Month: July 2013

MY STYLE sessions

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Over 25 years in the industry and I’m here to tell you – there are only so many ways you can spice up a studio session on a plain background over and over again.  Clients are becoming well aware that their portraits need to mean something.  Their children should have a fun experience during a photo-shoot.  Most of all – parents need to enjoy it as well and let go – because the best photos are the ones with children being themselves.

Away with cheese – leave it for your wine.

It’s time to play, live, love and have professional images that show us how we were and who we were during our amazing childhood.  And not just your iPhone photos – professionally styled portraits that you want to put on canvas and hang on your walls.  Because the iPhone photos may stay on your computer way too long to appreciate.  An album or a wall portrait is something you use to recollect those feelings and moments all the time.

Professional Styling by: Nicole from Worthwhile Style                                                           Solid wood A-frame tent by Function 4 Design

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Blueberry Coconut Gram Crunch.

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Amazingly yummy – blueberries are my favorite berry.  If you love blueberries, coconut and gram crackers – you’re in for a treat.

On medium heat, boil a 2 pints of blueberries & 2 shots of coconut rum until blueberries are cooked but not mashed.

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Crunch one sleeve of Gram Crackers and one stick of softened(not melted) butter together until it creates a crumbled texture.  Then I add in 2 tbsp of brown sugar and mix lightly.

On a cookie sheet, spread the Gram Cracker mix loosely, and then sprinkle some sea salt across the top to taste – I do very little but just enough to balance the sweet of the crackers.  I pop this in the oven on broil for just a minute or so until the Gram Cracker mixture is golden.

Then layer into your favorite cup or bowl with the blueberry mixture, some toasted un-sweetened coconut, and either vanilla ice cream or whipped cream.

To make it a little more savory for adults.  I’ve also broiled goat cheese to brown and topped it with goat cheese instead and it is amazing!  YUM.

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Sour Cherry Tart.

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Sour-Cherry-Tart_001 copyright Jeanine Thurston PhotographEarlier this week I went to Berry Patch Farms with some friends and our kids.  I had never been there before and really didn’t know what to expect.  The sour baking cherries were ripe, and these brilliant red berries just called for you to pick them.  About an hour later we had picked… well… more than we needed, but it was just so much fun that we couldn’t stop ourselves.  My boys and me ended up with 4 heaping pints of little sour cherries.  Once we got home… well, of course I was wondering how I would ever use this many – what to make – and how do you pit these things?

My first choice was to dump a half pint into water and infuse it with sour cherries, cucumbers, a squeezed lime and 1/4 cup of sugar!  yum… loved it.

Next I ventured on to cooking down a full pint of cherries with 2 shots of Grand Marnier and 6 tbsp of brown sugar.  After boiling it down to a sauce I then strained it and then sifted through and picked out the pits.  The put the pulp into the drained juices.  OMG… it taste sooooo good over plain frozen yogurt!

Still with about half left of what I simmered down, I decided to make a mini-pie or I guess it is more like a tart – mostly because I put it in a “tart thing.”  Yes – I photograph food all the time, but still the names of all the cookware and baking ware eludes me.

So crust in, and trimmed it up to make it pretty with the sour cherry sauce and folded over the remaining crust.  It is amazing… I’m not even kidding… I could eat this ever day.  I put a small tapas size amount on a mini-saucer with one small scoop of blueberry ice-cream.  I let my kids each have one and they were going on and on about how good it was too.

Yay… three sour cherry uses down.  And yet I look in my fridge and I still have 2 1/2 pints to figure out yet.  Better get back to the test kitchen!

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How does your memory work? The power of a printed photograph.

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How does your memory work?

“How does your brain lay down and retrieve memories? Your brain is made up of 100 billion neurons. As you grow and develop, these neurons are ‘wired up’ to each other, and communicate through thousands of connections – synapses. Memories are formed when certain connections are strengthened.” ~sciencemuseum.org.uk

Regardless of the times when you talk and think nobody on the planet understands you – humans do remain great communicators.  We use language by way of symbols and words that represent our feelings, ideas, actions, and qualities.  This is complex – and yet our lives are becoming seemingly more complex and the flood of information and memories can get ‘filed’ in rarely recovered folders in our mind.

A photograph has the power to recover memories, increase mood – reminding ourselves of positive times that improve how we feel now. Looking at a printed photograph is valuable – people hold them or look at them in an album or on a wall and reminisce about the past.  What is an experience 20-30+ years ago – and possibly long forgotten can create a “remember this” in your mind and bring stories increasing bonds between people.  A printed photograph can make you remember your daughter bursting with laughter on the floor, the way your son loved to run fast as he could,  completely free, and it can bring back stories of your grandmother and how she would hug you or the smell of fresh-baked bread.  It revives your senses, it re-files your memories putting more pleasant thoughts in the current files of your mind.  It brings you tears at times too – and that is what makes a photograph valuable.

It’s not just a piece of paper.  It is lifetimes of vivid book marks connecting your memories.   A printed photograph is one memory that connects many memories and sorts them in a more pleasant order…. that is what makes one photograph so special.

Think about your favorite few photographs that come to mind and take a minute to reflect on the emotions that those photographs provoke – that is the power of a photograph.

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Fish Tacos

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After being away on a trip to the mid-west, I realized as soon as I got home I was craving some fresh fish tacos.  So off to the grocery store for some tilapia and this is what I made.  Super simple dipping fresh white fish of your choice in buttermilk and then dipping in cornmeal and then lightly frying a couple minutes on each side.  Then some sea salt to flavor it.  I wanted to keep it super fresh.  Then chopped one mango and a 1/4 cup of canned pineapple, one diced avocado and then squeeze a lime and mix it together.  Dice or slice a jalapeno pepper, and slice some red onion too.  

Grab your favorite tortilla or make them fresh….If you need to spice it up just add your favorite salsa… but I like to keep it fresh and simple… I put some cilantro on and it tastes amazing.

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