CupcakeCamp Columbus and NZ daydreaming

This weekend was a crazy blur of ups and downs and I’m just very glad it’s over (which I don’t think you’ll ever hear me say again).

Definitely a highlight was the CupcakeCamp Columbus event at Surly Girl Saturday afternoon. We bought tickets a while ago, which was good because it ended up selling out pretty quickly. Morgan, Deanna, Brandie and I signed up to be tasters in the first session, which was held in the back room at Surly Girl.

After handing in our tickets, we walked into the room and my jaw literally dropped. It sort of reminded me of the scene in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory where they all walk into the magical candy land room. There were trays and trays of cupcakes everywhere, and I got a toothache just looking it. Everyone kind of hung to the back until someone finally said “ok guys, start eating!” And then my greedy side surfaced as I grabbed for every cupcake within reach, except for the meat ones (Sorry Elvis and Pretentious Pork). I managed to eat 3 or 4 before my stomach seized up and I had to down some complimentary coffee and pop. I pretty much gave up after the first rush and spent the rest of the time taking photos of the cupcakes and goofing off with Brandie and Deanna.

We met some nice new people too and Lisa appeared too, since she had entered 2 different kinds of mini-cupcakes (her lavender ones ended up winning best vegan cupcake, congrats!).

My favorite cupcake hands down was the Lemon Rosemary cupcake. I love lemon flavored anything and the frosting was so ungodly good. I think I actually ended up eating 4 of those :-X

Probably the best part of the whole event was when they announced that we could take home doggie bags of the leftover cupcakes. I almost peed my pants! So I proceeded to fill a takeout box full of cupcakes. We tottered out into the daylight an hour later, totally stuffed and in the beginning stages of sugar coma.

On a photo note, this is obviously not my best work ever. Even using the fastest lens I own (50mm f/1.4), I was still shooting at 3200 and getting blur. The lighting at Surly Girl, while awesome for drinking and hanging out with friends, was not ideal for getting crisp, evenly colored shots. I debated using flash but I didn’t want to be that obnoxious girl who blinds everyone as she takes 10,000 photos. I heard rumblings of them holding this at a bigger venue next year and maybe there will be better lighting. But overall I can’t complain about stuffing myself full of delicious cupcakes for only $5, which went straight to the Mid-Ohio Food Bank.

I also got to see and hang out with some long lost friends Saturday night too, which was nice, though it was a lot colder outside than I thought it was going to be and therefore was severely under-dressed.

Also, in a fit of stress, I cleaned most of the house yesterday and instead of working more on my thesis, I researched photo trips to New Zealand. I found a reputable-looking company called Capture New Zealand that was getting rave reviews from fellow photographers in different forums and decided to put a down payment on a trip for late November and early December. The tour I want is a 15 day trip through the South Island and basically addresses all my biggest fears about traveling to New Zealand alone like transportaion, traveling alone and finding photogenic spots. From everything I was hearing, there isn’t much in the way of inter-country transportation (like a train system) and basically your options are renting a car or booking vans or buses that go town to town, neither of which sounded appealing. I was also not really finding the information I wanted from guidebooks and lonely planet guides about the most photogenic areas of the country, or if I did see a mention, it was always for something on the South Island, which was not where my roommate was going to be and seemed even more daunting to navigate. After going back and forth in my mind about it all night, I decided to just do it and pay the deposit for the trip. I received receipt of my payment but not any sort of confirmation from the company, so I sent them an email this morning about it, hopefully I’ll get a response sometime in the next day or so. If everything works out, I’m really excited to do more photo tour based excursions to other countries. I’m actually not sure why I didn’t think of it earlier. So, I’m somewhat feeling more on track with photography once again. Hopefully I keep that momentum going this summer once I’m finally done with school (cross your fingers!)

More CupcakeCamp pics under the cut!