I’m looking forward to the days getting longer but I did have some fun playing with the Christmas lights.

 

 

Taken at f/1.8

 

 

f/1.8

 

 

f/1.8

 

 

 

f/1.8

 

 

f/1.4

 

 

f/1.4

 

 

f/1.8

I looked at the photo a day list and cringed when I saw the prompt for day 15, in my bag. Oh no, Chantelle this is worse than the refrigerator prompt from September. I could find things I didn’t know I had.

 

Day 12 was pretty easy and this pomegranate lemonade is really good.

 

 

Alright, how about the grocery bag with Mrs. Pig’s bulk buy? Mrs. Pig’s bulk buy is in reference to a children’s  book of that title about some little piglets who only liked ketchup and didn’t want to eat any other food their mother made for them. So the next time Mrs. Pig went shopping she came home with gallons and gallons of only ketchup. The little piglets were overjoyed to be able to have just ketchup for a meal Until they realize they’re going to be eating ketchup for breakfast lunch and dinner until the last gallon is gone.

Anyway I refer to any large quantity of any food item as “Mrs. Pig’s bulk buy” and people look at me a little weirdly. It’s ok, I am a little weirdly.

Anyway, let’s keep going through my bags.

 

On first glance it looks like pretty much everything that should be in there, except why am I carrying around empty water bottles?

 

 

I dug down to the bottom and came out with a bunch of little things that I just keep, ya know just in case.

One skate lace. Actually that could be very useful.

The hand warmers that I will never use even if I was freezing to death because then I wouldn’t be able to tell myself I have those hand warmers in case I get REALLY cold.

Then there’s the last end of a roll of tape that isn’t enough to tape even the tiniest  child’s hockey stick. But I keep it in there just, just because, I don’t know. I really should throw it out.

The there’re the rubber bands for extreme emergencies. These are for really extreme emergencies because they don’t work real well any more, kind of sprung and hardly hold hair.

A few pens, one of them works and I’m not sure which one it is.

 

 

In another bag, oh, this should be day 17 cause it’s probably the last thing I bought. You can’t quite see it in the photo but the price tag say original price 5.99 and then the sale price is marked 7.99. This is the one and only time I argued to pay regular price instead of the sale price.

 

Can’t live without, Bokeh! These shapes are so much fun to make.

 

 

And this clear nail polish is also good for chigger bites since for some reason unknown to me God has decided here in the south we cannot live without chiggers.

 

These little shapes were in my camera bag. They are what I put in front of my lens to get the Bokeh shapes floating around.

 

 

 

 

 

 

As the sun was going down I tried to get some bokeh floating bubbles.

 

1/1250 sec     50mm    f/1.6      ISO-200

I asked Georgia to sit and model for me. She found this incredibly boring and made it quite obvious.  

 

1/1000sec   50mm     f/1.6    ISO-200

So instead I got this really short guy to come with a tiny loader. When he runs it you can’t even see his head in there.

 

1/1000 sec    50mm     f/1.4     ISO-200

He tried to impress me with it’s power. I was more concerned that he was going to drop the rock on himself, I saw the cheap plastic linkage on the bucket. All around it’s made like a toy, but I didn’t tell him, didn’t want to hurt his feelings and plus I was really trying to get the bokeh.

 

1/1600sec      50mm      f/1.6    ISO-200

Then I notice that his brakes really don’t hold on a slight hill.

 

1/1250sec    50mm    f/1.4   ISO-200

Because of that I almost didn’t ask him to go up on that rock so I could get the light through the trees the way I wanted. He said he’d go up there and just use the down pressure of his bucket to hold him while I took the pictures. I guess he noticed that I noticed his brakes weren’t holding, I refrained from telling him he had a toy loader so that wasn’t going to work. Instead I just put the “Fred Flintstone brake” behind his back tire.

 

1/800sec   50mm     f/1.6     ISO-200

Afterward I thanked him for his time and asked him what I owed him. He said he hadn’t used any fuel so not to worry about it.

Works for me.

 

 

This year it’s trees, yes gingerbread trees. I’m sorry about the endless bokeh background but I can’t stop, I’m having too much fun with Christmas lights.

 

I thought seriously about using the cow but her hoofs always get stuck in the cookie dough.

 

Maybe the bear

 

Then I found the tree in the bottom of the bag that was perfect. 

 

For my lights all I did here was drape them over a rack next to where I was working.

 

 

 

I roll the dough out in sugar and ginger powder so that each time I reroll the dough it just get better instead of more like cardboard with each re-roll. That makes them stick to the cookie sheets so don’t be like me and forget to grease the cookie sheets until you have to chisel a bunch of cookies off the cookie sheet.

 

I just realized it’d’ve been perfect if I’d rolled them in green granulated sugar. But I didn’t have any and it’s just as well because I know there’s nothing good about artificial food color.

 

I am not a professional froster by any stretch of the imagination. I’m not really sure what a frosting bag or a pastry tip is! This here is a sandwich bad with a hole poked in the end. I was happy enough with the results.

 

By the end I had so many trees it looked like a Christmas tree farm!

 

 

Gingerbread Men

ingredients
•    3 cups  whole wheat pastry flour
•    1/4 teaspoons salt
•    3/4 teaspoon baking soda
•    2 teaspoons ground ginger
•    1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
•    1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
•    1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
•    1/2 cup  unsalted butter, room temperature
•    1/2 cup granulated sugar
•    1 large egg
•    2/3 cup molasses

 

Frosting

• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 1 egg white
• 1 tsp cream of tarter

In a bowl  beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the egg and molasses and beat until well combined. Gradually add flour, baking soda, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and salt  beat until incorporated.

Divide the dough in half, and wrap each half in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least two hours or overnight. 
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and place rack in center of oven. grease two cookie sheets and set aside while you roll out the dough.

On a lightly sugar and ginger powdered surface, roll out the dough to a thickness of about 1/4 inch. Use a gingerbread cutter to cut out the cookies.  I
Bake for about 8 - 12 minutes.  They are done when they are firm and the edges are just beginning to brown. 
Remove the cookies from the oven and cool on the baking sheet for about 1 minutes. When they are firm enough to move, transfer to a wire rack to cool completely then frost if you feel like it.

 

 

f/1.4      1/100 sec.      ISO-250      50mm

 

f/2.8       1/30 sec      ISO-800      50mm

I keep reading about “Holiday bokeh” and some of the examples are just the coolest shots ever.  Some people’s photos use the Christmas lights around to create stunning shots. So inspired by what I’d seen I got out the camera and played around with it a little. Actually I first cleaned some dried food off of it. Somehow there was cookie dough in random places.

f/2     1/80 sec.     ISO-800      50mm

Yeah, this isn’t exactly what “Their “ shots looked like.   This was done on manual focus.

 

I got out some lights to see what I would get.

 

I just put them a messy pile. Nope nothing fancy.

 

f/2.8       1/125 sec.     ISO-400      50mm

At 2.8 and my subject distance at 1m  I could still see the green wire of the lights.

 

f2.0      1/250 sec.   ISO-250      50mm

Next I opened it up a bit to 2.0 but I changed the shutter and ISO – I don’t know why but I did so it’s a little darker.

 

f/1.4      1/640 sec.     ISO-250     50mm

Here I opened it just as wide open as this lens will go and I see the hexagon edges are gone.

 

f/1.4     1/100 sec.    ISO-250     50mm

I don’t know why I ended up with oval circles in this one. Maybe it’s because I’m nearly on top of the pile of Christmas lights. That cookie is burnt. It was  perfect I didn’t have to worry about anyone stealing it.

 

f/1.4      1/320 sec. ISO-250 50mm

That’s all for now I’ve had a lot of fun with this experiment. I think you can get some kind of bokeh going on even with a lens that only opens to an f/4.  I need to think about how to get the light bubbles to not compete but compliment the picture.

The bad picture is the one you didn’t take.

 

Cheesy Twice Baked Potatoes.

Everyone’s been talking about using Christmas lights for really nice bokeh so I thought I’d give it a try while I make twice-baked potatoes with some left over baked potatoes. I’m sure in a year from now I’ll cringe and want to delete them all but right now I’m having a lot of fun playing with the lights.

 

Grate some cheese

 

Mix cheese and sauteed bell peppers together.

 

Slice baked potatoes in half long ways.

 

Scoop out the middles and toss in the bowl.

 

Toss in chopped parsley and sauteed bell peppers 

 

and mix it all together until smooth or you’re happy. I was in more of a hurry so I was happy with a few lumps.

 

Spoon into shells.

 

place in a baking dish and bake at 400 for 20 minutes.

 

Serve warm.

 

Or eat as finger food.

 

 

Cheesy Twice-Baked Potatoes

Ingredients

• 5 left over Baked Potatoes
• 1 1/2 cups grated cheese
• 1/2 cup sauteed bell peppers
• 1/4 cup chopped parsley
• salt, pepper, onion and garlic powder to taste.

 

Cut potatoes in half and scoop out the middles.

Mash together potato middles, cheese, peppers parsley and seasoning . Spoon into potato shells and bake at 400 for 20 minutes or until warmed through.