Wow! Thanks! And to think I nearly pulled this one out again a couple of hours before the challenge started…I really, really didn’t think it would stand a chance...
O.k., before Deb and Yanko start pulling my hair ;-), here’s the story.
I have some shots in a couple of Stock sites. They are challenge images which were also suitable for stock but I’ve never actually done a image especially for Stock, so this was a real challenge.
The most difficult part was bringing over the “cooking” part. I tried a couple of different themes but it looked more like food than cooking. I really I wanted to use spaghetti because of the straight lines. Tried spaghetti in water, dropping spaghetti into water, lying spaghetti over the saucepan, even draping cooked spaghetti over the saucepan, everything I could think of and it all looked crap. As usual, just as I was getting to the stage that I wanted to throw the whole lot out of the window, I leant some spaghetti against the pan and “bingo”.
The biggest problem was the lighting. Spaghetti looks pretty drab so I decided to backlight. Did you know that spaghetti has about a trillion black specks in each stick when backlit?
I tried boiling the water to get steam but the backlighting killed that idea. Then thought about dripping some drops into the water to make the surface ripple, which made it look as if the water was just coming to the boil. So what happens? The picture with the best looking spaghetti has a water drop in it! No!
However, after looking at it about 300 times, I felt the drop added a certain charm ;-) I couldn’t believe my eyes when the score was up to 7.9 on the first day of voting. Of course, it went down over the next few days but never under 7. Talk about amazed!
Thanks for the encouragement, you guys. I’m so grateful to this site for “making” me experiment much more with photography than I ever would without the challenges.
Statistics
Place: 1 out of 91 Avg (all users): 7.1446 Avg (commenters): 8.1875 Avg (participants): 6.9583 Avg (non-participants): 7.1907 Views since voting: 7588 Views during voting: 406 Votes: 242 Comments: 47 Favorites: 9 (view)
Tee hee. . .that is so funny! What a tribute to you, Girlfriend. You have your own "Congratulations Irene" stamp :) I was just thinking: pretty soon, we are going to need an overnight stay while scrolling down thru your ribbons to see your recent portfolio additions :)
But you know what? When you keep turning out perfection like this, of COURSE you are going to keep coming out on top :)
And I love the water drop. I couldn't get a perfect water drop like that in my photo if I tried. You can't not get one in your photo :)
LOL! Thanks Sandy, thanks Deb! And, of course, the biggest thanks goes to Ken for the "Congrats Irene" stamp. What an honour!
LOL! Love the nifty stamp! You know you've arrived when you get your own stamp. And I always love reading your stories behind your shots. Half the fun of this site is reading the stories behind the shots - adds so much to both the shot itself and the personality of the photographer. And as Sandy says, I think Langdon is going to have to give you two profile pages soon - the site simply won't scroll down far enough! :-)
Tee hee. . .that is so funny! What a tribute to you, Girlfriend. You have your own "Congratulations Irene" stamp :) I was just thinking: pretty soon, we are going to need an overnight stay while scrolling down thru your ribbons to see your recent portfolio additions :)
But you know what? When you keep turning out perfection like this, of COURSE you are going to keep coming out on top :)
And I love the water drop. I couldn't get a perfect water drop like that in my photo if I tried. You can't not get one in your photo :)
[thumb]IreneM[/thumb] can you take a break from entering the challenges. Or better yet, just send me a PM telling me what challenge you plan on entering so I enter the OTHER challenge. Well done and most deserving of a blue.
Big congrats! on this very well deserved win :)
Though I didn't vote, this was my favorite from the challenge. I also liked it a whole lot that you show the process of cooking and not just the final cooked product. It's also a shot that is great for stock ;)
once again...the water drop...although I know it is hard to achieve...your not going to get that pasta in that pot with that much water...still a good idea...just to much water
By far, an outstanding] photo for this theme. The lighting on the noodles, the reflection on the rim, and the lone water droplet put this right over the top. I predict a blue! :o)
Coming to the boil
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