detroit photography

A Walk Through Cranbrook

Floral & Nature

Today was the first day of the rest of my life. 

Without being too cryptic, I’ll say that I did things today that were cathartic and healing and I received messages and support that I needed to hear and I am grateful and thankful for the people in my life that continue to lift me up and make me feel valued. 

That said, I gifted myself an early Christmas gift last month for Black Friday and bought Adobe Creative Cloud and thankfully have Photoshop back! I’ve been tinkering around in it (and Lightroom) but today I spent some time at Cranbrook and came home with a handful of great shots.

While I was there, a lady named Loretta walked up to me and started asking me questions about what I was taking a picture of and showed me some of her photography as well. We ended up spending well over an hour walking the grounds and I learned a lot of fascinating things about the architecture of the surrounding buildings. 

We exchanged  all kinds of stories and life experiences and funny enough, before I left the house I had stuck a few of my business cards in my pocket thinking “you never know who you’ll meet”. She was so interested in my creative pursuits, I ended up giving her one of my cards. Loretta, if you’re reading this, you are an incredible lady and I adore your vivaciousness and thirst for knowledge. 

That said, here are a couple of the photos I took today. The second photo is the last one I took before Loretta took me on a whirlwind tour of the grounds. 

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Jungle Fever

Portraits

I realized when I posted these photos on my Instagram accounts that my photography Instagram (@vivianapodinaphotography) still says I’m participating (PROCRASTINATING) in the r/WeeklyPhotos 52 week challenge. However, I haven’t looked at that challenge since March. The year isn’t over yet and I’d really like to catch up and finish the challenge with everyone else, so in an effort to have no more “zero-days”, I’m going to challenge myself to finish this challenge.

That said, I didn’t go into these photos with the intent of them coming out how they did at all. I was simply happy with another great makeup look and wanted to capture it in photos.

I added freckles to my face with an eyebrow pencil, a makeup trend and trick that I feel adds more dimension to an overall look, but especially so in photography. One of my favorite photo aesthetics is that of Claire Luxton, who uses her Photoshop skills to hyper-intensify gorgeous details like freckles and gem-colored eyes to bring out her subjects. I used her photography as reference and inspiration while editing, and brought out my faux freckles in this series.

I watched a few of her videos on Youtube to see how she edits and I combined a couple new tricks from her style of editing with my own. I’m very pleased with how these photos turned out and I think I might have to do some Twitch streams again in the future of my photo-editing because this was honestly so much fun.

I use myself as my subject matter for portraits about 95% of the time, but I’d really like to expand that and test myself and my skills in bringing out other people’s personalities and stories through my photography.

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Week 3: Full Manual x Technical

Floral & Nature

r/WeeklyPhotos week 3 challenge is Full Manual x Technical.

I captured this water droplet at Cranbrook on a windy day, precariously standing on a slope. It was physically challenging, as well as technically, since I was adjusting my focus manually and this branch would not sit still. But I’m thrilled with the capture and the way the photo came out overall.

I’m also pretty thrilled with my post-processing edit. I think I did a great job with adjusting the colors to my liking, but also to showcase the beauty of this shot more eloquently.

This week gave me the opportunity to step back into my comfort zone. As you all know by now, I absolutely adore photographing nature. It’s difficult to find flowers in their natural settings in the winter, but I’ll be damned if there aren’t interesting dead leaves (and the dirty ground…) to capture. Especially here in the Metro Detroit area.

Here’s the technical breakdown:

f/1.8
Exp 1/320
ISO 200
35mm f/1.8G AF-S DX NIKKOR lens

 

Gluten Free Cardamom Crepes

Viviana's Kitchen

Heyyy.

So I have a few recipes up my sleeve that I tried in the past couple months and I wanted to share with you guys.

This first one is super easy and doesn’t actually have a real recipe per se.

I usually make pancakes on Sunday mornings, but I wanted to try making crepes instead, using Pamela’s Gluten Free Pancake flour that I always use. I actually have an additional recipe, straight from my great-aunt, from scratch, that I’ll be sharing later.

For now, though, this one is very simple and delicious. Check it:

Ingredients

(Makes ~8 crepes or pancakes)
1 cup Pamela’s Gluten Free Pancake Mix
1 egg
1 tbsp canola oil
3/4 cup water
cinnamon and cardamom to taste
Fruits, honey, whipped cream for toppings

Directions

  1. Combine all ingredients in a bowl
  2. Heat a non-stick pan on high (if you don’t have one, just use spray oil before every crepe) and pour your batter one scoop at a time. Swivel your pan to spread the batter as thinly as you can without breaking. You can also use your ladle to help you out with this if the batter is too thick.
  3. Chop your fruits. Optionally, you can mix them with your honey and set aside while you make the crepes. Stuff your crepes with fruits and roll up, then top with whipped cream or more honey and fruits.

 

Breakfast Bites

Viviana's Kitchen

This morning I woke up bright and early (9:30 is early for me, don’t judge) and decided to make something different for breakfast than my usual Sunday pancakes.

I was searching for breakfast ideas yesterday when I ran across a list that featured various muffins and I knew I wanted to make something like that, but I didn’t have time or patience yesterday, so I vowed to do it today.

Lo and behold, I made…breakfast bites? They’re bready eggy oniony turkey bacon wrapped deliciousness. Check out the recipe below, I promise they’re super easy and tasty.

Ingredients

12 slices turkey bacon (or pig bacon)
7-8 eggs, beaten
1/8 tsp Vegeta seasoning (or salt&pepper)
1 onion (2 if they’re small)
1 carrot, grated (or more)
3 slices sourdough bread
feta cheese to taste

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 375F. Grab a cupcake/muffin pan, spray with oil, line each holder with 1 slice of the turkey bacon, and fill with pieces of the sourdough bread.
  2. Beat your eggs with Vegeta seasoning (or salt and pepper). Add in chopped up onions and whisk together. You may also add in your grated carrot and feta cheese in this part, which I should’ve done (I sprinkled mine on top).
  3. Pour or scoop your egg mixture over each muffin until they’re all evenly coated. If you did not mix your carrot and feta cheese into your eggs, sprinkle them on top now.
  4. Pop in the oven for 25 minutes at 375F. Enjoy!

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