This week’s theme for our Project 52 was food. I had this vision in my head all week of photographing the cocktail I’ve been indulging in this week – fresh grapefruit juice and vodka. Guess it’s called a Greyhound – it was what we had on hand a couple weeks ago, so my husband fashioned it into a cocktail and I was hooked. I wanted to capture the fresh grapefruit, our cute martini set, and the beautiful pink cocktail, but since I never drink it during daylight hours (it’s my treat after the kids go to bed – a bit of a reward for having survived the day), I never got to it.
My next idea was to capture our Sunday morning pancake breakfast. I had visions of highly staged, beautiful photos of our weekly ritual. An untouched pile of pancakes. The steaming bowl of berry sauce. Our funky green butter dish. Michael made the pancakes, set them out, and I came in with my camera and started moving the dishes around to achieve the optimal lighting conditions.
Then, the children descended.
And there went my vision.
So I moved on to capturing my kids with berry-stained faces, half-devoured plates of pancakes, our messy table, and clutter in the background. None of these photographs were staged in any way, other than occasionally removing an intruding napkin or elbow.
I captured our life. Not the polished, perfect version of blueberry pancakes, but our Sunday morning as it really is. Perfectly imperfect.
If you want to know the settings for any of these photos, just ask. They ranged in ISO from 400 – 2000, depending on where in the room I was shooting.
by gwendolyn waite
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