Tag: 2012 Project 52

Drink Like a Pirate Day

On Facebook today is International Drink Like a Pirate Day. I like the caramel coloured drink. It's great straight or mixed with fruit. My favourite rum drinks are the mojito and the caipirinha. Maybe I just like limes.

Rum has a long history in the British West Indies. I would venture to say rum is synonymous with the West Indies.

Some of the many other names for rum are Nelson's blood, kill-devil, demon water, pirate's drink, and Barbados water.1

Barbados water? Yes, Barbados lays claim to being the oldest rum producing country in the Americas.

So what am I, a man from the West Indies – the place where rum was first distilled from cane sugar and molasses2 – to do on International Drink Like a Pirate Day?

For my birthday my sister-in-law and her husband bought me the rock glass and ice ball. It's the perfect glass for drinking fine rums and scotch. A small amount of the best I have available – Mount Gay 1703 – swirled around an ice sphere in a glass designed to evenly chill that liquid seemed just the way to celebrate. Don't mix this rum with fruit juice on penalty of being made to walk the plank over shark-infested waters. Mount Gay claims to be the oldest rum distillery in the world with production going back to 1703. My friend +Mohit picked some up for me on a trip to Bermuda. Thank you, Mohit.

But before I could sip my libation I remembered that I needed a photo for my 52-week project. I also needed some practice with my strobes. I'm doing an action and portrait shoot for some martial arts – Tae Kwon Do – black belts next weekend and I know I need to get more experience with the lights.

I found a white sheet of craft board, placed it on a chair, positioned my subjects, and started firing away. It took me a few shots to get the lighting to something that felt good enough. Good enough for me anyway. I still need a lot of practice.

I downloaded the images to my iPad and did some minor post-processing in Snapseed. I used autocorrect and cropping features. I like the result.

Now back ta enjoyin' me rum, aaaarr! What is your favourite alcoholic drink?

Camera: Nikon D40
Lens: AF-S Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 VR
Software : Snapseed for iPad

  1. Wikipedia entry on the Etymology of Rum ↩
  2. There is evidence that something like rum -- a sugar wine -- was distilled in Asia. Check out The Tradition of Rum and the Sea on the Ministry of Rum website. ↩

Risk taking

I feel that my photography has become boring. I still enjoy capturing images but the results no longer delight me. I've played it safe; only doing things that I feel I'm good at. I look at the work on 500px and I think to myself, "Why didn't I think of doing that?"

It's time I started taking some risks. Perhaps I've been afraid that my images will be terrible if I try something I've never tried before. I think I am. But if I don't continue to try new things, to take risks, my photography will stagnate. My skills will remain at the level they are. I have to remind myself that I started taking photographs because I enjoyed the activity and I bought the DSLR because I wanted to learn how to produce better images.

I'm ready to make some changes. I'm ready to take some risks.

I've had Pixelmator for some time but never really used it except for minor layering altering. I have a photo shoot coming up - a martial arts event - and the client wants to do some work with a green screen. He loaned me the screen he has so I set it up in the basement and got my son to model for me. I used Pixelmator to remove the green background and layered the images of my son onto another background. I didn't do a stellar job. You can still see some of the green around the edges and the background is kind of lame. But I now know what I can do. I just need to hone my technique.

Where are you in your photography and how do you intend to grow?