Early morning Strelitzia

:)

Zoo lake (again)

I have posted this photo here before, in a brownish sepia tone; here it is in the original colours. It is one of my favourite photos and almost my only wallpaper since I captured this...

A dusty morning

Silver Lining

getting back into the photography groove...

Gallery Forest

Hidden deep in the gallery forest at Mapungubwe.

Look closely

Look closely-
There have always been
ghosts in the machine...

just me goofing around with long exposures in the dark... oh the excitement.

Three Fruit Tart

My long lost cousins visited tonight. I hadn't planned to bake for a while yet, but in honour of the occasion, I dusted off my recipe books, pulled out Jane Price's 'Kitchen Classics: Pastries and Breads', found that old favourite and set to work. I am irrevocably in love with baking with chocolate, but I must admit this one has its charms, namely the undeniably colourful beauty of the three fruits, the chance to create the dreamiest custard from scratch, and finally the sweet and clear taste that is both gentle and subtly amazing.

Three Fruit Tart

Ingredients

Shortcrust Pastry

• 150g of Flour
• 2 tablespoons of Castor Sugar
• 90g of Unsalted Butter (chopped)
• 1 Egg Yolk
• 1 tablespoon of Iced Water

Custard Filling

• 250ml of Milk
• 3 Egg Yolks
• 55g Castor Sugar
• 2 tablespoons of Flour
• 1 teaspoon of Vanilla Essence
• Strawberries, Kiwi and Blueberries, to decorate
• Apricot jam, to glaze

The arrangement of fruit was supposed to be random, like on the Summer Berry Tart,
but something inside of me just wouldn't let it happen...

Sift the flour into a bowl and stir in the sugar. Rub in the butter with your fingertips until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Make a well in the centre and add the egg yolk and iced water. Mix to a dough with a flat bladed knife and a cutting action, and then gather it together in a ball. Press the dough evenly into a circular 23cm tart dish (a 10 × 34cm rectangular dish can be used). Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 20 minutes. Preheat the oven to 190°C.
Line the pastry-lined tin with baking paper and spread a layer of uncooked rice evenly over it. Bake for 15 minutes, remove the paper and rice, and bake for another 20 minutes, or until cooked on the base and golden brown around the edge. Set aside to cool completely.

blue blueberries :)

Custard Filling

To make the filling, put the milk in a small heavy-bottomed saucepan and bring to the boil. Set aside while quickly whisking the egg yolks and sugar together in a bowl, until light and creamy. Whisk in the flour. Pour the hot milk slowly onto the egg mixture, whisking constantly. Wash out the pan, return the milk mixture to the pan and bring to the boil over medium heat, stirring with a wire whisk. Boil for two minutes, stirring occasionally. Transfer to a bowl, stir in the vanilla essence, and leave to cool, stirring frequently to avoid a skin forming. When cooled to room temperature, cover the surface with plastic wrap and refrigerate until cold. 

Cut the strawberries in half across what would be their equators and slice the kiwi. Spoon the cold custard into the cold pastry shell, then arrange all the fruit over the custard, pressing in slightly. Heat the jam in the microwave or in a small saucepan until liquid and sieve to remove any lumps. Using a pastry brush, glaze the fruit with the jam. Serve the tart on the same day, at room temperature.

The Urban Aurora

I don't usually name my pictures (although it is occasionally tempting) because I prefer to leave them as an image only. If you see stark hard shadows where I imagine the intricate delicacy of light, then the magic is working.

As I said, however, I do go out on a whim sometimes, like now. The name for this picture came unbidden at around 8ish this evening as I focused on an ethereal glow on the horizon. At first, all I could see was a few inexplicable white wisps, but then I blinked a few times, got used to the cool  (and mostly) dark night sky and then dashed downstairs to grab my camera. Luckily it was still there when I got back up, and I was able to capture this -

The Urban Aurora

Light-writing my name!

More firework magic - light-writing my name on Diwali. It would have been naive to expect my sparkler-air-writing to be any less unacceptable than my just pen-paper-writing.

If you don't know how to do this - it's quite simple; all you need is a tripod and a camera that has at least the shutter-speed priority function. Set it to 15+ seconds with fairly low ISO sensitivity, start the timer and start writing!

The Ring of Fire

Diwali firework magic this evening with a giant sparkler. That's me in my luminous red/orange shirt.

Diwali lights

Is it a sun-dog? Is it a parhelic? No, it's a 22° halo!

Between about 9 and 11 this morning, an eerie glowing ring appeared around the sun, and brought Wits (and Joburg) to a halt as they gazed upwards in wonder.

The 22º Halo in the sky over the Wits Physics and Biology buildings.
The physics department was disgorged onto the concourse to stare at the spectacle.
And the dangers of looking into the sun be damned.

'A 22° halo is a circle at 22° around the sun, or occasionally the moon. It forms as sunlight is refracted in hexagonal ice crystals suspended in the atmosphere. As the light beam passes through two sides of the prism, the angle of minimum deviation is almost 22°. This wavelength-dependent variation in refraction causes the inner edge of the circle to be reddish while the outer edge is bluish.'

- Wikipedia

Apparently, Venus was visible as a tiny red dot passing over the sun during the halo.
I couldn't see it, and a camera can only do so much, so here's a strelitzia passing in front of the sun instead.

Floating in the sky above the Biology and Oppenheimer Life-sciences buildings

Above the Wits Great Hall.

A classic halo shot.

This one gives you a true sense of how large and looming the halo was. Pretty cool to watch people when they first saw it - a moment of shock, a stumble to halt, and then wonder and wasted hours of ruined retinas.

Electricity

Just another bolt of lightning...

Hitchin' a ride

A simple, understated gem, on the way to Wits this morning

(The trolley she's riding on is that used by the recycling collectors, employed here for a sweeter purpose.)

A great tie can fix anything

Beach of gold

Pebbles and the sea at sunset, on Bloubergstrand.

Groot Constantia

A triptych of colours and light

Left to right:
1) Miniature ivy leaves in the late afternoon light at Emmarentia dam.
2) A solitary red reminder of autumn lit by a winter sunrise last week, next to the Architecture building at Wits.
3) Water droplets on rose leaves, mid-morning in the garden.

Sail on

-from the V&A Waterfront, Cape Town.

From a hundred ancient windows...