Vegetables

Week of February 28-March 6, 2011          Theme:  Vegetables

"Let my words, like vegetables, be tender and sweet,

for tomorrow I may have to eat them."

~ Author Unknown

Yet another week with little to no time to focus on photography.  As I continue on this quest, it appears that the term "weekly" Photo Theme Project may need to be interpreted as more of a guideline than a hard and fast rule.  Hopefully no one will vote to excommunicate me from the project.

What is a vegetable?  I know, I know...beans, asparagus, brussel sprouts, etc.  How are vegetables different than fruit?  According to Dictionary.com:

"A fruit is actually the sweet, ripened ovary or ovaries of a seed-bearing plant.  A vegetable, in contrast, is an herbaceous plant cultivated for an edible part (seeds, roots, stems, leaves, bulbs, tubers, or non-sweet fruits).  So, to be really nitpicky, a fruit could be a vegetable, but a vegetable could not be a fruit."

The site also presents an interesting list of fruits that are often thought to be vegetables:

• tomatoes
• cucumbers
• squashes and zucchini
• avocados
• green, red and yellow peppers
• peapods
• pumpkins

Now, please forget about this list.  I took my photos of "vegetables" for this week before I did the research.  Thank you.

For our health, we have all been told to eat lots of fruits and vegetables...anywhere from 5-9 servings per day.  The USDA food pyramid clearly illustrates this recommendation.  Sadly, I must confess that this is a daily struggle for me.

My dear little one

Please listen to your mother

Eat your vegetables

~ Zoma

I like how my food pyramid photo is an actual visualization of a food pyramid.  I am not liking the shiny black background.  Placing the vegetables on a plate might have worked better, but the plate might have been distracting.

O, fresh vegetables

I know you're good for my health

I wish I craved thee.

~ Zoma

I had high hopes for my vegetable abacus photo.  Steve was less than enthusiastic about this one.  I like the concept and how it illustrates counting your daily servings of vegetables.  I would have liked the photo better if I would have spent more time choosing a background.

Haiku's, like vegetable servings, have a numeric formula.  1st line - 5 syllables, 2nd line - 7 syllables, 3rd line - 5 syllables.  As winter drags on, I am waxing poetic, thus my vegetable haiku's.  If so moved, you could try your hand at vegetable haiku and share yours as a comment to this post.  I would love to read more bad haiku, and good ones, too!

Another vegetable-related admonishment is that eating carrots will improve your eyesight.  In fact, this is not true.  It is thought that this tale may have started during World War II, when British intelligence spread a rumor that their pilots had remarkable night vision because they ate lots of carrots.  They didn't want the Germans to know they were using radar.  Those tricky Brits!  Carrots, and many other vegetables high in vitamin A, do help maintain healthy eyesight, but eating more than the recommended daily allowance won't improve your vision.  It may, however, give you a lovely orange glow.

My dog likes carrots

he thinks they are a real treat

please don't tell the cat

~ Zoma

Rabbits eat the tops

we must dig in to the ground

good - top to bottom 

~ Zoma

Now on to the photographs of esculent vegetables.  Can you tell I've been practicing word-of-the-day along with poetry and photography?

Did you know that snow peas are grown in Minnesota?  No, really, they are...

After struggling with white balance (refer to next photo), I like the play on words that is captured with this photo.  And, the snow actually looks white!  Hooray!

More blue snow...sigh...will I ever remember to check my white balance?

Quincy got tired of the snow peas shoot...It is all about him, don't 'cha know?

Beans, beans

the wonderful fruit

the more you eat

the more you toot

the more you toot

the better you feel

so eat more beans at every meal!

How would you make the bean picture more appealing?  In my defense, it tastes terrific.

What is a Honeymoon Salad?

Lettuce alone, with no dressing.

For my salad pictures, I wanted to have a contrast between the counter and the wall.  Unfortunately, our kitchen counters curve up the wall for a bit.  The only space I could find where the wall met up flush with the counter was in the bathroom (don't worry, I thoroughly washed the veggies after the photo shoot).  I don't think the brown wall color does anything to enhance the vegetables and the counter top was a bit too shiny.  I like how the vegetables and wall/counter top line run diagonally through the picture.  Also, the lighting in the bathroom was not the best.  I am posting two pictures to show how I was experimenting taking photos of the same subject at different angles.

With these shots, I was experimenting with different dip colors (Ranch dressing and roasted red pepper hummus) and also with aperture.  I wanted the fork and veggie with dip to be in focus and the bowl of vegetables a little blurry.

I like the angle and location (lower third) on the first "fork dip" photo.  I wonder if a white or wood background would have been better.  I love the veggie/dip reflection on the fork in the second photo and I also like the shadow.

Round, red tomato

knife slices the smooth, thin skin

juicy goodness spills

~ Zoma

"Life is like an onion.  You peel it off one layer at a time;

and sometimes you weep."

~Carl Sandburg

Did you ever wonder why Russian and other orthodox churches have "onion" domes?  In ancient times, the onion was a symbol of eternity because of the concentric circles it contains.  This is the reason for the onion shaped domes.

 

This happiness is:

many colored vegetables

and some melted cheese

~ Zoma

I had fun arranging, experimenting with different angles and cropping some of the photos of this bowl of veggies.  It was interesting to try and pick a favorite shot to enter into the weekly challenge.  All in all I took close to 100 photos of vegetables this week.

 

Why did the tomato date the mushroom?

Because he was a fungi

I like the black and white contrast of the mushroom shot and also the composition (rule of thirds again).
 

 

"To my favorite honeydew, do you carrot all for me?

My heart beets for you, with your turnip nose and radish face.

You are a peach.  If we cantaloupe, lettuce marry.

Weed make a swell pear."

~ Author Unknown

Steve took the steaming asparagus shot on Valentine's Day.  I like how he captured the steam and the aperture setting that showcases the asparagus.

To be honest, I really do not have a good reason why I chose the photo at the top of this post as my entry into this week's Photo Theme Project.  I do like the composition, but I think I was tired of looking at vegetables and just picked one.

Vegetable Humor:  ('cause I just can't get enough)

A man walks into the psychiatrist's office with a cucumber up his nose, a carrot in his left ear, and a banana in his right ear.  He says, "What's the matter with me?"
The psychiatrist says, "You're not eating properly."

Why do potatoes make good detectives?
Because they keep their eyes peeled.

What do you get if you divide the circumference of a pumpkin by its diameter?

Pumpkin pi

Happy Pi Day on March 14th!

What vegetable did Noah not take on the ark?
Leeks

What do you call a stolen yam?

A hot potato

Why is it not wise to tell secrets in a cornfield?
There are too many ears

Have you heard of the garlic diet?

You don't lose much weight, but from a distance your friends think you look thinner.

And, in closing, next time I get bored eating or photographing vegetables, I might try to play one...and you thought my haiku was bad!

That's all I got for this week.
Potato, patahto - tomato, tomahto - let's call the whole thing off...

Next Theme:  Underneath

Related Links:

FDA Food Pyramid