Alvey's Candies

Nikon D800, 105mm f/2.8 Micro VR lens, f/11, 1/200s, ISO 100. Photography's greatest gift is making pictures of chocolates!

When I was in high school, my pal Jenny and I spent our evenings after school working at Michelle's in Colorado Springs. We entered the cafe and confectionary shop at street level, meandered passed the candy counter, grabbed a taste at the ice cream counter, stole a fry from the kitchen, and washed our hands in the sink at the back. Then we roped up and rappelled down the stairs to the dungeon basement. Well, we didn't actually rope up, but the old stairs were so steep and slippery with chocolate crumbs and kitchen grease and ice cream toppings that it really felt like we should be lowered down on a winch for safety's sake.

Having descended into the very bowels of the city, we put on our aprons and hair nets and turned on the flickering light over our work table. In the next room the ladies were running the conveyor and dipping the chocolates and putting them on big steel trays to cool. Our job was to transfer them to boxes for storage until they needed to be packaged for sale. Our process was something like this: soak hands for several minutes in a bucket of ice water (mustn't leave finger prints!), grab two chocolates, put in box, grab two more, put in box, oops dropped one, put in mouth, soak hands, repeat. 

During the various seasons we specialized in different kinds of candies. We made a game of figuring out what the abbreviations were supposed to be. Ch'Butter was a favorite. Ch'Bacon would be a hit, we were sure. We also explored the truly creepy limestone caverns of the building and wondered what skeletons were hiding in the shadows.

Nikon D800, 105mm f/2.8 Micro VR lens, f/11, 1/200s, ISO 100.

Michelle's is closed now, but imagine my excitement when Alvey's Candies in Richmond, Utah called and asked me about making pictures for them to use on their website and marketing materials! We chatted and I was proud to know something of the production process and talk about how we could make the pictures look tasty. Finally, we made a date, and I headed to their facility in Richmond, with my pal Bob on hand to help.

Nikon D800, 105mm f/2.8 Micro VR lens, f/11, 1/200s, ISO 100.

If my experience at Michelle's felt like working in a dungeon, then walking through the doors at Alvey's was like entering the Pearly Gates. It's a bright building, and though it's packed to the gills with milk chocolate and dark chocolate and cashews and peanuts and pecans and cherries and mints and creams and everything nice, it's also clean and well kept. The contrast with my experience was incredible, and it was a joy to work with the Alvey's team, too.

Nikon D800, 105mm f/2.8 Micro VR lens, f/11, 1/200s, ISO 100.

We setup our studio in the shop and made pictures all day long. They just kept bringing out mouthwatering candy after mouth watering candy. I felt like I couldn't make a bad picture.

Nikon D800, 105mm f/2.8 Micro VR lens, f/11, 1/200s, ISO 100.

Finally, we finished making pictures, and Bob and I departed with plates full of delicious samples ("Uh, I touched this one, too--better send it with us at the end!" ;). It was a good thing, too, since those candies kept me alert during the drive back to Lake Oswego, Oregon.

I hope you'll call Alvey's this holiday season for some of your gifts. They have some terrific boxes for companies, too. I mean, nothing says, "I love you" like a box of delicious chocolates.

This post corresponds with another on Photofocus.com.

Antiques

Enjoyed a shoot with the Cache Valley Photographers, yesterday. What a great bunch of folks they are! everyone has a different perspective, and a different skill level, and a different set of passions. The skill level doesn't even matter when you're together with them because an image the gal standing next to me--hunched over her tripod, squinting through her viewfinder--is making ends up being absolutely different from mine. Her subject, framing, lens choice, depth of field, perspective, even white balance choice make such a different image from mine, that it's like we aren't even at the same location when compare pictures later. Take these images made yesterday, for instance: it's like looking at another place when I view others' pictures. By the way, it's free to join this terrific bunch, so sign up while you're there.

Yesterday we toured the northern reaches of Cache Valley to see some really wonderful vistas and some very striking historic barns. We had three barns on the schedule, but I could literally spend three days at the first one alone. The fellow who owns the place, Wes, is 95 years old, and has lived there for ages. He has a terrific barn, and a few sheds, as well as an amazing home. All of it is in good condition...just old. 

And well used.

The patina that Wes' place naturally has couldn't be copied by the best in Hollywood. They should come here to learn what a working barn really looks like. Everything is in just the right place.

The only things newer than about fifty years on the whole property were the Dodge in the barn ('86, I think) the TV, and the satellite dish on the front porch (when analog broadcasting was discontinued last year, his neighbors convinced him he'd like it; and as I understand it, ESPN is on pretty much constantly).

Even Wes, himself, just belongs there. His look and attitude are precisely what you imagine when you think of lost agricultural heritage of the American West.

 Wes was kind enough to allow us to thank him for letting us come, and let us take a few pictures of him (lemee think here...16 photographers...82 pictures each...carry the 4...yeah, we took a few).

He enjoyed us enjoying the barn just fine; but he couldn't understand why we'd want to waste the expense of film on him. I showed the pictures on the back of my camera, and explained that there was no additional cost by taking his picture...

...he just snickered, and excused himself. The game was just coming on, you see.

Go Yanks.

Tokyo Flower Friday

I know, I know: it's already Saturday. Oh, well.

This guy was blooming big in a park in Tokyo, just begging to be photographed. These grow on big bushes. I think it's Hibiscus--I should have bottled some and sold it to Bath and Body Works, or something.

Nikon D700 (incognito), 70-300mm VR f/4.5-5.6 lens @ 270mm, f/11, 1/160s, ISO 500.

Fruits of the Season

How would it be if there were no juicy little fruits like these at Christmas time? There are so many little things that make this season unique and memorable.



Tonight, my sister-in-law showed me a picture from my first Christmas as a part of her family; it was in her book of very favorite Christmas pictures, and the book is not full. She has discerning tastes.

Anyway, it was a picture of me with my thumbs up, wearing a Smokey the Bear T-shirt, and two of these tasty little gems in my mouth...unpeeled, bulging from my cavernous maw. Just one of those moments that gets caught on film, so to speak. One of those moments that'll last forever in a photograph.

Nikon D90, 50mm lens, f/1.8, 1/160s, ISO 200, window light only. Framed in close to maximize the camera's resolution, with a short depth of field to really isolate the front fruit.


-SD-