Blueberries – Food and Kitchen Series

 

Blueberries are fun aren’t they?  I mean look at them!  How fun is that?  For the longest time I’ve sort of avoided blueberries. They were always so chewy in dried form and even in all but the highest quality muffins I’m left with a feeling of malcontent.

This week Julie got some fresh blueberries and what a week it has been.  Julie and the kids made blueberry oat bread early in the week. Such a hearty bread. While eating this food full of protein and nature’s goodness I found myself taken by the blueberries. Shocking! Fresh blueberries are so juicy! 

This evening we made blueberry pancakes from scratch.  We always make our pancakes from scratch so that wasn’t entirely new; however, the blueberries were. We made these with sour cream added to the batter along with the egg whites beat entirely into submission. The kids weren’t thrilled but Julie and I have never had a better pancake!

So at the end of this life changing week blueberries are included on my list of “most desired fruit.” If anyone would like the recipe let us know. 

Egg – Kitchen Series

Julie and I both love food and cooking.  To celebrate food I am undertaking a series in 2010 on food itself and the tools in my kitchen that make food possible.  This series will be black and white on a seamless white background.  I hope you enjoy the melding of Snow Family passions.

My first subject is a large, cage-free, and brown egg (heaven).  Oh how I love eggs!  I’m the baker in the family and eggs are the glue that holds my favorite foods together!  A kitchen without eggs; A waste.

Please provide feedback on this image.  It was lit with a 60” umbrella on the right as a key and a 45” umbrella above, behind, and to the left as fill.  The egg is composed on the left of the frame and slightly towards the bottom to suggest the primordial importance I place on the egg.  

Nicole & Mike – Engaged

Nicole asked us to take some engagement portraits of her and her fiancé, Mike. They drove down from Brigham Young University – Idaho for the occasion. We’re so glad they did!

It was absolutely freezing but they told us it was 30 degrees colder in Rexburg so they weren’t worried about it and were good sports, especially Nicole since she had on a skirt half the time. Luckily they had a blanket stashed in the car and between shots Nicole was wrapped in it to keep somewhat warm. 

These two are such a cute couple. Mike is so affectionate towards Nicole and she just eats it up! Love it! Being engaged is so exciting and fun. We wish them the best!

 

The top 5 pics were taken by Julie and the rest by Rob.

 

Fun with Lights

My kids received little toys for Christmas that shine light in fascinating patterns.  The kids call these party lights!  I wanted to create some interesting light patterns with them and gave it a try on Friday night.  For the most part I shined the light onto my 60-inch shoot-thru umbrella and shot the images from the other side.  I varied the aperture and focus to create some interesting light patterns.  I hope you like them!

Tip-or-Tech Tuesday – Dramatic Sky

Want to make a dramatic landscape picture? Look to the sky. Clouds. Remember to underexpose the image to add drama to the sky.  Incredibly beautiful.

   

Here are More Wallpapers

I’ve added more desktop backgrounds to the Free Wallpaper Gallery. Help yourself!

Cobblestone Dream

Taken with Nikon D40 at Rittenhouse Square on November 2, 2009 by Julie. Shot Information: 1/250s, f/4.5, ISO 200, 35mm.

On our big walk through Philadelphia we spent a dreamy hour at Rittenhouse Square (which is a magical place in the fall).  I hope you enjoy this image.  I brings back great memories for us.

Mountain Solitude

Taken on January 1st, 2010 near Snowbasin in Northern Utah with a Nikon D40 at 1/50 sec, f/11, ISO 200, using Aperture Priority Exposure Mode, and processed in Lightroom 2.

I (Rob) spent the afternoon of New Years Day snowshoeing with the scouts.  We had just come off the mountain and found ourselves in a large meadow.  The snow stopped falling and the clouds pulled back a little revealing just the right amount of the mountain for me to make this picture.  I didn’t wait around all day and just happened to be in the right place at the right time.  The extra diffused light caused by the filtering quality of clouds and reflective nature of snow on the ground made this a very easy exposure to make.

There isn’t much more peaceful than sitting or standing in the middle of a snowstorm in the mountains.  The snow particles in the air really filter out the background noise providing near silence.  Awesome.  Of course the noise from a bunch of nearby scouts isn’t filtered quite so easily. :)

Giveaway Winner!

Thanks to everyone who entered our Merry Christmas Giveaway. Although we were happy that so many people entered, it made us a little sad to know that none of you have had portraits taken in over 5 years. Hopefully that will be something your family will be able to get done soon, even if it’s not by RJ Snow Photography. Portraits are something that last forever and take you back to the memories of the time they were taken. They remind us of who we were, our children’s personalities, what was going on in our life at the time, and give us feelings of love for one another.

But…how about the announcement of the winner??  We assigned each person an integer based on the order in which they entered the contest. Then we used the Integer Generator at Random.Org to make sure the winner was, of course, completely random.

ANDREA ANDERSON!!!

She had told us when she entered that she was praying that she’d win. And she did! We decided to run the Integer Generator one more time just for kicks and guess what? She won again! Rob double checked other number combinations just to make sure it was working correctly and sure enough, it was.

So Andrea, we’re so happy your prayer was answered (twice) and are excited that we get to take your family’s portraits.

Thanks again to everyone!

2010

Wishing everyone a delightful new year!