An Assassin Bug perches on a leaf of lettuce harvested from our garden. It made its appearance as we were soaking the lettuce prior to rinsing. | Canon 7D and 100mm f/2.8 macro lens | Exposed 1/60 sec. @ f/5.6, ISO 800 | Canon 580EX II triggered wirelessly, bounced off ceiling camera left.
While soaking some lettuce harvested from our garden (it makes the dirt come off more easily when rinsing), Elizabeth called me into the kitchen because an Assassin Bug had evaded her inadvertent attempt to drown it, and was perching on a leaf of lettuce. It may not be a very good attempt at macro photography with insects–see my dad’s Web site for an idea of what good macro photography can look like–but it was entertaining while it lasted.
Another perspective on the Assassin Bug. | Canon 7D and 100mm f/2.8 macro lens | Exposed 1/60 sec. @ f/4, ISO 800 | Canon 580EX II triggered wirelessly, bounced from the ceiling on camera left.
Ultimately, we set our friend free on the back porch so it could continue on its quest to rid our garden of more pernicious six-legged creatures.
Everything that had to stay in the room was covered in drop clothes. Part of the wall preparation was to fill in the cracks in the drywall. Rather than using traditional spackle, Elizaebeth has found that joint compound and tape (on either side of the closet door) provides a longer-lasting fix.
So things have been a bit quiet on the blog for a couple of weeks. I’m finally re-settled in my office after being temporarily displaced into the living room while lots of sanding, scraping, cutting, taping, and joint-compounding took place before a bucket of paint was splashed on the walls and a ceiling fan replaced a less useful light fixture.
The office was originally a less-than-attractive shade of blue. Maybe the color would have made more sense in a house right on the Atlantic Ocean, but but the Piedmont of North Carolina, it just seemed out of place. I wanted a warm gray for the walls of my office, and after looking at a few samples I found “storm,” a Pottery Barn color offered at Benjamin Moore. The Faulconer Gallery at Grinnell College switched its walls from off-white to gray in my senior year, and while it was five years ago, I still remember how I thought artwork just “popped” right off the walls with that background color.
Since receiving one as a gift from my parents, the Dremel 300 is one of the tools I use the most for our home-improvement projects.
While Elizabeth worked on preparing the walls–sanding them and filling in the cracks in the drywall with joint compound and tape–I was busy in the attic with my Dremel 300 to cut away the original electrical box brace and install one rated for a ceiling fan. Cutting through 1/4 inch metal with the Dremel takes a few minutes and sends sparks flying everywhere so I recommend a face shield, but it works in close quarters much better than does a hack saw! After spending some time upstairs, I switched out the attachments on the Dremel and cut a larger hole in the ceiling for the electrical box.
After the walls and ceiling were painted, I mounted the ceiling fan motor.
Frankly, the biggest hurdle was keeping the Z3200 printer covered and out of the way. Unfortunately, since assembling it in the office in March, it is a “ship in a bottle.” We can push it into the hallway, but it cannot go further into the living room or kitchen without being removed from its stand!
It took an entire weekend to move (most) everything out of the second bedroom and remodel it for my purposes as an office, so the living room felt like a refugee camp for all of my stuff. But the cat didn’t mind too much so long as she could get in her beauty rest!
Catface sleeps on top of a box of foam core and rests her chin on the bulletin board stacked out in the living room.
Here’s the office after finishing the paint and re-arranging the furniture:
The office after painting the walls and ceiling and installing a ceiling fan!
A box of ten books from Hong Kong waits for me to open it on the living room floor in Durham, N.C.
This morning the doorbell rang and Elizabeth greeted the driver from FedEx who was holding a box of ten of my books. The other 2,000-odd copies of A Portrait of Grinnell: The Architecture and Landscape of Grinnell College will set sail on 2 May. I was too anxious to wait another month until 30 May when they get trucked into Grinnell, Iowa to see how they turned out. I am both relieved and elated by how good they look! I simply couldn’t travel to China to oversee the printing, so it is wonderful to see that this new printing is faithful to the original and the updates, while subtle in most cases, certainly enhance a book I was already proud to call my own.
Both Saints Rest Coffee House (641.236.6014) and the Grinnell College Bookstore (641.269.3424) will begin accepting pre-orders soon. Note that these are the only two official stores for this book. I’ve seen the odd (used) copy on Amazon, but at astoundingly–and amusingly–high prices. The recommended retail price remains $29.95. I was very happy that we were able to maintain the price from 2006. In an age when the price of everything seems to be going up, it’s nice when some things stay the same!
Also, as a thank-you for purchasing the book, the first 125 copies sold at each store will contain a special promotional code for 30% off my personally-printed and signed photographs of Grinnell College ordered at my other Web site, lightsedgeprints.com!
A copy of A Portrait of Grinnell rests on shredded paper used to cushion the bubble-wrapped stack (left) during their flight from Hong Kong. The books traveled 41.5 hours to get from Hong Kong, China to Durham, N.C.
August Kryger and Amanda Shea's wedding ceremony at Alpine Park on 23 April 2011.
Last week I flew back to Columbia, Missouri to attend my friend August Kryger‘s wedding to Amanda Shea. I flew into Saint Louis on Thursday and the following day, a few hours after consulting with my committee members to figure out the right direction for my master’s project on Asian carp, a tornado touched down at the airport. By the time I flew out on Tuesday, STL was up and running once again, and plywood replaced the glass that had been shattered during the storm.
Driving up to STL in the airport shuttle on Tuesday 26 April 2011 in Saint Louis, Mo.A few glass windows remain at the main entrance to STL on Tuesday 26 April 2011 in Saint Louis, Mo.
Sugar snap peas overwhelm their trellis in our garden, Durham, N.C. | Canon 5D Mk. II and 24-70mm f/2.8L lens @ 24mm | Exposed 1/50 sec. @ f/3.5, ISO 100 | 580EX II and 550EX Speedlites triggered with ST-E2.
The other day I received my Lumiquest Softbox III that I ordered at the Joe McNally and David Hobby “Flash Bus Tour” in Durham, North Carolina on 4 April. A new light modifier? Well, I simply had to play with it. Trick is finding cooperative subject matter. As I mentioned a few weeks back, Elizabeth and I have been working on a new garden/cooking/home improvement blog, and it was high time for an update on the crop of peas growing along the “whimsical trellises” that she made in the back yard.
Lighting the garden
So I set up the Softbox III on my 580EX II Speedlite, gelled 1/4 CTO on a stand at camera right as my key, and placed my 550EX in the back, zoomed out to 105mm and gelled 1/2 CTO to work as a kicker. While outdoors I tend to use my low-end radio triggers for wireless flash, in cloudy conditions and after sunset I find that I can get away with wireless ETTL with either my ST-E2 or a flash as the commander. This makes setting the light ratio and also the amount of light a lot faster when I don’t have much time (like when the sun is setting and the sky is getting really dark and really fast). In this case, I think the warmer light created by the gels contrasted nicely with the cool sky at dusk.
I traded in a futon for a printer and I’m reprinting my book!
Matted prints of Grinnell College ready for sale, as well as a couple ready to be mounted in the catch basket, Durham, N.C.
Of Prints and Re-prints:
I’ve hinted for a couple weeks that big changes are happening at our little house in Durham, North Carolina. For the past two weeks I’ve been furiously printing some of my best photographs of Grinnell College in anticipation of commencement and my five-year reunion. I’ve gone through a box of Ilford Gold Fibre Silk as well as my ever-reliable roll of Epson Luster. So lately I’ve been dusting off my skills at cutting down matte and foam board to matte 24 8×10″ prints, 12 11×14″ prints, as well as some 12×18″ and panoramic photographs. And before sending it all out, I’m trying to give them all SKU codes as I learn Quickbooks Pro‘s inventory system on-the-fly for my new business. Gotta keep it legit for the IRS…it is that time of year after all!
What’s that about a new business? Well, it’s not completely off the ground yet, but I’m becoming a limited liability company in the state of North Carolina. I’ve been a sole proprietor since 2006 and while it has been fun, it was time for a change. When it takes effect, this Web site will go through a few changes, and a new domain name will become the primary, although I have no intention to give up david-kennedy.com.
The dust jacket for the reprint of A Portrait of Grinnell
Furthermore, I contacted Regent Published Services, Ltd., the company that printed A Portrait of Grinnell: The Architecture and Landscape of Grinnell College in 2006, to get a quote for printing 2,000 copies. The book has been out of print since 2008, but will be back on the shelves by the end of May 2011. I’m frustrated because I’ll miss commencement by only two weeks, but the book will be stocked in time for reunion. I’ll have information for those interested in pre-ordering soon.
A futon became a printer: back when my office was Elizabeth’s guest bedroom, this futon made a little more sense. It’s for sale if anyone in the Triangle is in the market!
I’ve ramped up production of prints because I finally have a photo printer at my home office. Choosing a printer was a key business decision: while making prints is something I enjoy and am quite skilled at, I know many talented photographers who find the art of printing to be more than vexing. Making prints for other photographers will be part of my business model, so I needed something fairly large. Unfortunately, this meant that the futon in my office (that was a good “guest bed”) simply had to go!
In my custom print store I plan to offer a variety of gloss and matte papers that most online printers simply don’t carry, like Gold Fibre Silk and Entrada Rag. I don’t intend to be the next Mpix–I won’t make prints on the side of coffee mugs or canvas wraps. Nor will I even attempt to compete with FedEx Office and make signage or banners. Instead, I’ll cater to serious photographers who would like to have direct contact with the person making the prints either for their clients or their personal portfolios. And as of March 17, 2011, when I looked out the front door to see FedEx Freight show up in our narrow street, I’ll be able to make those prints on rolls of paper up to 44 inches wide using a Hewlett-Packard Designjet Z3200 Photo printer!
Katie at the Gardens, Sarah P. Duke Gardens, Durham, N.C. | Canon 5D Mk. II and Zeiss Planar T* 85mm f/1.4 ZE lens | Exposed 1/250 sec. @ f/3.2, ISO 100.
While testing the Zeiss 85mm two weeks ago, I ran into Katie at the Sarah P. Duke Gardens and made a quick portrait. While I’d really need to have them side-by-side to do a more thorough comparison, it seems that the Canon 85mm f/1.2L Mk. II has far superior bokeh, but that the Zeiss might actually be a sharper lens from f/2.8 and smaller–but the Canon would definitely win at the largest apertures. Either way, the Zeiss has fantastic micro-contrast, good bokeh, and clearly has potential for portraits…so long as your subject understands that it will take a second to (manually) focus!
Cherry blossom petals, Sarah P. Duke Gardens, Durham, N.C. | Canon 5D Mk. II and Zeiss Planar T* 85mm f/1.4 ZE lens | Exposed 1/160 @ f/4, ISO 100.
While I was not able to use the Zeiss 85mm lens I rented nearly as much as I had anticipated during the week that I had it, I will say that it is disappointingly soft wide-open, but sharpens up dramatically by f/2, and is wickedly sharp at f/4. The detail in the fallen cherry blossom petals is amazing!
Also, some big changes are coming as I am in the process of becoming an LLC in the state of North Carolina. More to come…
Daffodils in bloom, Durham, N.C. | Canon 5D Mk. II and Zeiss Planar T* 85mm f/1.4 ZE lens with Canon 25mm extension tube | Exposed 1/80 sec. @ f/5.6, ISO 800.
Last week was far busier than I had anticipated when I scheduled the rental of a Zeiss Planar T* 85mm f/1.4 ZE lens. I feel that I wasn’t really able to put the lens through its paces, mostly staying close to home due to a couple of developments that I’ll be announcing here shortly. Since I was working at home I worked with subjects at hand: loaves of bread, the cat, and our garden.
While soft wide-open at f/1.4 (to the point of being almost unusable), by f/2 this lens is razor sharp, and features the oft-fabled Zeiss micro-contrast: in-focus part of the image does seem to defy its two-dimensional nature. However, working in close quarters is where this lens struggles: the minimum focusing distance is three feet.
For this photograph of the daffodils that were in bloom in our front yard until yesterday, I had to resort to a 25mm extension tube, which presented me with the opposite of my problem: suddenly I had no choice but to be closer to my subject than I would have wished! That said, I think it works in this example. I’ll have a couple more to share after I get a spare moment to work them up.
My third attempt at “No Knead Bread” yielded this beautiful, rustic boule. | Canon 5D Mk. II and 100mm f/2.8 Macro lens | Exposed 1/100 sec. @ f/2.8, ISO 100 | 580EX II and 550EX Speedlites triggered with Canon ST-E2 Transmitter.
Our New Blog
Over the past couple of months, Elizabeth and I have been working on a project together: a combined cooking, gardening, and home improvement blog that we’ve named With One Cat in the Yard. Today I posted about making Jim Lahey’s No-Knead Bread (aka No-Work Bread), which was popularized in a Mark Bittman column in The New York Times in 2006, and I thought I would cross-post it formy readers here. Our new project is certainly not a photography blog–I’ve included the technical details for the photos in this post, but you won’t find them at With One Cat in the Yard–but I hope everyone will take a look. More to come!
Flour, salt, yeast, water, and time perseverance
I’m in my third week of attempting to make good bread. I’ve always enjoyed crusty bread, but I’ve never found the price of five dollars for a boule to be particularly attractive, so I rarely buy it.
Elizabeth suggested trying a recipe that inspired many food bloggers a few years ago: Jim Lahey’s “No Knead Bread” featured in Mark Bittman’s column in The New York Times. The recipe became so popular that publishers perceived a demand for a book, so Lahey wrote My Bread: The Revolutionary No-Work, No-Knead Method to further explain his method and offer variations. Both Lahey and Bittman emphasize that the process is so simple that a child could make it happen, although I don’t think my mom ever would have trusted me to drop dough into a 450° F stock pot and put it back inside an oven. Sometimes I wonder why anyone would trust me to do that now.
The wet, sticky dough after its first rise (overnight). | Canon 5D Mk. II and 100mm f/2.8 Macro lens | Exposed 1/200 sec. @ f/11, ISO 100 | Canon 550EX Speedite triggered with 580EX II Speedlite on “Master.”
My first effort was not completely successful, nor was my second, but the third was just right. I was skeptical that I could make a loaf of bread worthy of an artisan bakery, but lo and behold, it’s not only possible, but has quickly become one of my new favorite breads. Not only does it look amazing and have a satisfying, crackling crust, it’s also pretty tasty. Now, it’s not the best, most flavorful bread ever, but it does have a faint sourdough flavor of which I am quite fond (on account of the lengthy fermentation period) and it’s fantastic for dipping in soup, olive oil, or as sandwich bread.
The basic recipe is stunningly simple: three cups of bread flour, one and a half cuts of water, one and a quarter teaspoon of salt, and a quarter teaspoon of yeast are briskly mixed together in a bowl and then left alone overnight: at least 12 hours, but extra time does seem to yield better results. While the original recipe calls for 1 and 5/8 cups of water, the video on the Web site and also the recipes I found on several other blogs all called for one and a half cups, and indeed that seemed to work well. After the lengthy first rise, the dough is rolled into a ball, allowed to rise again, and then baked in a pot inside of a conventional oven at 450° F. This creates a “fake oven,” as Lahey refers to it in the aforementioned video, meaning that it simulates the steam-injected ovens found in professional bakeries. The moisture of the dough is trapped within the pot and circulates throughout, ensuring a crisp crust.
Note:the recipes I follow are at the end of the post!
No Knead Bread in a cast iron Dutch oven. | Canon 5D Mk. II and Zeiss 85mm f/1.4 ZE Planar T* lens | Exposed 1/40 sec. @ f/2, ISO 1600.
For my first few loaves I used Elizabeth’s hard-anodized, eight-quart stock pot. The current thinking is that anywhere from three to five quarts is just about “right” for No Knead Bread. (The original recipe called for a six to eight quart pot.) Combined with our concern that such high temperatures for an hour and fifteen minutes might deteriorate the non-stick coating, I purchased a Lodge five-quart cast iron Dutch oven on Amazon.
However, the sticking point to this bread–literally–is not the equipment needed, but the second rise of the dough. After a few attempts, I believe I’ve found an effective alternative to the original recipe. I offer you my experiences with this bread so that you can learn from my mistakes and quickly get to the point: great bread at a great price with relatively little effort.
