five|one|nine photography

this blog has moved!

Sylvia — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 01:21:37 +0000

Terribly inconvenient, I know. But it was time to get the site up and running, and move the blog to my server. All of the previous blog entries and comments have been moved over, so please update your bookmarks.

The site should be live within a couple of days, once I work out some glitches.

Coming up tonight: the Small-Town Ontario Project visits Sparta!

lemon sorbet margaritas

Sylvia — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 21:52:38 +0000

In the midst of one of our heat waves, I purchased an ice cream maker. This gorgeous beast has been a blessing (in the heat) and a curse (on our waistlines). This week I decided I needed to make a lemon sorbet. I searched far and wide for a recipe which looked enticing, only to end up adapting the one from the Cuisinart instruction booklet. It didn’t quite turn out like I expected but I found a great use for it!

I think this is much more a granita than a sorbet, and I’m quite sure it could be happily made without an ice cream maker.

lemon sorbet

6 cups of sugar
3 cups of water
2 cups of lemon juice
1 1/2 tablespoons of lemon zest (preferably from organic lemons)

In a glass saucepan, combine the sugar and water, and bring to a boil over medium high heat. Reduce to a simmer until sugar dissolves, approximately 3-5 minutes. Let cool, or refridgerate until needed.

When ready, add lemon juice and zest, and add to your ice cream maker’s freezer bowl and mix until it thickens (25-30 minutes). Mine didn’t thicken, so I just popped it into the freezer for a couple of hours.

lemon sorbet margaritas
serves 4

lemon sorbet, as above
triple sec
tequila
sugar and a wedge of lem for rimming the glasses

If the sorbet is in the freezer, pull it out at least 10 minutes before starting.

Place sugar in a shallow dish, and moisten the rim of a margarita glasses with the lemon wedge, then dip in sugar.

Using an ice cream scoop, add 2-3 scoops of lemon sorbet to each glass. Pour an ounce of tequila and a dash of triple sec into each glass and serve.

Perfectly refreshing!

I love food photography but I definitely need to cultivate the patience to do it well. I just want to eat what I’ve made!

perspective is everything

Sylvia — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 23:08:57 +0000

The map library at Western was giving away random old maps and lithographs, and I came across a few great old Canadian gems. The one which piqued my interest is a reproduction of a 1734 map by Matthäus Seutter of France’s New World colonies.

If your nerd quotient is as high as mine, you can go take a look at other maps of the period, or try to figure out when exactly Lake Ontario was called Lac Frontenac. Staring at this map until my eyes blurred, I noted that there is little Western “civilization” in my geographical area beside Detroit (founded in 1701), since Toronto/Fort York wasn’t even a twinkle in the French fur traders’ eyes. And while you could fill a Great Lake (or five) with all of the things I don’t know, I’d had NO idea that Detroit is taken from the French détroit.

And for those who are curious, fiveonenine.ca should be launching within a few days! Just working out the last kinks now.

EXIF Data
ISO: 800
F-stop: f/1.8
Focal length: 50mm
Exposure program: aperture priority

In hindsight, I should have bumped up ISO a notch and stopped down the aperture to get a slightly greater depth of field, but the goal at that moment was focusing in on my little corner of Southwestern Ontario.

arva flour mill

Sylvia — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 22:00:18 +0000

Welcome back to Arva. I know it’s technically double-dipping, but there was just so much at the Mill, I had to split it into two posts.

While I’ve shopped at the Arva Flour Mill before, I’d never taken the time to wander about the property and it’s such an interesting blend of the industrial and the pastoral. And not only is it a destination for local shoppers, fishermen, and wildlife; the White Stripes performed there in 2007!

unlocked

Sylvia — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 03:00:23 +0000

While going through one of my frequent cleaning/purging binges, I came across a large and unwiedly set of keys to my maternal grandparents’ house in Ursus. I’m heading there in four short weeks and I’m curious if the keys still fit the locks…. because I’ll likely need them to sneak out.

Since my laptop died on Monday, here’s a quick edit of today’s One Shot processed with an online app. And with the ill-timed death of my terrible HP, I say goodbye to Windows and become a Mac girl.

shop launched!

Sylvia — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 23:17:51 +0000

If you’ve been over to the shop before, you may have noticed that 1) it opened in January and 2) it’s sat empty since then. I’m something of a perfectionist, and the idea of choosing out the “perfect” prints or writing the “perfect” profile has left me looking for anything else to do but this. I’ve now been home and immobile for a week, and it’s given me a lot of time to think, take a deep breath, and just do it.

Welcome to my little shop. It’s wee right now, but it will grow.

And if you’re not shopping Etsy yet, you should be! It’s the finest place online to find handmade goods, and I won’t tell you how much time and money I’ve happily lost over there. If you’re looking for more fab photographers on Etsy, go check out my profile.

Welcome to Arva

Sylvia — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 21:58:31 +0000

Since I’m still rather non-functional with the sitting and the walking and the living, so I’m serving up photos from another Small-Town Ontario adventure. Thanks to Mishy for joining me!

This spot will soon consumed by London, and though I chose not to photograph it, the condos going up all around are a clear indication that it’s already a bedroom community for the much larger city. Until then, welcome to the village of Arva.

Stay tuned for my adventures at the Arva Flour Mill.

negative space

Sylvia — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 01:29:26 +0000

I’ve now been laid up for four solid days. No working, no shooting, no chores, no play. It’s easy to slip into a funk, especially since I can’t get in my car and clear my head on the open road. Instead, I’ve gotten lost in good TV and terrible movies, the view out my bedroom window, and finally, the creativeLIVE Vision-Driven Photography workshop with David duChemin.

I woke up from a restless nap just as David was answering a question which I had asked often asked myself, and I wish I’d taken notes now that I want to revisit these ideas here. The question, in a nutshell, was how one finds their vision and inspiration if they live in a visually uninteresting place. He said – and I’m paraphrasing poorly here – the low-hanging fruit, the pretty picture, hangs much lower in exotic places. But once you’ve lived there a while it becomes just as hard to see everything with new eyes. His simple advice was to stop being lazy, get out there, and find what we’re passionate about. If you want to photograph textures, gritty industrial stuff, colours, people, whatever… you can find that anywhere. Just find your focus first.

For years, I bemoaned the fact I lived in Southern Ontario rather than British Columbia, or even Australia, where a beautiful vista was always just outside your doorstep. My Small-Town Ontario Project is a direct off-shoot of that train of thought. So every chance I get, I go out into my everyday, and try to find the beauty.

Or sometimes, it’s right inside my house.

the view from here

Sylvia — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 03:00:19 +0000

Today’s idea for the One Shot Wednesdays series was thwarted by an unfortunate flare up of my lower back problem. With the only camera in reach, here is an SOOC view from my position on the couch. At least I have pretty flowers to look at and Mad Men to watch.

Slightly irrelevant EXIF data since I only tweaked the ISO to get a vaguely usable shot:
F-stop: f/1.8
Exposure time: 1/25 sec.
ISO speed: ISO-640
Focal Length: 50mm
Exposure Program: Aperture Priority

Welcome to Sylvan

Sylvia — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 03:40:38 +0000

I had the pleasure of a visit with one of my besties this weekend, and as always, our conversations turned philosophical. M and I have found ourselves on a similar path together over the past year and it’s been wonderful to discuss our ideas and share the little moments of discovery along the way.

I took a wee detour on the way home and marveled at the strange and pretty roads I’d never traveled. It struck me that The Road Not Taken might be an apt description for not only my summer travels, but the journey I’ve been on.

I don’t think it’s any coincidence that I found myself driving through this particular tiny village on the way home from Ipperwash Beach today. One of my favourite academics told me about this little spot over a shared pint at the Grad Club, telling me I simply must visit of the best used bookshops he’d ever seen in Southern Ontario. But I got busy, and busier, and never made it out there until now.

But my dear internet, there’s a fly in my Small Town Ontario Project ointment. Since I do most of my traveling on Sunday afternoons, the towns are already sleeping. The shops are closed, the inhabitants in the midst of their Sunday suppers, the experience is passive. That will need to shift along the way.

With that, please let me introduce you to Sylvan. One bookshop, three houses, and rolling farmland.

Update

I picked up Jennifer Grainger’s book, Vanished Villages of Middlesex, and stayed up way too late leafing through it. Sylvan makes an appearance on pages 274-276, with Grainger noting that it was one of the most important communities in Middlesex County, and at one point at least 46 businesses. The thriving community of Sylvan died out when the lumber supplies were depleted, and then it was bypassed by the railway.

Grainger, Jennifer. Vanished Villages of Middlesex. Toronto: Natural Heritage Books: Harper, 2002. Print.