28: Vintage

 
My friend is celebrating his 40th birthday, and we thought, hey, what a great excuse to have some great wine!

So, what you see is a decanted 1988 Chateau Beaucastle Chateauneuf du Pape, a Rothschild South African, and a California Syrah.

All excellent wines that fit well with a celebration

Shot in JPEG, and I wasn't happy with all the clutter surrounding, so I desatruated with channel mixer and added a slight reddish tint with curves.  Makes the picture seem much better. Of course, this much wine will make almost anything look good!!

Bottoms up!

27: Cold Noodles with Peanut Sauce

Just for Alresco, here is a cold noodle recipe with peanut sauce (with some comments)

1 pound fresh wheat flour noodles or dried thin spaghetti (I use Asian noodles, dried udon or even soba - buckwheat)
1/4 cup sesame oil
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup peanut butter
1/4 cup warm water
2 T cider vinegar
1/4 to 1/2 t cayenne (I usually use asian chili sauce: see note underneath)
2 t sugar
1/2 t black pepper
2 garlic cloves, crushed

Cook the noodles

While cooking them, whisk together the peanut butter (I use chunky) and water until blended. Mix together rest of ingredients. Drain noodles and rinse under cold water until chilled. Mix sauce with noodles.

Few side notes - I never measure. I just eyeball everything and adjust by personal taste. The sauce (before you add it) should not be to thick. If it is, just thin it with a bit of water. I like it spicy, so I dump a fairly large amount of chili sauce in. The garlic is raw, so if you're not a garlic fan, skip it.

Hope you like it!

I wanted to take a picture of them, but they don't really look that appetizing, so you get the peanut butter jar instead

26: The Adams Family

Ok, not really the Adams family, buy we sometimes act like them: completely crazy!  Wonderful friends we spent the weekend with.  This is from the same day as all my PAD's this week.  Very little done with it.  Shot in RAW, converted, some light levels and curves, resize, USM and save for web. 

Now, if only all the weekends could be that fun and have such great weather!

25: Snow and Ice

Ok, let's try this again.  Blogger went down for a bit, so here's try number three.

I like the ice on the ends of the needles in this one.  Gave myself a nice little exercise in post processing with layer masks.  Two different layers of levels, and then masked out what was needed on each one.  Some sautration and hue, bump in contrast, crop, resize, USM and save for web

I realize I really like to take pictures of frozen things.  I love the things nature can do with it.

24: Tundra

This is Tundra.  She is the most wonderful Newfoundland owned by friend of mine.  I've known her for several years, and spent many afternoons and evenings with her and her owner (mother) in the park and in the country.  She's the type who will bark at you, and then lick you to death.

I like this particular picture from this weekend because you can see her breath, and her expression is very 'Tundra.'  She has beautiful markings on her body, and I will probably post a picture of her whole body at some point.

23: Winter on the river

So, here is a picture from this weekend.  It's five pictures hastily stitched together.  Not a great job, but I don't have a true wide angle to do it justice, and I didn't bring my fisheye *doh*

Show in Raw, converted and stiched.  Curves, selective colour, and saturation, resize, USM, and save for web

Thank you everyone for the comments you've been leaving.  I've fallen behind due to school work, but I am checking them out and will try and comment as soon as some of this moelcular biology and intro to accounting stuff gets in my brain :-)

22: Windswept

Ok, it's not really windy, but the way the little pine is growing always make me think it growing in a windy area.

After the huge dump of snow yesterday, we had an absolutely gorgeous day.  So good in fact, my next few PADs will be from this weekend.  There wasn't a cloud in the sky, and the temperature was perfect at right around zero degrees (Celsius) and not to windy.

Shot exclusively RAW, and while I don't think I'll always do that always due to lack of space, in this situation, it worked out well.  I was having a hard time with exposures due to it being so sunny and the snow being so bright and pretty.  I was blowing out highlights here and there, and with RAW, I was able to bring things a bit more under control.  I'm officially a RAW convert now.  Love it!