This little skater dude got a board for his birthday and an owie on his face to go with it!
More still life. The light needs to be just right on these for them to be interesting.
main light camera left, background light camera left flagged, rim light below and behind the table
I love lifestyle portraiture… Here’s a sneak peak, more to come.
The last still life challenge was simply “blue”. I thought it would be a breeze, but realized quickly that I was going to struggle with it. This is my favorite, although in retrospect I think a bit more DOF would have been nice.
On Tuesday I had the absolute pleasure of attending a Pakistani cooking class. These are the two dishes we learned to make. Both are delicious! If you are in the Geneva area and would like to attend a class, contact me and I’ll give you the details.
Chicken Do Piyaza
ingredients: 1 whole chicken skin off and cut into 12 pieces, 1 cup of yogurt, 1/2 cup of cooking oil, 4 medium onions peeled and thinly sliced, 1 garlic pod peeled and sliced, a 2 inch piece of ginger peeled and julienned, salt to taste.
Eggplant Subzi
ingredients: 3 medium eggplants, 1/2 cup of oil, 2 pureed tomatoes, 1 tblsp each of ginger and garlic paste, 1/2 tsp each of kalonji or whole cumin seeds, 1 tsp of fennel seeds, 1/4 tsp of turmeric powder, 1/2 tsp chili powder or cayenne pepper, salt to taste.
Reflective surfaces can be quite a challenge, but much easier to manage with my new lights.
Recycled Glass (seriously)
Purple Perfume Bottle
Bottles and Beads
Crystal Perfume Bottle
Empty Bottles
Tanah Lot, Bali Indonesia
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L’Imparfait
The imperfect tense in French is used to express the distant past, past habits and conditions that no longer exist.
To form the imperfect, conjugate the verb for “vous”, drop the “ez” ending and replace with the following:
| je ”ais” | nous “ions” |
| tu “ais” |
vous “iez” |
| il/elle/on “ait” |
ils/elles “aient” |
For example:
| Habiter – to reside, live: Vous habitez | |
| je habitais |
nous habitions |
| tu habitais |
vous habitiez |
| il/elle/on habitait |
ils/elles habitaient |
Exceptions:
Verbs ending in ger retain the “e” in all forms except nous and vous.
| Manger – to eat | |
| je mangeais |
nous mangions |
| tu mangeais |
vous mangiez |
| il/elle/on mangeait |
ils/elles mangeaient |
Verbs ending in “cer” the “c” changes to “ç”.
| Commencer – to begin | |
| je commençais |
nous commençions |
| tu commençais |
vous commençiez |
| il/elle/on commençait |
ils/elles commençaient |
More chocolate, this time one that I actually eat. 
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Passé Composé (Part 2)
It is a compound conjugation, meaning it is has two parts, the present tense of the auxilary verb (either avoir or être) plus the past participle of the main verb.
Another way to make the passé composé is with the verb être. When the auxiliary verb is être, the past participle must agree with the subject.
| Être - to be |
|
|---|---|
| je suis |
nous sommes |
| tu es |
vous êtes |
| il/elle/on est |
ils/elles sont |
| . |
Some past participles:
arriver – arrivé
entrer – entré
monter – monté
passer – passé
rester – resté
aller – allé
So the Passè Composè:
Je suis arrivé.
Tu es entré.
Il est monté. Elle est montée.
Nous sommes passés.
Vous êtes resté.
Ils sont allés. Elles sont allées.
