March 2, 2009
soon we will put up a joint flickr account, but for now you’ll just have to do with this little selection:
juggling in front of the eiffel tower
you know I couldn’t have photoshopped this because we’re probably 1,000 miles away from any computer with photoshop. I took it with my little tripod.
the view out our shutters when we wake up in the morning
molly mulching in the late afternoon
February 15, 2009
Zombie Flashmob: Thriller-Dancin’ Undead to Invade London Bridge Tube Station on Friday the 13th!
Sounds cool, no? Well… The event was publicized (as an ‘organized’ flashmob to ‘promote’ the London Bridge Festival) on Facebook, and the Met police, afraid of an actual, successful flashmob, like the awesome one last week, asked the organizers to take down the event. So they did, and the hundreds of people planning to go figured it was canceled…
We thought we’d head down anyway (after all, you know we can’t resist an opportunity to dress as zombies), but when we got there anyone with fake blood had been banished outside, though the photographers outnumbered the zombies. Lame. Still fun, as long as you were listening to Thriller on your iPod!
For a more detailed play-by-play, this twittering blogger was there and totally had things sussed:
“7:20pm -random fat guy comes along in a “London Bridge festival” T-shirt and Michael Jackson hat and starts bossing everyone around! He orders everyone to attack him and then asks us to dance. Twat. We attack him and I bite his head cos he’s a twat.”
On the upside, now there are more pictures on the Interwebs of us dressed as zombies:
molly wants to eat your brainz
molly and tara are on the far left of the zombie lineup
and a few more, of our own:
this poster just happened to be there. coincidence?
surprise! the flash mob is actually the photographers...
February 14, 2009
a representative sampling of our recent culinary exploits:
blackberry pancakes and eggs
pesto polka-dot pizza
lentil soup, freshly made whole wheat bread, salad
February 11, 2009
eating breakfast this morning, blackberry pancakes and eggs
We have been cookin’ and bakin’ and eatin’ up a storm here. That may have something to do with the fact that our default HQ has become the awesome enormous kitchen at the top of the house..
But we have been documenting all our delicious creations, in the form of tasty photos. Molly definitely has a career in cookbook photography ahead of her. I bet her commission will be paid in edibles. (Don’t ask for recipes, ’cause more or less we were just looking things up online and then changing them so much they don’t even count as the same dish! Totally the best way to make food.)
orange chocolate chip scones
lemon chocolate chip triple berry shortbread
More food pics later, we’re about to go out on the town!
-tara and molly
January 5, 2009
Amazing photos of frozen bubbles.
I might actually try doing this. It’s certainly cold enough here to attempt…
December 31, 2008
yes, my dears, those are heart-shaped banana oat muffins you see. and they were tasty!
November 9, 2008
I just made my first pumpkin pie ever! It is also my first real pie of any kind. I dabbled in cheesecakes over the summer, but that doesn’t count – it’s called cheeseCAKE. (See picture below… what, aren’t your pies oval-shaped?)
The recipe I used for the pie can be found here; it’s quite simple and gives both US & UK heating instructions (though god knows about volume/liquid measurements). I used an actual pumpkin which was originally bought for jack-o-lantern purposes. Considering that I have about half a pumpkin leftover now (it was kind of an epic-size pumpkin; jack-o-lanterning it was just intimidating) later this week I plan to be trying pumpkin cheesecake and pumpkin soup, too. Maybe I’ll even make Molly’s pumpkin biscuits!
Baking for me tends to be a subjective activity, involving much tweaking of amounts and variations on a basic theme (terms like ‘20 minutes,’ for example, or ‘butter’ are frequently taken as suggestions).
I am also a space cadet. I don’t have a timer here, and remembering to check a clock isn’t my strong suit. Even when I DO have a timer, I frequently forget to turn it on. But I ALWAYS listen to music while baking, from getting out the ingredients to preheating to mixing to baking to cleaning up. It’s an intrinsic part of my process, the soundtrack. So today I had this great idea: making playlists specifically tailored to recipes.
Certain songs could signal when it’s time to check for done-ness, and there would be really high-energy tunes at the end for dishwashing. Songs with a slow build for pulling out ingredients, and steady beats for minimal distraction while measuring and mixing. Alternatively, you could time a recipe to an already existing mix, just note around which songs landmark baking actions occur. A playlist for a pie would have an hour’s worth of ‘baking-time’ music, while a playlist for cookies would have groups of songs in ‘batches!’
-Tara
October 10, 2008
I was thinking yesterday how I really miss photography. From the time I was 8 till I was 16 or 17, photography was my MAIN thing, but the past few years it’s really taken a back seat to graphic design and video. So I went out and took some lovely photos on the rail trail, which I have been meaning to do for ages. Enjoy! (You can click on them to see them full size.)
-Molly
September 22, 2008
Salute to Tesco, a 10 min walk from my dad’s house…
-Tara
August 20, 2008
Now that “photoshopping” has become a commonly used term in pop culture vocabulary, even most non-digital artists can spot and laugh at a bad Photoshop job these days. But when the government is behind such an image, it becomes even more amusing and disturbing.
Evidently the Iranian government needs to hire some better photoshoppers… or better yet, STOP FIRING MISSILES. This image was printed on the front page of the LA Times, Chicago Tribune, New York Times, and many others before someone noticed there was a missile too many, and an identical cloud of smoke.
Oh, and did you think that the satellite photos on Google maps were surely sacred? Apparently not, as evidenced by this secret alien landing site in Holland.
It seems like everyone is manipulating reality these days, from shady foreign governments, to bitter relatives removing undesired family members from vacation photos.
Manipulating photographs has been going on long before the advent of Photoshop, but the degree to which people are digitally altered today is unsettling. Sure, as a photoshop artist, it’s very easy for me to change the color of your shirt, remove a few zits, smooth out those wrinkles, trim a few pounds… but should I? Where to draw the line between a few touch ups and a completely fabricated makeover? I would hope that most women understand the degree to which celebrities and supermodels are digitally beautified these days, but I know that’s not the case.
I guess the bottom line is: don’t trust any image you see, and either launch the proper amount of nuclear weapons or just don’t bother launching any at all.
For more about Photoshop topics, see:
the Dove “Evolution” ad, and it’s many parodies
Photoshop Disasters - blog about poorly done and often amusing photoshop jobs
You Suck at Photoshop - very entertaining serialized fictional video blog, masquerading as actually useful Photoshop tutorials
-Molly
 | Molly on marching bands are the bee… |
 | Victoria on Let them eat (cup)cake |
 | Paul Clark on Let them eat (cup)cake |
 | tarapeze on sparklepires pwned |
| Victoria on sparklepires pwned |
