It’s been really foggy here lately at night but when the sun rises in the morning, it’s been a Winter Wonderland. Here’s some pictures I’ve been taking just around town here.

We spent 3 days in Yellowstone National Park and that’s about all you need to spend there. You’ll get to see all the major attractions. We already want to go back, because we didn’t get to do some hiking or go and visit the Grand Tetons. It’s such a beautiful park. Everywhere you turn there’s some kind of new scenery to look at and you never know what kind of wild life you get to see. We saw buffalo, elk and different birds.

Where the buffalos roam.

I loved all these different colored spring pools.

There have been no new recipes lately, because I’ve been on vacation in Yellowstone National Park. This park is pretty awesome. Every road we have driven on here, is a whole new picture. There’s different scenery everywhere you turn. As far as the food goes, it’s ok. None of the restaurants I’ve been to so far know how to season their fries. They don’t put any salt on them.What the hell?

Huckleberry is the in fruit here, and those berries are in EVERYTHING. So far, I’ve had huckleberry ice cream, taffy, syrup, licorice, and jam. I’m making sure I get some ice cream again before I leave. Where I live, we can’t even find huckleberry anything there. The bears like to eat huckleberry too.I’ll post some more pictures later on, the internet connection at the hotel is crappy and slow at night cause everyone is on it.

Art

Time

Yellow

Out and About

In my bag

Something you don’t know about me: I like music.

Imperfect: This pile of shingles have been sitting in our neighbors front yard for 2 years!

My favorite photo.

Where I’ve slept.

High Angle

Movement

On my mind, why won’t this deer come any closer?

The days are a bit out of order, I apologize.

June 7th: Drink

June 11th: Door

June 9th and 10th: best bit of your weekend & Your view today: I never buy heals, but couldn’t pass these cute little red shoes up. They were only $15.00 at Payless. Not to tall of a heal either.  I used this shot for two days. Finding deals like this can make my weekend, pretty sad huh?

June 12th: low angle

I’m doing a photo challenge this month for June, which can be found here. It’s been a lot of fun so far, and it’s also a change from taking pictures of food every other day. Feel free to join in if you want. Everyday is a different subject.

Morning

Empty

On my plate.

Close Up

Sign

hat

I’m going to skip a day because all the food we ate yesterday was taken on our Olympus camera, and I can’t load any of those pictures until we get home on Thursday night. It’s already day 4 and we have just one day left here. There’s so many things I want to try making myself when we get home. I really liked the blackened fish we had at lunch time today. I also got to try some Gazpacho soup, which I really enjoyed. The dessert buffet had Canoli and biscotti and they were both good. I liked the biscotti better than the canoli. We’re waiting for this big dinner party the resort is supposed to be throwing on the beach later on tonight. On our last night, we get to eat lobster for dinner. Can not wait for that! It’s all you can eat too. Only one more day left here. I’ll be sad when I leave, but I’m already missing my dogs back at home.

Gazpacho Soup

Blackened fish. I’m not sure what kind of fish it was, but my guess is it was snapper.

Chocolate Fondant

Banana Sabayon

Boy let me tell you something. You can surely gain a few pounds at this place. They don’t let you starve at all. The bar has pop corn and ice cream that you can snack on between meals which is pretty nice. The turtles also like the pop corn too. We went to one of the restaurants that you have to make a reservation for at night here and we didn’t care for it too much. The buffet and beach bar have been our favorite places to eat at. Tomorrow, I’m getting a massage and we’re going to go shopping in down town Ocho Rios. Hoping to find some Jamaican vanilla beans. Don’t know if we’re really allowed to bring those home yet, guess we’ll find out on Thursday, if we find them.

Shrimp Pizza

Beef Straganoff. Yum, Yum.

The desserts here are fantastic. Just look at this cake.

The turtles love it when you feed them.

Jamaica has been pretty awesome so far. They have the freshest fruit imaginable here. In the states it’s hard to find that sometimes, depending on what kind of fruit you’re looking for like pineapple. They have fresh coconuts hanging from the trees and I want to take one down and drink the juice out of them. There’s a bar right next to the beach that we’re staying at and you can go down there just about pretty much any time of the day and grab something. My favorite so far has been the dessert bar. There will be a different kind of ice cream/ sorbet every time you go and they rotate the desserts too.

Jamaica Jerk Burger, this was really spicy. Had it with a side of onion rings.

Guava Sorbet

Creme Brulee. I like it how the desserts here are tiny and bite size. Makes it easier to try them all.

They also have lots of flowers and lizards here. I don’t know if I’d consider eating those.

I’ve decided, that I’m going to start giving photography tips on my blog since I love to take pictures of things other than food. But first, I’m going to try talking about taking pictures of food. My pictures never used to look good. I struggled with lighting and shadows. Take this picture of Bubble Up Enchiladas for example.. See what I mean?

Before…

After…

I like the second picture better because everything is sharp and in focus. I’ve struggled with trying to get pictures on foodgawker. A really popular food porn site. It frustrated me when a picture wouldn’t get submitted and some sites I see, get pretty much all their pictures submitted all the time. That made me want to learn more about my camera and the different settings that are on it.

Here are a few of my tips, that I’ll share about food photography.

1. Use natural light as much as possible. I live in North Dakota, and the lighting around here during the year, can be really weird. I have found that my pictures look better on a cloudy day rather a on a day where the sun is shining bright. On those days, where the sun is shining bright, my pictures get these weird shadows in them and will often times make the food look darker.

In the Winter time natural light becomes very limited so it’s hard to take pictures  after 3:30pm here. I often wish, I was a stay at home dog sitter so that I could take pictures of my food during the day. Most of my shots are taken at night using a light box.

2. If you’re limited to natural light, like I am, there are certain tools you can buy to help you with that.

- white cardboard from Wal-Mart

- day light flourescent bulbs

I use a set to something similar like this. Artificial Light Food Photography

- light clamps

2. Start a plate and napkin collection. I like to buy my dishes at Pier 1 imports whenever they go on sale. My Mom works there so I get a discount. Whenever I buy a new plate, she asks me where I’m going to put it. I really want to buy a shelf to put downstairs in our basement where I can store all my supplies at. Go to thrift stores and look for dishes too. Get different pieces of fabric for napkins.

3. Look at other pictures to see how they have their food laid out.This can be inspirational sometimes. I like to go to Martha Stewart’s website and look at the food pictures there. The stylists like to use matching dishes and napkins to correspond with whatever color the food is.

4. Use Garnishes. I always try to have some Parsley or Green Onions on hand to decorate the food with.

5. Over at recipe-girl.com, she has a really cool tutorial on painting different kinds of woods to make different colored table settings. I did this and got some cheap wood at Menard’s and different colored stains. It was a fun little project since we don’t have a fancy table that I can set my food on at all.

6. I hate it when I go to a food blog, and you can’t really tell what the picture is of. Don’t tint your pictures, or color them. It makes the food look unappetizing.

7. The lens I use to take pictures of my food is a macro lens. It cost me a good amount of money, but there are ways you can make your own macro lens and different filters you can buy. Sometimes, I’ll use my 55 mm lens because I can get an aperture setting of 1.8 to make it really bright if I need to, but mostly I use my macro lens.

- Reverse Macro Lens

If I can think of any more tips, I’ll keep posting them.

Taken at North Long Lake, by Brainerd, MN.

Every 5 years, the PGI tour comes to West Fargo, ND and every year it’s AMAZING. They did a tribute to 911 and that was my favorite part of the show. There was a rain delay and that caused problems with starting on time. The announcer kept on saying the show will start in 2 minutes and everybody in the audience would get annoyed. I just love a good fireworks display show. We didn’t get home until about 12:30 which is way past our bed time.