I would love to get a new camera. I took B&W Photography in college and really enjoy working with an SLR. One day I'll get an awesome Digital SLR like the Rebel or something, but for now I need to find a good digital camera in the $200 range.

Right now I just have a compact 5MP digital camera. I love that it fits in my pocket and I used to carry it around all the time, but I rarely get truly good shots. The shutter is slow, so anything taken without flash generally requires a tripod which I do not have. Instead I have to steady the camera by bracing my arm against something. And taking pictures with the flash is no better, as it's to strong and washes everything out.

Below are some photos taken with my poor compact. I'll post more in the future and eventually I'll get around to scanning my B&W stuff.



Taken at the Morikami Japanese Gardens in Boca.



From the Hard Rock Cafe. I love the look of the repeated staircases. If I could, I would have stayed there and taken tons of photos of that staircase to get one where the people lined up just right. We're going back there in August, so maybe I'll get the chance. I also need to learn how to work with photos in Photoshop. I think this would look alot better if I blackened out the left and enhanced the color of the lights a bit.



The last think you see before the gator eats you.



I love water droplets in nature. It's just so pretty and... I hesitate to use the word magical, but you know in the movie Legend, how everything was covered in glitter? I'd say it's because they wanted to get this look.

I do wish I'd noticed the mud on the leaf in the background though. I would have wiped it off.

One of my favorite things to do is bake. When we were little, my mother would bring my sister and I into the kitchen to make a batch of homemade chocolate chip cookies. It was always so much fun to help measure and mix the dough, and of course we'd get to take little tastes along the way : )

I think our process of mixing may have been the best part. My younger sister mixed first. When it started getting tough, I mixed it. Once it was too hard for me, our mother took over. By the time the chocolate chips were added at the end, it was too thick for any of us so we'd call out father in to help. It's a very fond memory I have of all of us chipping in together to get it done.

We always had homemade birthday cakes too. I can't recall a single birthday party with a cake from the supermarket or some bakery. It was always made in our own kitchen, even if it did come from a box. To this day, my sister and I still make each other birthday cakes and over the years we've gotten more creative with decorating them. I'd love to take a cake decorating class to learn all the techniques, but for now I'm happy to experiment. If only these things didn't always take five times longer than expected. We've developed a habit of getting to parties exceptionally late!

Here is the cake Ki and I made for my sister last year. It was our first attempt to use fondant (handmade) and sugar. The fondant was so sticky that by the end it was covered in powdered sugar. Florida humidity is really rough on bakers. By the time we got to the party (only a few blocks away), the dragonfly's wings were already dropping. Oh well, it was pretty while it lasted.



Dragonfly made entirely by Ki:



And here's the Spongebob cake we made for our niece (technically 2nd cousin, twice removed I believe... Our family is big and confusing). We had originally planned to made it more 3-dimensional with raised eyes and his long nose, but we ran out of time. The frosting was a pain because we didn't have enough so I kept trying to extend it. That's why the frosting for the pants is a totally different consistancy. Well, that and all the die it took to get that color. In the end, that cake used a large can of frosting, two blocks of creamcheese, and a bunch of butter and powdered sugar. It tasted good though!



BTW, making frosting black is a chore and a half! The lines on Spongebob are actually dark purple. For the bees on my sister's cake, I just painted the stripes directly with black food coloring.

I still have a lot to learn, as these are rather sloppy, but we're picking up new techniques and ideas while having fun, and everyone is always happy to eat the results.