Photographing the sunrise on Sugar Beach

9 October 2011 by pat.

I got up early this morning and biked over to Sugar Beach, on Queen’s Quay just east of Jarvis street. The sun is now swinging farther south, making it easier to capture the rising sun over water. In the middle of the summer, it’s rising over land to the east, and is quite high in the sky by the time it’s visible from the beach.

I took a series of photographs as the sun came up.

This is one of my favorites:

I like the colours of the sunrise and the water, but realize that if I want to get the picture that’s in my mind, I need to bring my tripod and shoot a series of images quickly, and then merge them together in Photoshop as a high dynamic range image (HDRI). That’s the only way I’m going to be able to capture the pink of the umbrellas and the sunrise together. Here’s a picture before the sun came blazing up:

 I’d also like to see if I can catch a sunrise with some photogenic clouds.

I see more trips to Sugar Beach in my future! Maybe the ugly fence will go away, too.

(Click here if you’d like to see the full set of photos)

Posted in City life, Urban nature, Photography - documentary | 1 Comment »

Photograph: this week’s CSA box

27 February 2011 by pat.

I did miss photographing the box one week, but I’m back to it again. This time, I took advantage of some of the things Herb Chong showed me on the weekend, and I shot 5 images, at one stop separations (and f/16) — exposures from 30seconds through to 3 seconds at the high end. I then selected the five images in Bridge, brought them into Photoshop as an HDR, and did some processing. This is the result. The light for this image is all through the window, about 4 feet away.

Posted in Photography - documentary, Photography, Food, grown, Food, SOLE food | No Comments »

Dinner challenge & recipe test

8 February 2011 by pat.

It’s pretty much a rule that if you’re going to test out a recipe for the first time, you make it at least once before you serve it to guests.

I broke that rule on Sunday.

I had Sandy, Damir, and Betty over for dinner. I was testing recipes for Natalie MacLean’s new book that will be coming out this fall.

Wherever possible, I bought local organic. When local organic wasn’t available, I bought local. When it wasn’t available, I bought organic (this great hierarchy of food choice courtesy of David Suzuki).

We started with martinis and some white kidney bean purée I made by cooking up the beans and using the stick blender on them and a little bit of the water they cooked in, and added a little drizzle of white truffle oil and a pinch of salt, and served it with triangles of whole wheat pita.

I made the martinis a little different by including a wee drip of VSOP brandy that had been drowning green peppercorns since December 9th, and popped a few peppercorns into the bottom of each glass.

From then, it was food & wine.First stop: oyster chowder. This was a really tasty recipe. Served it up with Altana Di Vico pinot grigio 2009.

Next recipe had me out in the kitchen cooking for a while; fortunately, I had prepared the green pea & thyme puree (shelled the peas myself!) and the semolina gnocchi in advance. So I roasted up some young pigeon (squab) breasts and a partridge, too, because Whitehouse meats only had 3 pigeons left! It’s quite expensive there: I’m going to take a look this week when I’m at T&T with Betty to see if they have pigeon, and see where it’s from and what the cost is. It’s a lovely meat: dark, juicy, flavourful, but not strong and gamey or liver-tasting, which had worried some.

We drank Betty’s Peppoli Chianti Classico from 2008 with this dish. I almost forgot to take a picture, which is why there are fork marks in my pea purée!

On to the fourth course! Lamb croquettes. Definitely the most labour-intensive dish (had to prepare it over 3 days… I could have done it in one day, but it would have had me worrying about coordination with other dishes).

Awesome. Totally AWESOME. Crunchy on the outside, rich lamb flavour and melt-in-your-mouth inside. Very rich. The recipe suggests serving it with an endive salad, so I made a very simple salad of endive leaves, ruby-red grapefruit slices, some very old balsamic vinegar that almost wouldn’t pour any more because it was so thick, and a little olive oil. Just something simple and a little acidic to balance the richness.

And with that, we had an awesome wine from Sandy and Damir: K1 by Geoff Hardy, a 2002 Cabernet Sauvignon from the Adelaide Hills. It was a numbered bottle, #3910 of only 5000. It did a slow, smouldering tango with the lamb: they were a perfect pair.

After that, a little break (we needed a break, really) and then some panna cotta for dessert (blackberries from the St. Lawrence farmers’ market that I bought and froze, raspberry syrup from the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair made by Lennox Farms in Shelburne) with another half-bottle of Betty’s Chianti.

All in all, dinner was a success. Definitely didn’t throw any food out: everyone cleaned their plates. Only complaint was that I spent too much time in the kitchen and not enough with my guests!

Next time, they’ll be served a big plate of pasta and a salad, and I’ll spend all my time with them. Or I’ll barbecue something (it had better be warmer out).

This coming Sunday I’m cooking for Steve & Rob & Joanne — more new recipes!

Posted in Photography - documentary, Food, recipes, Food, grown, Food, SOLE food | 1 Comment »

Today’s lunch

20 January 2011 by pat.

Lunch time came around. I opened the fridge (lo and behold! wondrous variety of veggies from KEG). Figured it was time to eat up some things, like about 2oz of bacon that were there.

I have containers of pasta and beans pre-cooked in the fridge: it makes it easier to throw something together for lunch.

Here’s what I pulled out today:

From top left, clockwise around the little bowl with pepper flakes:

 

• fusilli pasta (coloured with vegetables),
• bacon,
• garlic (it was a huge clove),
• black kale,
• leek,
• 2 chopped anchovy fillets,
• and pine nuts.

And here’s what it looked like after cooked in the cast iron skillet in a little olive oil.

I like the drama the kale added!

Posted in Photography - documentary, Food - farmers' market, Food, recipes, Food | 2 Comments »

My first winter CSA delivery

14 January 2011 by pat.

I purchased shares in the Kawartha Ecological Growers‘ CSA (community shared agriculture) this winter.

Our first pick-ups were yesterday. So at about 4:45, I wandered over to Ceili Cottage, and went over to the far side of the bar to see what I had in store.

A number of standard items were part of the list:

• carrots,
• potatoes,
• onions,
• celeriac,
• a Hubbard squash,
• kale,
• popcorn on the cob, and
• baby bok choi.

In addition, I could spend up to $25 of money (extra would be carried over to the next pick-up) on a number of optional items. I chose some

• leeks,
• garlic,
• a package of stewing goat, and
• eggs.

They had a variety of meat items, and some beautiful preserves and jams available, as well as parsnips and other veggies.

I was tempted to start eating things last night, but I wanted to take some pictures of the food first.

Because it’s beautiful food.

Posted in Photography - documentary, Food - farmers' market, Food, grown, Food, SOLE food | 1 Comment »

Wednesday night dinner, Anghiari

31 October 2010 by pat.

After coming back from the Ravagni tour and food, and a before-dinner drink at the café atop the old city wall, it was time to prepare dinner. One last look at the valley before walking around the corner to our apartment.

We scored a beautiful pork loin roast at one of the local butcher’s in the morning, we had ingredients for a risotto, and some tiny fishies… it was time to begin.

The first thing into the oven was some apples that Francesco had picked from one of the apple trees in his orchard for us. Betty decided they would make a great apple sauce to go with the roast pork loin, and popped them into the oven to roast. Fortunately, she improvised a lid to the roasting pan, because when she took them out of the oven, they had pretty much exploded and split their skins! Wow, not much mashing required!

I cleaned the fishies.

The larger ones to the right of the paper are the anchovies. Just regular sized anchovies, like the little fillets we get in tins or in jars with oil. That gives you an idea of their size. So you can see how little the other fish are! I cleaned the anchovies, and chopped the heads off the little ones (the gut came out with the head most of the time). Into a frying pan with some olive oil and chili flakes, then out onto a plate for group munching with a glass of wine. We mostly ate around the spine of the anchovies, and I think we ate the little ones whole.

Next, Sandy got the pork roast ready for the oven, and Betty prepared the risotto.

Pork roast was laid on top of chopped long onions, and simply seasoned with some rosemary from the windowbox:

Apple sauce done, roast ready to go into the oven.

Also part of this meal was a pan full of cipolline onions, slowly carmelized in the oven, drizzled with Balsamic vinegar. We got the idea from one of the stores in Arezzo that we had visited to get some antipasto.

Sandy served the pork roast sliced on top of a bed of apple sauce.

And we had Betty’s risotto with porcini mushrooms.

I think Betty made the salad, too!

 

Posted in Photography - documentary, Food - farmers' market, Food, SOLE food | 1 Comment »

Wednesday afternoon with olives and grapes

28 October 2010 by pat.

While we were based in Anghiari, our go-to vintner was the Ravagni store just opposite the main piazza.

From our landlord (all around great guy, W. Weston Bielby) we learned that Ravagni provides tours, olive oil tastings, and scrumptious meals.

We managed to get into an afternoon olive oil and wine tasting and lunch on Wednesday. We were going to latch on to a larger tour group. We got there a little early, so had a chance to walk around before the rest of the group got there.

We could definitely smell things fermenting!

Olives weren’t quite ripe yet, but they were beautiful.

It was yet another beautiful day to walk around: not too hot, not cool, not much of a breeze. We walked around the olive grove, and stopped to look at the size of the old grinding wheel that was at the edge of the road.

Meticulous — can one call olive trees an orchard? Row after straight row of trees.

We walked around the buildings, and I liked the view from above the grouping.

We went back to the parking area as we saw the bus arrive, and followed the bus up to another area, another set of buildings, and followed the people into one of the buildings.

The tour was on! This was the first piece of machinery we encountered.

You can get a sense of how large these wheels are by comparing the size of people beside the machine. Whole olives are fed into this from the trap, above. They’re crushed by the weight of the stones. We were told that it’s important to be on the look-out when the wheels are moving, because pits from the olives do squish out and fly across the room. Oil that is freed from the olives at this stage of the process is called Mosto.

Next, the crushed olives are placed on woven mats. Here’s Francesco describing the process. There’s a mat in front of him. Blurry I know; he’s an animated man, and I had to use a slow shutter inside.

Layer of olives, another mat, another layer of olives… stacked 5 deep. The stack is made between two metal disks. Here are some of the cleaned disks.

Wasn’t quite olive season, so everything was waiting for harvest.

A thick stack would be made of disks, mats, and crushed olives, and these would be placed on the press.

Wondering how much pressure gets applied?

I love machinery. Here’s the wheel to tighten the disk array on the press.

In pressing season, Francesco plans to have a live Internet camera on the procedings! That’s the camera, top left corner of the spiral staircase.

From there, we went up to the house and store. Lovely landscape to look out on.

Through the grape arbour toward the courtyard. That’s Sandy.

Green grapes.

Horse chestnuts abounded. I placed a few up on the stone wall separating the courtyard from the grape arbour and took a shot.

Next, a table was added to the end of the long table for Sandy, Betty and I to join the tour. This tour group is a group of people who are staying at a villa in Tuscany, taking cooking classes for the week. They’re from all over: a number of Americans, some from Texas, the Carolinas, and elsewhere; an Australian; I couldn’t quite catch where everyone else was from. They made some great food in their classes; Maria Yates told us about an exquisite Balsamic gelato they made!

We first tasted olive oils by drizzling some on hunks of hearty bread (put the oil on the bread, not on the plate!). Francesco, one of the directors of Ravagni and a member of the Bartolomei family, described the process, growing, and subtleties of the different oils we were sampling.

Francesco’s family has a dog. He came by for petting (maybe for scraps from lunch?). Very friendly, well-behaved.

Betty volunteered to take pictures for the cooking class. So they all grouped up, and Betty used each of their cameras to take a shot at them.

Of course, it’s unfair to take a photo of the photographer without also providing one of the group!

While the cooking class was making their purchases in the store, I wandered around again. This is my favourite bunch of grapes of all time. I will be offering a duo of prints of this and the green grapes.

Little tiny figs were growing. They’ve got a while until they ripen.

The shop is in the basement of this building.

Here is a commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the birth of two of the ancestors. The first person we met at the Ravagni store was Virgilio, so I suspect he was named after his great(?)grandfather:

After the crowd cleared, we made our purchases in the store, enjoyed a little grappa, and were shown the cantina. Sort of like a cold-cellar, it’s a deep conical section in the house that holds wine, including what look like some very old bottles! A steep ladder goes to the bottom.

It was a wonderful afternoon. I have some tiny bottles of mosto that I squirrelled away in my suitcase. I have great memories, too, and will be looking to watch some olive oil pressing on the video camera!

Late in the afternoon, we returned to Anghiari, parked the car, and looked out over the river valley.

Posted in Photography - documentary, Food, grown, Food, SOLE food | 1 Comment »

Selling my bird calendar!

21 October 2010 by pat.

I took a lot of pictures this past spring of birds in my back yard.

I’ve now collated a number of them, and am selling them as a calendar.

I’ve placed an initial order for 5 calendars. The shipping cost is high ($25 for five calendars) so I want to work out a way using paypal that you can order through me, then I’ll put in a bulk order and have them delivered to my home in Leslieville, and we can arrange pick up or delivery. Are you interested?

The calendars are $24.99 +hst (sorry, gotta do the tax thing). If so, drop me a line.

Posted in Urban nature, Photography - documentary, Photography sales and marketing, Photography | 1 Comment »

Time for some backyard Gardening

21 June 2010 by pat.

Before and after pictures of my back garden today.

I removed weeds from all three beds, whacked the weeds between the flagstones, and pruned both the sandcherry (purple leaves) and elderberry (pale green leaves). I got started at a reasonable time this morning, and was done shortly after noon. I think I took this photo around 1:30.

The photo also demonstrates why early morning or late evening light is kinder to photographing growing things: the colors aren’t as blue, and places where the sun hits aren’t as contrasty.

I now have a huge pile of branches that I need to break down into sizes that the city will accept in the garden waste category.

Posted in Home gardens, Gardening, Photography - documentary, Photography | 4 Comments »

Overview of Royal Botanical Gardens

20 June 2010 by pat.

The fourth of my series of garden articles has now been posted to BlogTO. I took the GO train to the Burlington Aldershot station, and a bus from there to RBG. Read all about it. More pictures over on Flickr (and more to come, together with detailed text).

Posted in Urban nature, Gardening, Photography - documentary | No Comments »

Birdy weather!

19 May 2010 by pat.

Along with sunny days come migratory birds! My backyard is certainly attracting them.They like to have places to perch. In addition to the fence, they’ve got the sand cherry standard and the elderberry.They like to scratch the soil for insects. They’ve got a garden free of pesticides for that. They like to have baths and drinks of water. My water cascade definitely provides that! I had three species of warblers at the same time in it on the weekend: it looked like a bird convention (hmm… a parliament of fowls?).I was very glad to have the long lens to take their pictures. I did have to raise the ISO to 800, which resulted in somewhat grainy images, due to the shade in my yard from surrounding trees and the speed at which these birds move. If they were slower seed eaters, I could have gotten by with an ISO of 200; as it was, 800 wasn’t enough to stop the motion of the black-throated blue warbler, who is rather blurry in my shots.Lots of pictures over in my Backyard Birds folder on Flickr.

Posted in Urban nature, Home gardens, Gardening, Photography - documentary, Photography | No Comments »

Linked in

25 April 2010 by pat.

I’m exploring all the professional groups associated with photography through Linked In, and found a group for members of the North American Nature Photography Association, which led me to the association’s website.There’s some truly inspirational nature photography on their 2010 Member Showcase.

Posted in Photography - documentary, Photography sales and marketing, Photography | No Comments »

Bird migration season

23 April 2010 by pat.

Last week I bought myself a long zoom: 125-400mm.I’m practicing with it on birds in my backyard, and posting some of the results at my Flickr account.

Posted in Urban nature, Photography - documentary, Photography | No Comments »

Recent news

21 February 2009 by pat.

I sold a print of Golden Pear shortly before Christmas; I’ve been asked if some of my images can be considered for use in a calendar. If one (or more) is chosen, I’ll let you know about the calendar and where it is available for sale (I’d get a photo credit, no money).

Posted in Urban nature, Photography - documentary, Photography - Art, Photography sales and marketing, Photography | 2 Comments »

On: beautiful light

9 September 2006 by pat.

Tonight, before sunset, the light outdoors was exquisite in the east end of Toronto.There was a clear sky to the west, where the sun was setting, and a bank of clouds arranged *just so* to the east. The light from the sun, setting in the west, bounced off the clouds in the east, and down to ground level.It illuminated everything the way we try to illuminate objects using gold reflectors.Sometimes, it just happens.Now it’s raining. Glad I captured a shot of the back garden in this wonderful reflected light.I was shooting toward the west: normally, that would mean that the plants would be in shadow. But because of the way the clouds reflected the light, there’s a warm cast and very few shadows.You can see that I had a slow shutter speed: the wind was already starting to pick up, and some branches and ferns were starting to move around in the breezes. But it’s pretty interesting light, considered that I was shooting into the direction of the sunset.

Posted in Home gardens, Gardening, Photography - documentary, Photography | No Comments »