Another blast from the past!

Check this one out. A dapper young lad at 4 1/2, eh? And already rocking the styles.

Rocking. The. Bow. Tie.

Another blast from the past!

Look at this gem that was uncovered. The thank you notes!

Thank you!

OK, so there’s something I need to get off my chest.

Why the hell is it so hard to take photos of food? Seriously. As I dive into trying new things for the Foodie Friday feature, I figure it’s well worth taking photos. Especially if I’m blogging about it.

It’s not good that the photos from the iPhone and some apps come out better than the DSLR!

But take a stroll back to some of my past food posts. The photos really aren’t that spectacular.

So, I’m going to try and change that up a bit.

I recently won a blog giveaway where one of the prizes was a $50 gift card to Target. With that, I purchased a few “neutral” plates and bowls for food photos. I went with white (though I may go back and get a few other plates and such of different colors), as that seems to be the best way to start.

I’ve also started reading about food photography online.

See, I’m more of an outdoor photographer. And if you know me and have read my blog, you know a lot of that is more action and sports. I pride myself on being able to do that at a high level.

But lighting and all that? Ugh.

These tasted way better than I made them look with this photo!

Turns out food photography is often done with light. Who knew?

Let’s take for example, the peanut butter bar photo to the right. This photo doesn’t really do the end product justice. There are shadows, and it’s too bright and doesn’t show the color of the bar that well.

Needless to say, it frustrated me.

It was even worse when I look at the photos of the site where the recipe came from. The bars look divine!

And, honestly, I get better photos out of my iPhone and Hipstamatic of food than I do with my actual DSLR. That’s kind of annoying.

It doesn’t matter if it’s food or drink, the images are tough for me to take. One of the other reasons I want to get better at this is to be able to take better photos of my homebrews.

So it’s time for Foto Friday and Foodie Friday to meet.

In the coming weeks, I hope to have a few posts for the Foodie version of my Friday posts. And with that, hopefully better photos. I don’t know if I have everything I need, but I’m going to try and learn a few things so I can deliver a bit more with the images.

Anybody out there do food photos? If so, any tips? I’d like to make sure the photos come out well as it’s not like I’ll be plating $100 meals, so it would be nice to make them look as good as possible!

Hopefully I can figure it out though as I know there’s only a certain amount of time to take the photos. After that, you just have to dive in and start eating!

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog@gmail.com. Also, please “Like” HooHaa Blog on Facebook!

It’s time for the next theme. I’m really digging how the challenge is growing and hope it continues!

Anyway, the interpretation of themes has continued to be really solid. And night turned out to be harder, it seemed, for most than I originally thought.

Hopefully this month’s theme is a tad easier.

As a reminder of a few things, let me copy and paste this from last month:

• I have an e-mail reminder list set up. Basically, I’ll e-mail the group with about 10 days left in the month to remind you. When I remember, I’ll also shoot one out the day before the end of the month, as a reminder to post the following day. I can’t always guarantee that one though! If you are not on the list, let me know in the comments below that you would like to be on it.
• Second, I set up a Facebook group for those who are interested. Reminders and maybe some discussions or other things can be done there.
• If you haven’t already, attempt to check out everybody’s posts and consider commenting. These challenges are great for personal growth, but it’s also nice to be interactive with all the others in the challenge!

If you have done May’s post but haven’t linked up yet, it’s still up for a day or so.

Before we hit up this month’s theme, for new people, allow me to refresh the rules a bit.

Here’s how it will work.

• On the first of each month, I’ll have a blog post here with the theme for the month.
• Over the course of the month, participants will take photos with their interpretation of the theme. On the last day of the month, participants should  publish their blog post, which will include five photos from the month. (please don’t recycle photos from the past … the idea is to hopefully challenge you to go out and take new photos to interpret the theme).
• I’ll have a link-up thing at the end of my post so people can come and post the links to their posts so, hopefully, everybody can go go check out and comment on other posts.

There is no rule on equipment or anything. Use a cell phone. Use film. Use a point-and-shoot. Use a DSLR. It doesn’t matter. Just make sure you publish your blog post on the last day of each month, come here and link up.

It’s simple!

Your blog posts can be as simple or as in-depth as you want. I’ll likely talk a little about each photo. But if all you want to do is post photos, feel free. The idea of this is to give a small challenge and give everybody a chance to express themselves with photography, participate in a challenge and have something to blog about.

That’s it. Easy, right? So join in! Help us continue to grow this challenge by telling fellow bloggers/photographers about the challenge and hopefully it can become a great monthly thing!

For those still with me, this month’s theme is: Bridges.

Bridges differ so much throughout the world, so I hope there will be a lot of cool shots this year. OR, maybe you’ll look at this theme in a total different way?

Please make sure your blog post publishes Sunday, June 30.

If you think you are going to take part in this, drop a comment below so we can see who all might be trying to tackle this challenge!

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog@gmail.com. Also, please “Like” HooHaa Blog on Facebook!

Another blast from the past!

Look at this sweet little mug. Who is it, you may ask? Well guess away and maybe somebody will get it right.