the saucepan over medium heat and whisk until well melted and incorporated. Whisk in the tablespoon of apple cider vinegar and remove from heat. While the sugar mixture is cooling, wash and then slice your peaches in half, discarding the pits; set aside. Slice the vanilla pod in half and scrape the seeds into the sugar mixture, whisking to fully incorporate. Pour the sugar mixture into the bottom of the baking dish, and lay peaches cut side down into the sugar. Wedge the vanilla pods in between the peaches. Bake 25 minutes, occasionally basting the tops of the peaches with the pan juices (I based 3 times total). Bake 25 minutes, or until the skins are wrinkled and pulling away from the flesh.

Remove from oven and cool slightly. Pinch the top of a peach half (in the center) and pull skin off the flesh. Cut the peach halves into quarters. Scoop 1/4 to 1/3 cup of yogurt into a bowl and top with peach quarters, pan juices and fresh nutmeg to taste.

The peaches can be refrigerated and reheated up to 48 hours after cooking, however I do recommend eating these immediately. We revisited these a few days after cooking, and they had lost quite a bit of their “peachiness”.