Tuesday July 19

Self-serve continental breakfast came with our room. I had granola (not as healthy as most people think), banana, and a pathetic croissant imitation. I go back for a cinnamon raisin bagel.

It is usually hard to get Doug to stop while we're bicycling (once on a hundred degree afternoon on a long stretch of dry, dusty road, he passed up a kid selling ice cold lemonade) but he could not resist the raspberry invitation.

(note to CB: I did not color balance this ON PURPOSE) After bicycling 40 miles to Coeur d'Alene, we were hungry and chose the poolside cafe at the resort. I asked for no chips with my sandwich, but I can't blame the waitress for forgetting - she took our order an hour and a half before! In fact, I didn't even order this ceasar-wrap, but ingredients from my first order were apparently being shipped in from Italy, so I ordered something different. If you ever want to make a food picture look unappealing, a cyan hue is very effective. The deck was covered with blue tarp which provided the perfect tint. In their favor, the huckleberry lemondade was good and we got seconds on the house.

After a five mile hike and walk (we wouldn't want to relax!), we go to the Japanese restaurant for dinner and our meal starts with miso soup, salad and cucumbers.


I have a delicious vegetarian Udon. I demonstrate to Doug how to set the color balance on my camera even though he has no real interest. He thought the unbalanced picture looked ok too. In a way, he's right, if you're going to err on color balance, it is better if the color is too "warm" as opposed to too "cool" (for food, anyway). Besides getting the color right, lighting is important in food photography. On-camera flash looks terrible (also makes a distraction in a restaurant). Ideally the lighting should come from behind, so I factor that into my choice of a seat at the table. "Real" food photographers spend hours on each picture, arranging everything and spraying with mist, but mine are "real-life photographs" as opposed to being done by a food photographer.