Portland Wedding and Portrait Photography - Evrim Icoz

I decided that I will write some non-photography related stuff here as well. I hope that helps my clients get to know me better as a person as well.
Coming from a Mediterranean country, I am a food lover. Recently, I have been reading a lot about where food comes from, and I was surprised how bad the food we eat is. I think the awakening moment for me was growing food at my garden in planter boxes, and even though people have been doing this for thousands of years, being a city boy it was fascinating. I had basil, tomatoes, beets, carrots, cucumber, eggplants, peppers, beans, peas etc. (I think I had 20 different types of produce from three small boxes).
I had a chance to listen to Mr. Pollan at Bagdad Theater last week. It was pretty interesting stuff. I have been a big fan of eating healthier lately and dropped 28lbs even without exercising and found it to be not super hard once I cut down my white processed foods and things with corn syrup in them. I do not eat white sugar, I cut out white rice and most breads, and cut my cheese intake. I eat much more locally produced vegetables as well. I thought I could never do this, but it was surprisingly easy once I decided on it. I do not drink regular soda anymore, and use stevia instead of sugar. I also cut down my portion sizes - the first week was hard but now I do not crave much anymore and I have some healthy snacks like apples around (apple slicers are awesome!) I also took a knife skills class from a local chef (Chef Al). It was awesome and I cook more at home now.

Anyways, these are some really cool, but common sense tips:
Michael Pollan’s Tips

Another thing that was a new discovery for me, but should not really come as a surprise, was how big chicken producers like Tyson inject the chicken with salt water and the sea weed carrageenan (wow, I spelled that right the first time!). Since these are all natural ingredients, the chicken itself is labeled 100% natural. I want to see the chickens that have sea weed grow naturally in them but anyways. The bottom line is 8 times higher sodium content (bad bad for your heart) and that you pay up to 15% extra for salt water.

http://www.nwaonline.net/articles/2007/07/28/business/072907bizchickenlabels.txt

Crazy.

Our good friends Deirdre and Michael added a cat cam to their super cute kitty Cooper. Check it out:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/michaelbenjamin/sets/72157602652072917/

Seattle Photo Challenge was an idea brought to life by Mat Hayward (and Cory Paris). The idea is simple - pick a place, use a 80mm equivalent lens, and in 1-1.5 hours and see what you come up with - no constraints on subjects. So we got together at the Pike Place market and shot away. Frankly I do not shoot with 80mm equivalent for photojournalism much so it was definitely a challenge for me. Once done we submitted 5 of our favorites (posted below) and other photographers vote. In the end, I placed 3 out of my 5 at the final selection and got 2nd place. But more importantly, it allowed me to shoot for myself. I haven’t been doing personal projects as much as I like to, so this was a great way to kick me in the butt for that. Thanks Mat! It was lots of fun. I will be posting more personal projects here. I think it is important for photographers to push their boundaries and get out of our comfort area.
Anyways, the rest of the photos can be seen here: Seattle Photo Challenge

Let me know which ones you like the best.

These are some moving photographs, from this year’s Pulitzer Winner:
Final Salute Slideshow

and an interview here as well:

http://www.rangefindermag.com/magazine/Dec06/showpage.taf?page=108