Blog (and Photography) on the Rise

A good friend of mine, who is a loyal reader of my blog and a willing guinea pig to my baked treats and who is also a graphic designer, has taken pity on me and this poor little blog.  She has graciously volunteered to redesign my blog for me.  As you know, redesigning my blog was on my new year’s promise-to-do list.  Five months into the New Year and besides taking down the hideous back ground, I have done little else.  To my credit there has been little time to redesign, but I have been blogging pretty consistently.

So, when my friend volunteer to re-do my blog, I willing accepted (after making sure she was not taking on too much.  After all, I do not want to overwhelm her with a pity job).  I was so excited, thinking about colors, design, fonts, and logos… Then it hit me.  My photography skills will need to be elevated to live up to what fantastic-ness my blog is getting ready to become.

Currently, I spend about 5-10 minutes taking 100 pictures of my desserts, with my flash on usually at midnight after an evening of baking.  I pray that a few shots come out okay out of the 100.  I then shift through them and pick the best and upload them, as is (resized but unedited), to my blog.  I have always been more concerned with the taste of my food over the pictures of my food.   But out in blog world readers literally eat with their eyes, and my pictures need to start being visual treats.

I have very minimally started to care more about pictures.  There are a few things that I need to get, like some backing to block out the random junk on my kitchen counter in pictures, but I can still begin to practice some of the techniques I am picking up from random internet searches.  The first technique I am practicing is the use of natural light as opposed to my camera’s flash, which up until this point, I was a huge fan of due to nighttime photography sessions.

This brings a whole new level of having to prepare to take pictures, as there is not natural light at midnight.  The Birthday Cake Oreo Crispie Treats are the first treats I captured by natural light.  Friday morning before work, I took the treats out onto my balcony and tried to get a few photos.

Over all they came out okay, I definitely need to spend more time taking photos.  Even with natural light, taking photos before work in 5-10 minutes does not a brilliant photo make.  Oh, by the way, I have no clue how these taste.  I do not eat marshmallows, but I was told they are wonderful.  I used the standard Rice Krispies Treat recipe, but melted extra marshmallows, chopped up an entire package of Birthday Cake Oreos, and added extra sprinkles because everything is better with sprinkles.