Damian makes brine with carrots, onion, celery, black pepper, bay leaf, salt, and sugar. Taken by Hannah Lee on November 25, 2020 in Somerville, MA. 1/25 second f 5.3 42mm iso 1250
Turkey stuffed with brine carrots, celery, and onion put into the oven. Taken by Hannah Lee on Thanksgiving Day November 26, 2020 in Somerville, MA. 1/60 second f 5.3 45mm iso 1250
Damian inspects a bag of fresh cranberries, just purchased from Broadway market, next to a stash of hot sauce that he made from scratch and is going to sell. His friend bought the bottles and Damian grew the chilis, dried them, and let the sauce age in the fridge for a couple years. He and his friend put stickers on the hot sauce bottles last Saturday. Taken by Hannah Lee on Thanksgiving November 27, 2020 in Somerville, MA. 1/40 second f 4.5 29 mm iso 640
Damian bastes the turkey with brine every hour during the 5 hour baking time in the oven. Taken by Hannah Lee on Thanksgiving November 26, 2020 in Somerville, MA .1/40 second f 5.6 50mm iso 640
Making cranberry sauce: awaiting cranberries to pop in a pot on the stove, cooked with tangerine peels and sugar. Taken by Hannah Lee on November 26, 2020 in Somerville, MA. 1/40 second f 5.3 46mm iso 640
Turkey with stuffing, butternut squash mash, carrots/ peas/ celery, gravy, and cranberry sauce, all made from scratch, for Thanksgiving. Taken by Hannah Lee on November 26, 2020 in Somerville, MA. 1/60 second f 4.0 20mm iso 250
Damian cuts the turkey on Thanksgiving. Turkey stands next to cranberry sauce, stuffing, roasted butternut squash mash, and roasted vegetables: peas, carrots, and celery. Taken by Hannah Lee on November 26, 2020 in Somerville, MA. 1/60 second f 5.0 34 mm iso 250
Plated thanksgiving dinner. next to the Turkey and the remaining side dishes: roasted vegetables, roasted butternut squash. Taken by Hannah Lee on November 26, 2020 in Somerville, MA. 1/60 second f 5.0 36 mm iso 250
Godiva chocolate pudding with whipped cream on top and sprinkles for dessert made by Damian Boyd. Taken by Hannah Lee on Thanksgiving Day, November 26, 2020 in Somerville, MA. 1/60 second f 4.5 29 mm iso 250
Reflection
I was a little worried about this project since the lighting in the kitchen was a dim yellow hue, and when I would bring in a light bulb it would cast a fluorescent hue that did not mix well with the kitchen light. Thus when I tried taking pictures of Damian cooking, either there would be a soft glow from the lightbulb, it would be too dark, and/or the combination of the fluorescent light bulb with the yellow kitchen light would create an unpleasing hue.
I remedied this problem by taking fewer pictures of him cooking and more pictures of the food with light shone onto it directly. Having a smaller area to light up instead of trying to light up the whole kitchen made a big difference. The one picture I used of Damian in the kitchen is during the day time when there was more sunlight.
Initially I tried three different projects: a day in the life of Damian, my boyfriend; a narrative project about him thrifting and selling clothes on ebay; or a Thanksgiving event. I took a few pictures of him cooking but again, the problems with the hues in the lighting of the kitchen meant I would have to make the pictures black and white if they were to be usable at all. I took some photos of Damian and his friend who brought over homemade dough so that he could bake fresh bread in the oven. I also took pictures of them putting stickers on the chili sauces, and thought I might use these photos for "a day in the life of Damian." I took a couple pictures of Damian shopping but again was having a little trouble with the lighting, and he would not let me take too many so I only had a few that were not out of focus. All in all, it seemed like I could create a narrative story the most with the Thanksgiving event of us cooking the whole day for a meal for us two. Since it was just us in the kitchen by ourselves we were able to bring the two softboxes in and the tripod and set up a little photo studio in the kitchen.
For future application I've realized the need to bring more lights into the kitchen, not just one bulb, since I like to document his cooking. We will definitely be using the techniques we learned during this photo shoot since Damian and I are learning how to code, and we want to build websites with content centered around Damian's cooking. He cooks a high quality meal every day, so we could exhibit our coding skills with content comprised of his daily cooked meals. So we will be setting up a photo studio in the kitchen more often to take high quality pictures with the DSLR to upload them onto our own webpages, rather than taking pictures with the phone and only uploading them to social media/ instagram.
I did the project one more time since I uploaded this Thanksgiving event, over the course of Damian cooking dinner, two pizzas. I liked the step-by-step narrative built by the building of the pizzas and how it told a story from beginning to end. I also liked how the cooking was done either over the stove top or on the kitchen table so I was able to get good lighting for all the pictures, techniques I learned from the Thanksgiving event project. I considered changing my project from the Thanksgiving narrative to the pizza building, but Damian said the pictures just are not as interesting as the pictures from Thanksgiving. We are planning on using this narrative cooking format time and again to create content for his website that he is building with html, css, and javascript (programming languages).