365 Day 20 - Making marmalade today

365 Day 20 - Making marmalade today

We love home made marmalade in our house and the only time you can get the real Seville oranges needed for traditional sharp orange marmalade is January. Even then they are not always easy to find although I can always be confident that our local greengrocer will have some. Like many things marmalade making seems to be a dying art and its not surprising really, peeling and cutting the skin to get a nice fine peel is a tedious job. Then the flesh and peel go into one bowl with boiling water and the pips into another to sit overnight before the flesh and peel is boiled up with sugar until just the right consistency is reached. Why bother? I suppose for the same reason that many people take photographs, the satisfaction you get when it turns out well. What better subject for today's photograph, taken in the kitchen with light coming in from the north facing window and just a burst of flash to lift it. My main problem today was the background. I usually use a piece of creamy coloured fabric which is great for flowers but didn't work with this. Instead I resorted to two pieces of black card, one of which was really not big enough so I have had to do a bit of cloning. Next time I'm in town I need to look for some dark coloured fabric remnants or paper.