Thanksgiving at the Curriers

Melissa, Mike and I went to Wayne and Rhonda Currier’s for a Thanksgiving day meal. Wayne is an AWESOME chef!  He makes the most exquisite meals.  Wayne and Melissa spent most of the meal talking about recipes and what ingredients were in each dish.   I didn’t really pay that much attention.  I was busy stuffing my face with the awesome food.  I don’t care what was in it — I just know it was great!  Here are some photos from the day…

Wayne in in the kitchen surveying his feast making sure everything was ready.

Once he said it was ready — it didn’t take long for people to get in line.   See who is 1st in line? 

Wayne whipping up home made whipped cream for the desserts!

There was four… FOUR I tell you… desserts!   All were excellent.

This next one is a pumpkin roll and I think it was my favorite of the four.

Here is a photo of one of the desserts.   I plated it up before I took a picture of it!  The place cards were written by Rhonda.  She has awesome handwriting skills.

Had to take a few pictures of Allegro, their cat.  He is an awesome cat who is as friendly as can be.

There was a little boy named Michael who was 4 years old — but seriously looked like he was 8 to 10 years old.  He was very tall!  He had fun posing for me and I had fun taking his picture.   Here is one that doesn’t do his height justice, but is a fun photo none the less.

And I will finish off with an artsy type photo.  Not only is Wayne an awesome chef, he is also a gifted pianist and singer as well. 

 

Dinner and a Movie

Tonight, Michael, Robbie, Melissa and I went out to eat and see a movie.  We went to Golden Corral to eat.  Love that place. Didn’t remember to take any pictures of us eating.  Then we went off to see the current Harry Potter movie.  Don’t wanna spoil the movie so I won’t say anything other than (1) if you liked the other movies, you will like this one, and (2) this one is a little more scary from the others (Melissa squeezed my hand very tight several times in the movie).   Robbie and Michael were way too cool to sit close to us.  So I popped over and took a few pictures of them.  Mike tried to stop me and Rob made a face at me.  But I got them both!

 

 

Abingdon, Va

My poor lonely blog…  I have been traveling like a fool and haven’t had an opportunity to keep it up-to-date.  This last weekend (Thursday-Saturday), Melissa and I traveled to Abingdon, Virginia.   We went there for a long getaway weekend. 

Abingdon is a historic town with plenty to see and do.  But the main attraction is the Barter Theater.  We went and saw two shows, the Spitfire Grill (Very Good) on Thursday, and The Scarlet Pimpernel (AWESOME) on Friday.

Melissa got us FRONT ROW seats!  Woot!!   Here is a picture of us sitting waiting for the show to start.

While there, I had Melissa do some posing.

The Martha Washington Inn is located in Abingdon.  We didn’t stay there, but we will next time.  It was pretty awesome inside as well as outside.

There is a hiking trail called the Creeper trail.  It is an old rail road trail.  One can rent bikes to ride on the trail.  It was a little chilly so Melissa and I decided to walk along the trail for a bit.

Snuck a shot of Melissa as she was enjoying the walk.

As usual, when traveling we eat well. One night we ate at The Tavern.  It was a very old and rustic place to eat.  Here is a picture of Melissa with the natural lighting.  The strong light to one side of her face is known as Rembrandt lighting.  It is signified by the triangle of light that you can see on her left cheek.  Gives it a spooky sort of feel.

The steaks we had with blue cheese and a wine reduction sauce was AWESOME!

We shall be going back to Abingdon again.  We plan on going when it is a little warmer so we can rent bikes and see more of the creeper trail.

 

www.jamescookphotography.com update

I spent some time this morning updating my website adding some recent photographs.  It was time for a facelift and I also reorganized it a bit.  I am also adding easy access to slide shows on the front page.  Click on the image below to go check out the site.

More pictures from my trip!

I am seriously behind editing my pictures.  Part of the problem is that I am trying out shooting in RAW and it has really slowed down my workflow as I work through the process.   Anyway, I finally had an opportunity to work through my pictures from last Sunday.  It was a full day, starting out with shooting photos all day, having supper and at Liana’s, and topping off the evening with a limo ride.  Check out the movie!

Here are some pictures…

 

Bailey, Carson and Annie

Renee Young, Melissa’s friend and fellow Jazzercise instructor, asked if I would be willing to take some pictures of her children for Christmas cards.  Never wanting to pass up a moment to take pictures, I gladly agreed.  So Friday we met up at the park and I took some photos. Her kids are awesome and very photogenic. They should be models! I really like how their photos turned out, so I made a movie of them.  Annie, the black lab, wasn’t as cooperative as Bailey and Carson, but I think that added to the fun of the photos.

I'm Back!

After a weeks worth of travels, I am back and ready to blog. (Till Sunday when I am gone for another week).   My trip to Atlanta and then to Phoenix was insanely awesome.  I learned a lot and had a wonderful time as well.  You can’t beat that combination.  Last Saturday I flew to Atlanta where my friend Liana organized a photography get-together for the weekend (Saturday thru Monday).  On Saturday she organized a fashion bridal shoot.  Here are some photos from the shoot.

And here is a bunch more pictures from the shoot.

Canon SD400 -- Lost and Found

I am getting ready to travel.  I am heading to Atlanta tomorrow to participate in OSP-South which is where a bunch of photography geeks (well actually awesome photographers) are getting together for some fun and education.   Then I am heading to Phoenix for a photography bootcamp.  I am hoping between the two activities my photography will have some improvement.

As I was getting my stuff in order, I couldn’t find my Canon SD400.  It wasn’t in the usual 20 places I usually lay it around the house.  After thinking back, the last time I remember having it was on Wednesday evening at Cici’s pizza.   While Melissa and I was there, one of her students, Stephanie Borden, was there as well eating with her mom.   So as I was going back to the buffet for 2nd’s (or was it 3rds — who can keep track anyway), she spoke to me saying how she liked how my pictures turned out from the Halloween party.  I didn’t realize she was even at Cici’s till she spoke. Before I continue with the story, let me give you some background. Every year Melissa has a pot-luck at her class to celebrate her anniversary.  Well, Stephanie always fills her plate overflowing with samples of all of the scrumptious deserts.  So I always make a point to take a photo of her plate.  She is like Melissa in that she can pack away the food and remain slender. Here is an example:

Now back to the story, as we were talking she made a off-hand remark about me not taking pictures of her eating.  I laughed and when our conversation had completed I went back to the table with Melissa and it hit me, I have my SD400, I should have just snapped one right then.  What the heck, so I went back and snapped this picture.

She laughed and back to the table with Melissa I went and I showed her the photos and we laughed.  That was the last I remembered using my camera.  So I called Cici’s to see if I left it there.  And sure enough they had it!  What an idiot I am.   So I drove over to cici’s and asked for the camera.  The manager looked a little dumbfounded and was a little surprised to see me.  I wasn’t sure what was up, but I said I could describe it.  And he asked that I do that.  So I told him it was a Canon SD400 – A little tiny silver camera — and the last pictures was of a girl sitting in that booth (I pointed to the booth) over there.  Well he smiled and said that he was expecting the girl to show up and was disappointed it was me.  But he gave me the camera cheerfully.   As I turned around, I said “hey I know the girl…” and before I could continue, he raised his ring hand and pointed to his finger and said, “I am married”.  So I smiled, turned around and left..   You can see more of Stephanie below, she is the one I called “The Hottie” in the Halloween class picture.

 

 

Six Flags Guy's Daughter

Melissa and I were laughing about how awesome Jessica’s costume was and how she reminded us of the six flags guy.    So I made this cartoon.