November in Rochester

I was very fortunate to head home for Thanksgiving this year and share the holiday with my parents and all of my siblings and their partners.  Needless to say, it was a full house. :)

We are people who enjoy going for walks and doing things outdoors, even if it is only 38 degrees out there.  The first few photos are from a walk up to the shore of Lake Ontario from our home.  The next batch is from the annual Turkey Trot, which our family participates in every year on Thanksgiving morning.  It conveniently starts between our house and the lakeshore, so we are able to walk up to the race and then walk home to a warm house and bloody marys afterwards.  :)

The last bunch of photos are from a park in our area that was renamed for my grandfather, Lucien Morin, who was the first County Executive in Monroe County and actually acquired about one third of all park lands in the county during his term.  It was the first time that most of us had visited the park.  If you're in Rochester area and would like to know where it is, just send me a note (kristin@kozelskyphoto.com) and I'll give you directions.  Yes, there were both an old, rusty car and a very cute niece in the park that day.

One

A challenge that was presented to us at the Beloved Collective in LA by the lovely and talented Samm Blake was entitled 'One'.

We were supposed to take a photo using the theme of 'one', preferably in a style or format that is different from our standard work and submit it to a certain email address by Oct 15.  This is my piece.  It is called 'The Word'.  This woman was speaking about her religion, beliefs and the importance of following the Word of God.  Although I am atheist, I appreciate her passion for her beliefs and respect her conviction.

Without further ado...

The Word

Day Two. Mmmm.... Pasta.... | 30 Day Challenge

You'll probably end up seeing a good number of food shots throughout my little challenge here as I am a little bit of a foodie, so consider yourself warned.  Tonight it begins with a homemade whole wheat pasta dough.  I tossed this pasta with a red wine and tomato sauce with capers, young vidalia onion  greens, oil-cured olives, garlic, oregano and a pinch of sugar.  Very tasty, I have to admit.  I'm trying to restrain myself from going back for seconds as I write this! :)


Also, I think I'll start including the exif info for those who are interested.  I shoot with a Canon 40D.

50mm 1.4 @ f/2.8 1/50sec ISO 1600 no flash

Ah, a new year, a new moment of inspiration...

Sure, I'll jump on the bandwagon and start something new.  I was poking around on Etsy (where I have a lovely little letterpress shop) and somehow ended up on the homepage of a video blog series that will be documenting the progress of a bunch of girls as they put themselves through a 30-day challenge that they chose for themselves.  Of course, watching them I got all inspired and finally decided to do one of those things that many photographers do these days... a photo-a-day challenge.  Now, I'm not going to go crazy here and say that I'm going to take one photo every day at 7:09pm on the dot for the next year.  That's a little too much for me, though a really interesting project for those who are up for it.  However, I am willing to take and post one fresh photo every day through the second of February.  If I like it, maybe I'll keep going.  If I hate it, I'll be done soon enough.

Now, the problem is that on weekends or when I'm away, I'm pretty good at disconnecting and staying off the grid.  That means I might not actually post every day, but I will take a fresh photo every day and post it when I get back into the groove of modern civilization.  Sound reasonable?

Awesome.  It begins now.

I thought I'd start with a self-portrait.  I'm a big fan of the honest portrait - show me the imperfections in the skin, the asymmetry in the face, the flyaway pieces of hair... this type of portrait should document a face.  I had been meaning to sit down and do another attempt at a self-portrait for a few weeks now anyway, so I felt it was the an appropriate beginning to a new challenge in a new year.  Day one.

50mm 1.4 @ f/1.4 1/250sec ISO 100 flash at 1/32 on camera with sunpak diffuser

Holiday Cards!

Here are some templates to choose from if you are hoping to get some photo cards out for the holiday this year.  A nice variety of choices, I think!  If you see something you like, just drop me a note.  All text is customizable, so dates, names, holiday wishes can be altered. :)

Senor Squeakytail

So I've adopted this cat.  He belonged to a neighbor's brother, but neither one wanted him so he was living under our house.  He was very sweet and quickly became one of my favorite local kitties.  Eventually, I ended up taking him to the vet for flea/parasite treatment and a sore leg, and he's just kinda become mine since then.  He cuddles up with me at night and is out cattin' about town during the day.

The problem is that I haven't found a name for him yet.  Bo insists that he should be 'Squeakers' because he has this little squeaky meow, so for a while he was Tommy Squeakers (he's a tomcat, get it?!?!).  Since then he's taken on variations such as Sammy Squeakytail, His Right Honorable Sir Squeakersons III, Squeakovani, Mr. Squeakypants, and many others.  I would like to find a real name for him, though.  A couple of thoughts I had last night were in tribute to the wonderful Czechlandia: Pivo or Nohavica.  For those of you that don't know, pivo means beer, but it's just a great word.  Jaromir Nohavica is a folk singer whose music I love; he is legendary over there.


Anyway, the search for the perfect name continues.  

Ben & Kathy - Final Edits!

Some final edits from Ben and Kathy's shoot at Kanapaha Botanical Gardens here in Gainesville.  They did a great job handling the hot, humid, rainy, bright sunny weather.  Ah... summer in Florida...

Maggie & Todd Engagement Shoot

At long last, here are a selection of processed shots from Maggie and Todd's engagement shoot in St Augustine!

Thanks for a great day, guys!  Can't wait for the wedding next month :)

BBA Challenge - Focaccia!

I can't believe this worked.  


For Bake-A-Palooza Spring (er, summer) 2010 I decided to make a bread.  At previous BAPs, we stuck to sweets, until last spring when I broke out the Herbed Savory Cheesecake from Cookwise, which turned out to be a huge hit.  As I've been working through the Bread Baker's Apprentice, I decided it would be good to give the focaccia a try.  I'm really only somewhere in the Cs, but I wanted to do something savory but cinnamon rolls were next on the list... so I just picked something that sounded good :)

This bread was surprisingly easy, and I do think the fact that I was able to use the weekend to work the dough was definitely advantageous... not to mention the fact that the entire State of Florida is a giant proofing box right now (90+F and 100% humidity).  The dough rose beautifully.  


I started the poolish on Friday evening, letting it sit for about 3 hours before I covered it with a damp towel and aluminum foil and refrigerated it.  I pulled it out to get back to room temperature after Saturday morning's shoot with Ben & Kathy.  After it reached a reasonable temperature and all of the ingredients were combined by hand (i.e., with my bare hands - no utensils or mixers involved!), I did a series of three foldings and risings on the marble countertop in the kitchen.  This dough did not take any kneading at all.  


The herbed oil was made from fresh rosemary, oregano, thyme, and basil that I have growing here at the house. I followed the instructions and did two sessions of dimpling and oiling before putting it into the oven, which was heated to a ridiculous 500F.


When it came out, it was just beautiful and smelled great.  I was so excited that I finally achieved the correct crumb that I had to point it out to half of the attendees.  :)  It was a favorite at Bake-A-Palooza, even if it did turn my kitchen into a furnace.  In June.  In Florida.  Oy.

Ben & Kathy at Kanapaha Botanical Gardens

Things have been busy!


Here is a peek at Ben & Kathy's shoot at Kanapaha last weekend.  The weather did not cooperate, unfortunately... we tried to avoid the afternoon heat and rains, but we got rained on anyway.  And then it was crazy humid.  B & K were great sports, though.  They put up with some severely tropical weather to get these shots!!!


I ordered Photoshop and Lightroom to use on my fancy new iMac on May 18... and they still haven't arrived.  It's really getting frustrating that it is taking so long, not to mention the fact that I have photos from three or four shoots from the last few weeks that I have to work on!  Rumor has it that they have shipped... hopefully they'll arrive soon.  I just can't take it anymore.  So, all the shots posted here since the middle of May have been Straight Outta Camera without any processing/adjustment.  Please excuse them for being dark/light/crooked/etc. as a result :)

Armadillos

Good old Dasypus novemcinctus.  They totally didn't care that I was stalking them with my giant camera...

Maggie & Todd Engagement Shoot- Sneak Peak

Here are a couple from Maggie & Todd's engagement shoot over the weekend at St. Augustine and Anastasia State Park.  I have only taken a quick pass over a few photos so far (read: converted from RAW to jpeg)... I'll be getting the new 27" super-awesome iMac next week, so I'll wait to process the shots with the new machine.

Can't wait for the wedding in July!

Citizens Co-op Farm Bike Tour

Well, I guess it's been a while.  Things have been busy at Prioria, and I've been putting in 9, 10, 11 hour days almost every work day for three or four weeks in a row now, so a lot has fallen behind in my non-Prioria life :)

At long last, here are a couple shots from the Farm Bike Tour organized by Citizens Co-op here in Gainesville.  We paid a small fee and then had a guided bike tour of something like 10 local farms of a variety of types.  There was the ethnobotany grad student garden at UF (my favorite of the day), some community gardens, an enormous patch of land that used to be primarily blueberry fields now trying to clear out some of the overgrowth, a small commune-style garden (my second favorite - they had an accordion player!), a couple of home gardens (one with chickens!) and a garden maintained by the students of a local middle school.

The total ride was about 14.5 miles and took all afternoon.  Fortunately, most of the places we stopped had some refreshments for us, including such wonderful treats as minty fresh lemonade and fresh sugar snap peas.  At each garden, someone explained goals, methods, and plants to us and gave us the opportunity to ask questions. The day ended with a celebration at what is soon to be the home of the newly-established Citizens Co-op.  Fortunately, it is within walking distance of my home and work, so I'm thrilled to have it downtown.

All in all, it was a lovely afternoon.  We even got some free shirts for doing the bike ride, and Bo seems to be wearing his quite a bit these days (which is fine, I think it looks great on him!).

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It's May and therefore time for the second annual Eat Local Challenge!  Check out Hogtown Homegrown for more info!!!