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The Bhut Jolokia! The hottest pepper in the world! It wasn’t easy raising these fiery peppers. I protected them from insects and birds as well as a heatwave and record rain, not to mention the affects of hurricane Irene. The first round of fruit yielded only two peppers. When things cooled a bit one plant began flowering like crazy. I didn’t notice many flying insects around so taking no chances I resorted to hand pollinating. Between me and nature this plant is set to deliver about fifty or more peppers. This is the most succesful of the fifteen plants from seeds that I did not expect to germinate. So there are going to be peppers until the first frost. I cut the two peppers from the plant after they were fiery red to photograph them. In doing so I made the classic mistake of touching these without gloves and ten minutes later couldn’t figure out what the strange sensation was on my lips. I had stroked my lips with my fingers while watching a movie. This was my first warning.

So how hot are they? I decided to test the heat by chewing on a piece about the size of the nail on my pinky finger. Soon as I tasted the fruity incendiary flesh I knew I was in trouble. The heat increased rapidly as I started to sneeze and my eyes welled up with tears and my sinuses began to drain. Just like all of the fools before me I reached for milk which helped very little. I had read that the heat is in the oils from the pepper so I  tried dousing the burn with full fat Greek yogurt. This did not help one bit! Next I went for ice cubes. It helped reduce the sensation until the ice melted. I realized I couldn’t keep doing this so I looked around in the freezer and found a half eaten container of strawberry Häagen-Dazs. I began coating the side of my mouth that was burning and running spoonfuls of ice cream over my lips. This seemed to work and over time the burn lessened but somehow it kept coming back! It was my lips! I still had the oils on my lips and every time I licked I transferred back more heat. I got the idea to get a paper towel and soak it in canola oil to cleanse my lips. This worked! It still took about fourty-five minutes before things started to get back to normal. It was then that I felt my innards warming up. If I had eaten more than the 1/8 of the pepper I would have been in bad shape.

So now having tested them myself I can tell the folks who will be getting peppers that they are indeed the hottest peppers in the world. They will also get a written warning!

The post I Got The Hots For Ya! first appeared on Capture This Moment!.

Today on the way home from work I was thinking I needed to get some photos of people dealing with the heat wave. Earlier in the day I went out for lunch near the Camden waterfront and ate outside. Of course I was in the shade. It really didn’t seem so bad until I saw that the temperature had risen to 100 degrees with a real feel of 120 degrees!

I rushed home to pick up some of my gear and realized that I had to water the pepper plants and feed the cat before I went out.
Luckily my camera bag was still packed from last weekends Sundae party. With everything done I had to decide if I was going to ride my bike or take the bus because walking was out of the question. I checked with Google Transit and the number 7 was due in ten minutes. I took the time on the bus to get my camera back to “zero.” This means any special setting I used the last time I shot had to be set back to normal so that when I arrived I would be at baseline so that I could get a predictable exposure.

Drenched with sweat already, I added probably another quart on my short walk up to Swann Fountain at Logan Circle. When I arrived it was as I expected, Philly people from all walks of life cooling off under the spray jets of the fountain and dogs too! During warm months and especially days like today, swimming in the fountain is a long-standing Philadelphia tradition. Once there was a ban in place but things went back to normal a couple of years ago.

One of the things I worry about as a male photographer is the suspicious looks that I get from people when I am taking photos that children are in. It makes me uneasy at first but then I just make my presence known and when necessary chat with people and tell them what I am doing and give out Moo cards. In some cases I ask permission even though this goes against my style of candid shooting. It usually works out and get a chance to do some candids after have taken posed shots. After this, people get used to you being around and they become unguarded and go back to what they were doing and you can shoot to you hearts content. The only worrisome moments came when the wind diverted the spray from fountain right at me and my lens or when people try to direct the spray and it goes in all directions. Even backwards! Although the mist and spray threatened to get on my lenses it was very cool and refreshing. I managed to turn myself or the camera around away from the mist but was unable to prevent myself form being hit by a wet Nurf football. I am looking at the back of the camera and strobe as I write this and let me tell you, Philly has some hard-ass water.

So, mission accomplished! I won’t have to go back out and get any more fountain shots!

The post Cool It Down! first appeared on Capture This Moment!.

My friend and fellow photographer Albert Yee has exhibited new work at the Gravy Studio in Fishtown called, “Hands That Feed US: A peek Inside Our Foodshed. Albert also works for Fair Food at Reading Terminal here in Philadelphia. Albert is one of my favorite local photographers and he knows where to get the good eats! I love fresh figs and his stand at Reading Terminal usually carries them when they become available. He told me they were grown locally but would not divulge the name of the person or the location of the fig tree in the city. When I visited him at Gravy, a photo in his exhibition gave a piece of the puzzle away. It was a photo of Giovanni standing proudly next to his fig tree!

The 13 print installation shows glimpses of the people and animals from local small farms and food  producers. Albert said that there are enough photos exposing the corporate farm systems. We’ve all seen them and we are grossed out about and we become immune to to the horrific images and practices. Albert’s photos gives a an inside glimpse into what sustainable farming and humane treatment of animals. In fact one of my favorite photos is of a group of pigs being hosed down and one pig actually seems to smile as it is being sprayed with cooling water.

If you go be sure to ask questions about the photos. Albert will surely give you the back-story.  I’m sure you will have question about the photo of the two cows. I know I did!

Yee’s photography and passion for local fresh food come together in a blog that he and his wife Katey produces that is a guide to Philly restaurants called, Messy and Picky.”

Go check him out. He will be at Gravy Studio tonight from 6.30p – 8.30p and once more on July 27th.

Artist’s gallery hours: Wednesdays 6.30p – 8.30p for the month of July

Gravy Studio

Messy & Picky Philly Restaurant Guide

Albert Yee Photography

The post Albert Yee: Hands That Feed Us first appeared on Capture This Moment!.

Sundae’s new summer home in Center City is at Table 31 at the Comcast Center on 17th & JFK

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I had the pleasure of checking out Philadelphia’s newest and maybe only eatery for gourmet hot dogs.A coworker whose son is one of the founders asked me to stop by to check him out doing his boardwalk barker technique to draw customers in. I said I would and try out a dog as well. Hot Diggity was the dream of four high school friends, Keith Garabedian, Sean Kendall, Tom Zmijewski, and Matt Anderson.When I was done shooting John outside I went in to take some interior shots when the groups of customers thinned out momentarily. One of the first things I noticed was the cool drawings that depict each hot dog drawn by Hawk Krall. I also dug the bar like tables that had holes bored through so that you can have a place to hold your paper cone of hand-cut fries.

With the interior shots done it was time  to try a Hot Diggity. They have ten regionally inspired hot dogs as well as the Hot Dog of The Month. At the time of this writing it was the Philly Surf & Turf. They also have the “Farmers Market Dog” that rotates. This week it featured pickled tomatillos, fire roasted corn and jalapeno salsa, fried tortilla strips, and queso fresco. The dogs are 7-inch Sabretts served on Liscio’s rolls. The Belgian-style hand-cut fries comes in small and large sizes with a choice of 12 dipping sauces. For you vegetarians out there, all dogs can be made vegetarian using Worthington Linketts.

The staff and chef worked on the dogs for a year and a half to perfect them and I believe they did just that. They are bringing the hot dog in Philadelphia back to the front. If you are not sure about these gourmet dogs you can still get, “The Plain Old Dog” with the usual hot dog condiments.Finally it was time for my dog. Shooting burns a lot of calories and I was hungry. It was a hard choice, but I decided to go with, “The Big Kahuna.”  The fries are fresh cut and made to order so they came right behind the dog. I decided to go with the spicy ginger mayo for my fries. The fries were like fries should be, cut fresh not dropped frozen into a deep fryer. I made a good choice with the “Big Kahuna,” I love pineapple salsa and the spicy (orange) habanero aioli bought all of the flavors together. Make sure you grab a fork because these dogs are so loaded with toppings you may need to scoop some of it back on after you bite into them! Great service, fast and friendly!

The post Hot Diggity! Bringing The Hot Dog Back first appeared on Capture This Moment!.

 I am growing the hottest pepper in the world on my roof! A coworker introduced me to the Bhut Jolokia. The Bhut Jolokia or Indian Ghost Pepper is rated at over 1 million Scoville heat units or SHU. This means that it takes a million drops of water to dilute 1 drop of Bhut Jolokia extract to the point that heat is no longer detected. What does this mean in laymen terms? It means this is the hottest pepper you will have had the fortune or misfortune to eat. It is up to 125 times hotter than a Jalapeño and about 3 times hotter than a Scotch Bonnet pepper.

I originally acquired the peppers from a co-worker in 2010. I saved the seeds and germinated them and produced over twenty young plants. This year my coworker gave me two young plants that I started indoors and then gradually migrated them outside to full sun. One was severely damaged by birds or squirrels. The big producer is pictured here. They do quite well on my second floor roof as they require sun and heat to thrive.

In order for the plants to produce peppers, each flower has to be pollinated. The best way to achieve this is to put the plants outside so that wind, bees, and other flower visiting creatures can pollinate them. I know have over twenty plants in various stages of maturity. I’m sure that they all won’t make it. With luck I will have a bumper crop of pepper to share. However for safety concerns, no one will get any peppers from me  unless they agree to my disclaimer. Hot is an understatement describing the effect of these peppers. Hopefully I will be able to update this story with photos of peppers in the upcoming weeks. Read more about this pepper.

The post Beyond Hot! first appeared on Capture This Moment!.

Photos from the New York City blizzard December 26th, 2010.

I decided to make a trip to NYC to shoot up all of the rolls of Kodachrome 64 I had stored in my refrigerator so that I could get them to Dwayne’s Photo Lab by December 30th. That date was the last day they would accept the iconic, discontinued by Kodak, Kodachrome 64 color slide film for processing. That “64” in the film name is ISO 64.

Hastily, I planned a trip to NYC the day after Christmas after failing two weekends in a row to shoot my remaining rolls of Kodachrome. The complicating factor was the approaching blizzard predicted for the northeast and targeting New York City.

Part of my mission was to include photos of New York and the Brooklyn Bridge before the storm hit and needed to be on the bridge before sunrise. I also needed to leave NYC for Philadelphia by about 5:00pm to avoid having my transportation canceled.

Reservations were made to leave Philadelphia around 5:00 am and to depart NYC at 5:17 pm. This gave me time to shoot up 5 rolls of Kodachrome and two rolls of Fuji Neopan 1600. This was mostly a film shooting day. I had two film cameras, my first 35mm camera, the Minolta XG-M and the Nikon F4S with an SB800 strobe. I also had digital back-up consisting of the Nikon D700 and D40 camera with various Nikkor lenses.

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I decided to make a trip to NYC to shoot up all of the rolls of Kodachrome 64 I had stored in my refrigerator so that I could get them to Dwayne’s Photo Lab by December 30th. That date was the last day they would accept the iconic, discontinued by Kodak, Kodachrome 64 color slide film for processing. That “64” in the film name is ISO 64.

Hastily, I planned a trip to NYC the day after Christmas after failing two weekends in a row to shoot my remaining rolls of Kodachrome. The complicating factor was the approaching blizzard predicted for the northeast and targeting New York City.

Part of my mission was to include photos of New York and the Brooklyn Bridge before the storm hit and needed to be on the bridge before sunrise. I also needed to leave NYC for Philadelphia by about 5:00pm to avoid having my transportation canceled.

Reservations were made to leave Philadelphia around 5:00 am and to depart NYC at 5:17 pm. This gave me time to shoot up 5 rolls of Kodachrome and two rolls of Fuji Neopan 1600. This was mostly a film shooting day. I had two film cameras, my first 35mm camera, the Minolta XG-M and the Nikon F4S with an SB800 strobe. I also had digital back-up consisting of the Nikon D700 and D40 camera with various Nikkor lenses.

The post NYC Blizzard 2010 – Heavy Weather first appeared on Capture This Moment!.

NYC Blizzard 2010 – Our Lady Of The Storm
New York, NY – 2010

I decided to make a trip to NYC to shoot up all of the rolls of Kodachrome I had stored in my refrigerator so that I could get them to Dwayne’s Photo Lab by December 30th. This date is the last day they will accept the iconic, discontinued by Kodak, Kodachrome 64 color slide film. That 64 is ISO 64.

Dwayne’s is the only lab in the world that processes this film. This is not a film shot. This photo was taken with the D700. After shooting all but one roll of Kodachrome the weather was turning ugly and I needed the high ISO and quick feedback of digital to get some shots of people in the blizzard as I headed to Penn station to catch my train back to Philly before things got worse.

The post NYC Blizzard 2010 – Our Lady Of The Storm first appeared on Capture This Moment!.