September 10, 2009 - Homemade cinnamon rolls

1/100

f2.2

ISO 800

50mm

RAW

As you might be starting to tell, my wife and I love to cook. Today, she made some simple cinnamon rolls. I got this photo as she was using dental floss to cut each one away from the big roll of dough.

I used my 50mm f1.8 lens in order to get a fast enough shutter speed in the weak light under the table's lampshades. I also knew that this lens produced an extremely sharp photo, which I wanted.

I got in pretty close to Rachel's hands to concentrate on what she was doing. I wanted to include the tray of cinnamon rolls in the background, and I also liked the splattering of flour spread around the work area.

But I didn't need to include anything else in the photo. This was definitely a case where leaving out stuff was as important as what you leave in.

Even with setting the camera to tungsten lighting (to match the bulbs over the table, I still had to adjust the lighting in Adobe Photoshop Elements so the flour would look white.

The one thing that I wish I would have done is move the little red cup that she used to mix up the cinnamon and sugar. She emptied the cup, so you can't tell what it was used for just by looking at it. Worse yet, it is really red, which makes it stand out like a sore thumb.

But I also didn't have a lot of time. Rachel usually doesn't want to wait for me to make a photo perfect, so she just keeps working when I pull out my camera (sometimes I think she works even faster). She had already gone through one roll of dough and was starting on the other one when I pulled out of my camera. I got only five or six shots before she reached the end of the roll.

Sometimes if you think too much and try to make a perfect shot, you wind up missing the shot altogether.