Things just got a lot more interesting with Tanager Photography. On Wednesday, our new camera arrived: the Canon 5D Mark II, an upper echelon camera with an incredible 21.1 megapixel full-frame sensor and HD video capabilities. Paired with the Canon 40D we’ve been shooting with, we now have even more expanded coverage for weddings, portraits, events and of course, our travels.

So its been an interesting week beyond just the new camera. What’s Halloween in Colorado without 14 inches of new snow … in the city? We carved a pumpkin last night (OK … Hailey carved a pumpkin last night), and I plopped it on the porch to photograph it (above). I was blown away at how the 5D balanced the inner glow of the pumpkin, the moonlit sky, the street light, and the streaking traffic on Holly St.

Hailey is knitting a baby blanket for our child, which made for an interesting test subject. Same with lighting a match. On day one of the blizzard, Hailey baked some beer bread, which I promptly photographed fresh from the over. I feel like I’m just scratching the surface on this camera’s capabilities.

So here’s the big deal with the Canon 5D for me. The camera shoots at high ISO settings with little trouble. ISO basically means how sensitive the sensor is to light. The higher the number, the more sensitive, the better the camera does in lower light (like churches, indoors, dusk, etc.). Many cameras (40D included) do OK through 400 ISO. At 800 ISO, you are pushing it and asking for a bit of post-production work to have less grainy, less noisy images. I pushed the ISO to 3200 on some of these images, and experienced very little grain or noise in the image.

I’m sure I’ll be posting a lot of new stuff in the coming weeks. Hailey and I might even do a maternity shoot together. We’ll try to avoid cliches, but we certainly have a lack of baby bump images. Stay tuned.

Well, I’m back. Been a long while since I’ve blogged, in part because of how busy things have been at work, plus, my Canon 40D needed to go into the shop, so I’ve been on a bit of a shooting haitus. And I’m not talking about a three-day stint at Metro Camera Service in Englewood for a sensor cleaning. I had to ship it to Canon’s Main Service Branch in California to have the shutter mechanism fixed. So, all is better now, as these test shots of cabernet grapes and backyard carrots indicate. However, the situation pushed me off the fence on acquiring a new camera, and so, this Wednesday, according to UPS, I’ll be getting a Canon 5D Mark II as my main ax. The 40D, loyal soldier from trips to Italy and Mexico, will still serve me, but as the backup and as Hailey’s camera, too.

So, just to update things, I thought I’d get these pics of our bumper crop online. Hailey faithfully tended to a veggie garden this year, and along with cherry tomatoes, rosemary, oregano and jalapenos, we had great success with carrots from seed. On Saturday, we pulled 50 out of the ground, and only stopped because we didn’t want them wilting in our fridge. Best to keep the last 50 or so in the ground and harvest them for Thanksgiving. And yes, we recommend washing them before cooking them. Less gritty that way.

While in San Miguel de Allende, Hailey and I took a class at the Sazón Cooking School. I thought I’d take a second and upload some images from it. Not much of a narrative, but it was certainly a worthwhile experience. Our instructor was Chef Paco Cárdenas (pictured at top) of the well-known and highly regarded El Petit Four Patisserie in San Miguel de Allende. He was incredibly energetic, passionate and thoughtful, and it made for a wonderful two hours on the Thursday afternoon we spent there.

He made a traditional homecooked meal of dried shrimp cakes with molé and romaritos (a grass-like herb) and topped it off with a buñelo, a deep-fried sugar-dusted Mexican cookie (below right). The class was quite affordable, and I’d highly recommend it if you are spending ample time in San Miguel de Allende. It breaks the mold a bit and its nice to head home with new skills in the kitchen.

Paco was very amiable, and the next day (Good Friday) Hailey and I stopped by his bakery for breakfast. It was incredible. Moist pasteries, good coffee and a clean, well-lit place to contemplate whatever.

On Saturday evening, as we walked the town taking pictures of doorways and the like, an SUV pulled up alongside us and honked the horn. It was Paco behind the driver seat, checking in to make sure we were enjoying San Miguel de Allende. The traffic was stopped behind him, but no one seemed to mind. Such is the spirit of the place.

I woke up this morning in New Orleans at 6am with a flight to catch home. I had flown in Sunday night with some colleagues from Weaver, and I was proud to see a New Orleans that was only slightly different from when I last visited in December 2001. There were crowds of people, albeit slightly smaller ones. There were street musicians playing a beautiful medley of styles, albeit not as many as last time. And there was a whole new set of contexts to nearly every landmark I saw. I couldn’t look at St. Louis Cathedral without seeing Bush in front of it, desperately trying to regain the nation’s trust from the city’s only dry patch of ground. I couldn’t even look at the Superdome without thinking about the suffering that happened there.

It’s been said that what doesn’t kill you can only make you stronger. So very true. New Orleans is proving to be resilient, even if she’s letting certain parts of herself go. But then again, it’s not complacency that resulted in that doorway at the top of this post — it’s just graceful aging.

This morning I’m up before Hailey, which means I have a pot of coffee to work on and some color correcting to do for a client (in this case, Tim and Lexi — hey guys, your photos are now ready!). But I started thinking about travel and coffee and the moments where the two have collided beautifully. Travel tends to be an exercise of the senses. Obviously, sight + photography, but also sound + music (I’m working on a special Mexico playlist right now), flavor + food (just discovered they put molé on eggs in Guanajuato — yes!) and its cousin flavor + drink. In cases of this last pairing, I’m usually seeking out the holy trinity of liquids: wine, beer or coffee.

This morning, I’m compelled to write about coffee, and the best cups I ever did have. Warning: this is a self-indulgent exercise, but then again, so is blogging, right?

1. Italy (where to begin) – This cup starts in Varenna and has traversed the entire Boot wherever we’ve gone: the cappuccino. I had my first real one on Lake Como, and it was the first of many introductions to the beautiful details of Italian flavor. Enough espresso for every sip, a bold yet smooth flavor, and milk fading steadily into foam at the top. We can’t make these in America, at least not that I’ve found. In Seattle, they’re close, but as with many things and travel, its goodness is amplified by the setting. The cappuccino pictured above was our first in last year’s trip — served over breakfast at the Hotel Minervetta in Sorrento. When paired with a view of Vesuvius over the Bay of Naples, breakfast became less an exercise in sustanance, and more an exercise in realization — you are a long way from home, and its all good.


2. The Palms Cliff House, Big Island, Hawaii – Hailey and I honeymooned on the Big Island and Maui, and our first five nights were spent at this magnificent bed and breakfast on the wet coast north of Hilo. The amazing breakfasts were served on the lanai, accompanied by a hot cup of Kona. Mornings were always the right temperature. Pods of rain would splash the cliff-lined coast, cool things 5 degrees and cast a rainbow for 60 seconds, before moving on. The best cups of drip coffee I’ve had were on that porch, newly married, looking forward to everything.

3. Stella’s Cafe, Monteverde, Costa Rica – Here’s the magic formula of Stella’s: 1.) It’s backyard is the famous cloud forest of Monteverde, 2.) it’s patio featured an assortment of uber-comfy chairs, 3.) it’s local resident was an affectionate cat who had a penchant for sitting on your lap and purring, and 4.) they served mild shade-grown Costa Rican coffees. On top of all of that, our good friends Will and Liz were living up the road at a biology research center, meaning this was the place to meet up. On our first morning, we met a birdwatching guide here, and we hardly had to leave to see some of the area’s most magnificent birds. Across the street was a flock of golden-browed chlorophonias and a blue-crowned motmot perched nearby. Be sure to click the links to these birds — some of the craziest wildlife I’ve seen.

Unfortunately, this trip was a long time ago during my Nikon FM days — meaning I only have 4×6 prints of the trip, and crummy ones at that.

4. Seattle – If you love coffee and you’ve been to Seattle, you just can’t leave it off your list. I’ve been a handful of times, but on this last trip in November, I finally “got it” when it comes to this city’s coffee culture. That’s because it rained the whole freaking time, and without fail, there was always a coffee shop to duck into. Tops on my list wasn’t even a cafe: Macrina Bakery. It was one of those places where they specialize in one thing (incredible baked goods) and just so happen to know how to make cappuccinos like the Italians do. Bonus.

5. The Lodge at Chaa Creek, Belize – My final selection is another trip from the Nikon FM days. This memory is flavored by the sweetness of morning ritual. Every day, the routine was such: wake up at sunrise (courtesy of the chachalacas in the tree over our hut), walk onto the porch, lie in the hammock, listen to the rainforest wake up, and enjoy the rich coffee they delivered to our room. Next door to us were my Mom and Dad, they’re first tropical rainforest/ecolodge/birdwatching/coffee-drinking experience. There was a small and ornery ferruginous pygmy-owl who was nesting in a hollowed-out tree above our porch. While drinking our morning cup of Joe, we’d watch her chase the iguanas off the tree. On our final morning, she killed a hummingbird and feasted on it while we discussed breakfast. Of all the collisions of experience that travel brings, file that one under Strange Yet Sweet.

So here’s a heads up: I’m hoping to blog from Mexico next week. We leave Friday and return the Monday after Easter. We’ll see how the internet connection is at the two places we’re staying, but hopefully we’ll be able to chronicle our journey through Holy Week nightly. Looking forward to it.

I won’t show the pork tenderloin experiment from Saturday night. Let’s just say we know how to follow a recipe and execute it, but plating it is another matter. Pig products should never look like a smiley face, and a sprig of rosemary shouldn’t look like a tuft of hair. It was bad.

But I was happy with Sunday’s experiments. Hailey (the resident baker) made Bara Brith, a delicious tea bread from Wales. I’m not sure of all that went into it, but it required soaking tea bags in water with brown sugar and a medley of dried fruit before folding that into the dough. It’s easily the best sweet breakfast bread she’s ever made.

The top photo was taken with the ring flash off camera (to the right) on a manual setting (1/125, f/20, 100 ISO). The bottom one, with available cloudy light pouring in the window. As much as I want the ring flash to make me a better food photographer, I like the natural light shot more.

For dinner, we made what has become a new favorite — chicken sofrito. It’s a Spanish chicken and rice dish in which you brown chicken thighs and legs, add zesty goods (onions, garlic, peppers, fennel seed, spices), a cup of rice, chicken broth and then you bake it for 25 minutes and finish it off with a quick broil to crisp the chicken. We got the recipe out of a recent Food + Wine Magazine and we’ve cooked it three times in four weeks. Needless to say, I think fennel seed should be a secret ingredient on the Iron Chef. I love that stuff.

Both of the above sofrito shots were taken with the ring flash off camera, and here it worked pretty well. The chicken is actually backlit on a wooden table in the top shot…that explains the yin-ying black and white effect on top and bottom.

We’ll be trying a few more experiments in the coming weeks. Its a good time of year to be dinking around with the flash. More to come soon.

Oh yeah, and a glass of water. I figured this may have some sort of stock value some day…like the kind of thing used in an annual report…or maybe not. Yeah, its a bit esoteric.

I was just thrilled that the ABR800 was smart enough to sync and fire with my external flash without any complicated formula or another accessory. Pretty simple really.

And for the record, this tomato was used in a salad later in the night.

Well, this week it came off the press and I’m thrilled with the result. Here’s where the article begins. Click on the image for the full view!

And here is the second spread:

The guide won’t be in circulation for another two weeks or so, but once it is, you can request a copy through Colorado.com. For an online gallery of the trip, visit my portfolio site, TanagerPhotography.com, and click on the Travel galleries.

Special thanks go out to Kelly Faigin (the graphic designer who did such a great job picking out photos and laying out the photo essay…she even used one of my food photos), Hannah Pierce (the guide’s editor), Andrea Golod (head of the photo department) and Dusty Demerson (who conducted the photo class in Crested Butte that was the subject of the story).

The criteria here is simple: which photo composition makes the subject most enticing? Another way of looking at it: which image screams “get in my belly!”

Remember to vote for the Travel, Nature + Landscape and People in Places category within the next week. Feel free to leave comments on your selection.

#1. Stewed pork wrapped in pork fat with embedded pistachios and an arugula garnish, at Baccanti Ristorante, Matera, Italy.

#2. Beef tenderloin meatballs, fresh pasta and pesto at Timberline Restaurant, Crested Butte, Colorado.

#3. Cappuccino at Locanda San Francesco, Montepulciano, Italy.

#4. Rumballs, the Day family recipe (and the bane of my existence right now).

#5. Ciabatta Frutti Rossi (strawberry turnovers), storefront window, Assisi, Italy.

#6. Caprese salad at Locanda San Francesco, Montepulciano, Italy.

Feel free to leave thoughts/critiques in the comments box below. I’m hungry now…

So if you are hosting, like Hailey and I were yesterday, and you’re cooking…how do you even make time to set the food right for a yummy photograph?

Well, lesson learned. But while the 14-pound turkey was reaching perfection, me, Hales, and my mom and dad noshed on crackers, olives and apple slices and sipped some wine. I showed Mom and Dad my new 24mm lens, and they gave me one of the best portraits of the two of them. I love this…

These are our prized napkin rings. Never thought I’d be that domesticated, but yes, I love my napkin rings. You gotta problem with that??? We bought them in Quito, Ecuador last year. This one is nursing a baby. Now that’s realistic!

Things came out of the oven, and I tried to catch them while they were hot. Hailey’s garlic-and-corn mashed potatoes on the left, and the new recipe of the year — stuffing with apples and sausage — on the right.

The turkey came out of the oven and cooled under some foil. Just before carving, I snapped a few angles (without much time to fix the light or even adjust it) while my Dad patiently waited, sharpening the carving set. Turkeys look great for maybe two minutes once they’re out of the oven. After that, they start to look like a glistening carcass.

And here is the final result…I was on the verge of irritating our company with all the picture taking, so I snapped one shot (with too narrow a depth of field) and discreetly put the camera away for grace, a toast and the feasting.

Thanksgiving is the pinnacle of American cuisine. Anyone from the outside looking into this country may be temped to think our cuisine revolves around hamburgers, hot dogs, steak, French fries and a gamut of imported and co-opted dishes like pizza, spaghetti and burritos. But take another look on this holiday. This is the real zenith of our kitchen priorities: a long-roasted bird, harvest fruits and veggies concocted in all sorts of ways, stuffing, and the essence of rosemary and sage everywhere. It’s the best.

I often feel more patriotic on Thanksgiving than I do on the Fourth of July. It’s my favorite holiday, probably because it forces reflection on what matters most. Any place where they take a day to stop and do that is a place worth living. Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving. I know I did.

And in case you haven’t yet, be sure to vote for my travel photo of the year in the blog post below or by clicking here.