What Does Free Cost?

I picked up a box of pheasant feathers from someone on Craigslist the other day. Excuse me, a box of whole pheasant wings. Still attached to skin. And Bones. With a layer of under-skin fat in tact. I don't think any steps were taken to preserve or de-pest these. What did I get myself into?

Seriously, what did I get myself into?

I am sitting in my bathroom, perched on the edge of the bathtub. There is a cardboard box of pheasant wings sitting in the tub. I am hoping that any crazy mites and bugs that might exist can be contained in this quarantined area. I am hoping to not see any maggots. Or spiders. These were stored in someone's garage for an indeterminate amount of time.

Forge ahead, forge ahead!

I try to carefully pry wings away from a belly covered with beautiful little red-brown feathers with blue tips. Or is it a back covered with beautiful little red-brown feathers with blue tips? Who am I? Crack! Rip! Pluck!

This is gruesome. Little bits of yellow-with-age fat cling to the shafts of the feathers and melt on my fingers. Don't think about it, don't think about it, don't think about it. That's what soap is for. Oh god I want to scrub my skin with Ajax!

Feathers get separated into big, clear plastic bags. Categories include: big stiff feathers like Yankee Doodle might stick in his cap and call Macaroni; medium sized oh-my-god there are so many feathers, you're all just going in here; and baby-sized I'll strip all the downy feathers off the stem to hopefully get ride of microscopic mites, hey these are pretty cute!

What am I even going to do with all of these? Ideally I could somehow make money off of whatever I make out of them. Money will help ease the memory of my Dexter-like deeds.

Won't it?

Could you guess that these dainty specimens pressed against glass on a linen background had such a gruesome past?

Food styling?

I'm trying to improve my prop styling and photography skills. I feel very out of practice since my one studio lighting class when I was 19! Unfortunately I remember how little I enjoy the technical parts of studio lighting - adding, subtracting, shielding, bouncing, deflecting, directing, manipulating, and controlling light; precise placements of every teensy detail, strand of hair, fleck of dust; taking color temperatures; setting and resetting controls. Blech!

But I do enjoy combining forms and textures, finding interesting subjects, playing with color. I like to work organically with natural light, making a little tent on the stair balcony to diffuse light, finding a bit of white paper to bounce light onto an object. There is a lot of thinking on your feet and improvising.

Now that I'm working at a chocolate company I have a very specific subject to work with. I can self-assign this project to myself and, depending on the results, maybe get some exposure this way.

Here's a website devoted to food styling and photography, specifically an article focusing on using no equipment other than your camera and available light: Food Pixels

Inspiring prop styling, really bright diffused light: Canelle et Vanille

And here are some things I played around with today (too lazy for Photoshop color correcting and editing, these are just exercises):



Extremely plain seamless white background. Some weird dot shadow in the foreground, not enough shadow on the bottom chocolate, and not enough light/interest on the top chocolate. But I like the simple, interesting composition - the precarious balance, like the winged alpaca is about to take off!


I love the crackle texture in the clear glaze. Not sure about the funny curved highlight on the left and lack of shadow to ground the subject.



Thinking about textures? Trying to incorporate the Asian-flavor theme, here. I like the contrast of the rich brown with the black sesame seeds. The chocolate really looks like it's floating/Photo-shopped in here. Not sure if that's a good thing or bad thing.


Thinking about the winged alpaca and travels? The seeds as sand/gravel or almost a "pathway". I don't think the execution of this idea is very successful, but an idea to try again.



Really piling on the visual elements here. Subject (chocolate) is much too dark. Overall picture might be too strangely busy. Interesting to think of chopsticks as a bridge, though.


Overturned bowl as a mountain? Alpaca conquers Glazed Stoneware Mountain?



Unrelated, but Soba eats purple-hued corn!

Belated Sunday, September 5th Post

We are having more consistent sunny days here in San Francisco. Is nice weather finally here?

I had 3 friends visiting from New York this week and we took full advantage of the city. Visitors always help me re-discover my city and appreciate it more! Here's a re-cap of what we did.

1) dinner at Slow Club - local, organic, SF-y, well prepared, a bit pricey!
2) bbq pool party in SoMa! Where else could you have an outdoor pool in SF?
3) farmers market picnic in Alamo Square park with other peoples' puppies!
4) hot hot day in Dolores Park, visiting 826 Valencia and other cute shops
5) tacos in the Mission!
6) drinks and Quiddler at Lone Palm
7) dinner party and Quiddler!
8) wandering/hiking in Muir Woods and after hike picnic
9) free day at the De Young and discounted tickets for Academy of Sciences! We went on Tuesday, after Labor Day and hardly anyone was there! No children! Bliss!
10) coffee, hot chocolate, foccacia at Arizmendi!
11) hot chocolate, killing time with "broken pictionary" at Arizmendi!
12) cuckoo selection of beers at Toronado!
13) cheese bun at Acme Bread in the Ferry Building!

So tired! So much fun!

Bulb Hair Elastics

Found a set of these woven baskets on the curb. This smaller one is perfect for storing and displaying my hair ties!


Packaged on business cards and pre-elastic balls in a bottle.



Nicely nestled in.


French Knots looking at you.







A set for sale!

Hand embroidered elastic hair ties are made from beautiful scrap bits of fabric. Each one is absolutely unique.

Set of 3 for $12. Link: Grandiflora at Etsy