Pumpkin Light Study

A fellow photographer friend of mine recommended that a few of try out some of these LED continuous lights.  I finally dove in and thought,  this may help me with practicing lighting set ups on a smaller scale so I do not have to bring out the big lights (I normally shoot with Alien Bees).  The lights I invested in were Neewer® Pro CN-160 LED camera video lamps.  I bought three of them.   Rough part with these lights, is that at full power,  they only can do about f5.6 (maybe f8) if I shoot at ISO400.  I really prefer to shoot at ISO100 since I have an older camera and noise starts to show up at ISO400.  But since these are practice runs, and these images will not be used for publication,  the slower f-stops should not be a problem (except for DOF).

SO now for images....

A mini set up with the NEEWER PRO lights and some backdrop
light stands.  Amazon only let me order three of the stands.
Cannot wait to order more stands so I can make a mini
backdrop holder  and then have all three of my
lights independent.

All three lights, one of them gelled with the warm filter.
Reflector camera left.

Removed reflector and one of the lights.

Two lights and ambient light from open window. 

Blocked window light and used only two lights.
Again, the one camera right is gelled. 

Fresh Bread

Wow,  I did not blog a single post in the whole month of September.  Sorry about that!

I am still recovering my my morning sickness at times,  but I am just getting back into the swing of things, like cooking, cleaning, and working in my little garden.  Looks like I will be jumping back into my food photography soon as well!  With the holidays ahead, there will be many fun images to capture and create!

An update:  I have started selling some of my images on Etsy.com.  Feel free to check out my shop.  Right now there are only greeting cards on there, but I will be adding print options soon as well.

Here's some images of a fresh loaf of bread and a recipe to follow.  Most of the ingredients were organic, and the yummy butter was from a grass fed cow!

Basic White Bread 
Adapted from "The Bread Machine Cookbook" by Beth Hensperger

1 2/3 cups water
1 1/2 Tbs Butter (sliced thinly)
1 1/2 Tbs coconut sugar
4 cups of bread flour (I had 1 cup of Whole Wheat and 3 cups of organic white on hand).
1/4 C dried goat milk (or you could substitute dry milk).
2 t salt
1 TBS bread machine yeast.


Place all the ingredients in your bread machine according to bread machine instructions.  Put on dough setting and let it do its thing.  Take it out and put into two 9x13 bread pans.  Let rise for about 30-45min.  Bake on 350 for 35min.  Enjoy! :D