Tenpenny at The Gotham Hotel Tasting Menu

(The Tenpenny Tasting Menu on Flickr)

I love food. I love GOOD FOOD. At the newly opened restaurant of The Gotham Hotel – Tenpenny, I tried their tasting menu.  

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Everything I had was great, very well excecuted and nothing schmanzy or way too out there. Truth be told - it is not trying to impress, but it does impress well.


Rachel Antonio waxes lyrical about the whole experience on her blog.

Thank you, Chris Cipollone. Thank you, to all the wonderful staff at Tenpenny. I will save my (not too pretty) pennies and come back soon.

6 Course Tasting Menu $68

10 Course Tasting Menu $110 (because they HAD to)

Tenpenny at the Gotham Hotel

16 East 56^th St

New York NY

All photos are taken with Canon Powershot A3100IS with minimal adjustments on Lightroom.(I wish i brought the DSLR with me. :S)

Wacom Intuos 4 Stand Hack Prototype

I've had my Wacom Intuos 4 (medium, wired) for about a month now and all I get is weird shoulder pain and weird hand pain. So annoying that I actually learned how to use the touchpad on my laptop - I love the mouse. I have a wrist rest mouse pad because I have (undiagnosed) carpal tunnel syndrome.

 

I searched for a stand for it because MAYBE I'll be able to use it better if it was inclined. I couldn’t find one - and didn't want to spend the money on something that might prove to be useless to me, so I thought of using a FedEx Medium box and did this:

Materials:

FedEx Medium Box

Cutter/Knife

Tape (optional)

Im not too sure if this works for me, but it seems that my wrist will not be resting on the pad and hopefully eliminate shoulder pain. I will post a proper instructional once I feel that this works for me.

Note that the side of the box is secured by the glue that is on the FedEx box. That flap? I didn't cut it on purpose. I'm thinking that it could serve two purposes:

1. to stop the pen from rolling off the incline

2. to support my wrist.

Right now, the flap is flimsy, but hey, if it allows me to edit my photos more comfortably at no cost, why not?

How do you use your Wacom pen?

Bangles!!! Lots and Lots of Bangles!

Spring is fast approaching and we can finally bare our arms and adorn them chiming bangles! These are the latest jewelry photos that I had taken for Zachary’s Fine Jewelry in Huntington, NY. Also, I have done a lot of photography for print advertising for them last year - most of which appeared in Hamptons Magazine and other local papers. 

There is not much magic to these bangles except a bit of Photoshop cleanup – to achieve the pristine white background and to remove my “rigging.” I had put some tape to keep them stacked.The first photo held up on its own, stacked nicely. The one above needed to be propped. Personally, I do not like the jewelry to be overshadowed by Photoshop effects. The pieces are already beautiful, shiny and sparkly by themselves.

These baubles are real. Made with Oxidized Silver, 24KT gold and adorned with precious and semi precious stones. They will ship them anywhere. Email them at zacharysfinejewelry@yahoo.com

Yes you want them. Or maybe you can get them for your significant other.

The Best Knitted Winter Hat EVER!

I saw this nice man coming into Westville East, Feb 19 at around 7pm. I asked if it was okay for me to take a photo of him because I was VERY impressed at his winter hat! It has an attached knitted red beard as a wind protector for his face!!! Oh the warmth, the humor, THE DESIGN GENIUS.

I could be the Sartorialist.

The Flushing Mall Grazing Experience

My friend, Jeff Orlick, of the blog Jeffrey Tastes, organized The Flushing Mall Grazing Experience which happened last February 19, 2011.

For 10 bucks and a couple of the friends you never met yet, all of you will contribute to the great tasting buffet that was this event.

The Grazing Process:

1.       Buy $10 worth of food at the food stands. ANY STAND, ANY DISH.

2.       Take your food to be labeled and photographed at the photo stations.

3.       Bring your “contribution” to the empty buffet table and GRAZE at whatever is on hand.

On the over all, I had photographed OVER 40 dishes. I don’t know how much Ravi Jolly, the other food photographer had taken. Considering doubles, I estimate that we came across about 70 dishes.

ALL OF THEM HAD ME AT HELLO.

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I am certain there are other things on the menu that wasn’t ordered. Everything I put in my mouth was good. Seriously! The bravest thing ordered (imho) was the pork intestine dish.  Yes, I love innards!

 

The Flushing Mall Grazing Experience (Flickr Set)

As each tray or plate of food came, Ravi and I photographed them. We had set it up so all we did was press the shutter. Since I was moving from the back to the side of the camera, I had been skewing my framing. For my portion of the photographs, I had done very minimal post processing. I just cropped and tweaked the colors a little bit. You can tell from all the disposable dinnerware, none of them were food styled.

To the side of the “buffet table” was a Chili Tasting Event – for 5 dollars, you get to sample a bazillion chili sauces commonly found at Asian Supermarkets. I would have done it if I wasn’t doing photo duty.

There were also some prizes given away. While we were taking photos, Joe DiStefano of the World’s Fare Blog in Edible Queens was guessing the names of the dishes before we photographed them. The ones that stumped him got a free ride on his Flushing Food Tour.

The event went well in a very delicious and orderly manner. Thanks, Jeff!

Ice Enrobed Twigs

A pretty sight; A walk of fright.

I passed by this on the way to the train station. They were so pretty I couldn’t resist. In these street conditions – considering my balance is questionable at best, I wouldn’t even dream of whipping out my DSLR.

I surely wish that Motorola did a better job with the camera on the Cliq. This photo came out okay because there was good lighting, but im willing to bet that if this was taken with another camera phone, this would have been a better photo.

Truth be told, I slipped and landed on my left butt and left hand. Admitting my questionable sense of balance is good for my equipment!

My “Identity Crisis”

Changing your name after marriage is challenging. I asked my husband if he was fine with me retaining my maiden name and initially he was fine with it. When I asked him again before we applied for a marriage license he said “he will eventually come into terms with it.”

Back in the Philippines, a hyphenated last name is interchangeable with your husband’s last name. Here in the United States, they are two different names. If I hyphenate, I will not have the same last name as my husband and my children, and I think that’s just a mess. There are too many issues with regards to picking a name that I held off making a logo for myself because I was “transitioning my brand.”

Black, White and Gray were the colors I have chosen for my palette because they are classic and very versatile. I can place my logo on the lower left hand of my photos and still have it look good and visible. I could even use the borders of my logo to frame my images.

I can print all of my materials from my computer without wasting too much ink and should I have it produced it will be a single color process. If they need to be photocopied, the materials will copy quite well.

My business cards are printed on photo paper because it conveyed photography more than any other card stock in the market and it had a nice sheen to it. Most of all, my business card does not look like I printed it off my inkjet printer. 

Remember those long plastic sleeves that used to hold wallet sized photos? Back in the day when we didn’t store photos digitally? Yup. That was the inspiration for my mini portfolio/brochure. Folded, it looks like a business card.