Sunday, November 24, 2019

Christmas Cookies

This is it!  Thanksgiving is done (and it was wonderful), and now it is time for Christmas :)
Christmas time is one of my favorite times of the year.  I think it has to do with the fact that we would decorate for Christmas way more than any other holiday when I was a kid--a tradition that I have certainly kept up as an adult.

Another tradition I have kept up is baking cookies for Christmas.  My mother and I would bake together frequently during the holidays and I have definitely turned out to be more of a baker than a cook in my later life.

Recently I baked my favorite cookies--I don't know the name, but they are peanut butter cookies with Hershey's Kisses on top of each one.  If you know the "official" name of these, comment below!  I decided to make a time-lapse video of me making the cookies.  I have only ever tried to do time-laps once--and it failed abysmally!  I think attempt #2 was much better!

I also have a photo below of the final product of the cookies with some milk next to the Christmas tree.

Enjoy!

Now,  small disclaimer--this will most certainly NOT look like a Tasty video.  Those videos require a special rig to hold the camera directly above the counter, and they use a cooktop that is not an oven, so they have overhead room for this special rig.  I also nave never mastered the art of professional studio lighting.  I just use lamps and light in my house and natural light when I can get it.  My kitchen doesn't get much natural light, so I had to supplement with what I had:

You can see the 3 lamps I used--only so many outlets, and one of them had to be for my phone--I was watching Thor Ragnarok while I was baking :)
. One of the lamps had to be on a stool!  Two legs of the tripod are out, but the third was resting directly on the counter to get the angle. Again, work with what you got!

Okay, here is the video:


(if it doesn't work here, check out my Instagram @meganhowellphoto)


Here is the final photo:

The bokeh is not as big as I would like (bokeh is the circle of light that are the tree lights).  But in order to really get big bokeh, I would have needed to be a lot farther away with a longer lens.  My house isn't that big!

(Yes, I do have purple ornaments in my Christmas Tree.  Purple is my favorite color and when I found these ornaments last year for my tree, it was a no-brainer!)

🎄Merry Christmas!🎄



Monday, January 14, 2019

Snow :)

Well, what do you know--I did go out and take photos this morning (see my Instagram post to see what I mean: @meganhowellphoto)!  We've had snow here the last 2 days here in Maryland.  I woke up really early this morning and finished watching the Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (I highly recommend if you haven't seen it yet), looked out my window and saw the start of a beautiful sunrise.  I knew I wouldn't be able to pass this up, so I quickly put on layers, boots, coat, and all that jazz.  Here's what I got to see this morning:

At the front of my neighborhood is this tiny lake/creek.  I've known since I moved here that I would taking photos here :)
Though I tried to get to the water's edge, it really wasn't possible.  It was too steep and to much foliage in my way.  Instead, I started a fascination with frozen water drops on the branches. 
I also loved trying to get water reflections!

This is actually a reflection captured through a hole in the branches.

 

 Ice crystals on the surface of the water.


Hope you enjoyed!  I know I did :)