Day Thirty-One: Best Snow Day EVER!!!

I know yesterday's post was also sledding...but yesterday was cold and sleeting when Molly and I (and very few others) took to the hill.  Today is 35 degrees and sunny and we've had a whole bunch of neighbors out sledding the hill at the top of our street.  In this photo are Sunny and Nick.  They are across the street neighbors and were out with us for most of the early afternoon.  My self imposed rule is that I pick one photo to be the photo of the day, and this one is it.  But we had lots of folks and lots of fun today, so I'll post a bunch more on the main blog (link below),

Please check out my main blog: http://bmcportraits.wordpress.com/

Day Thirty: All down hill from here.

We got a good six inches of snow and Molly's been sledding since shortly after she woke me up (too early) to go out for the first time.  It's very cold (23 degrees) so we do four or five runs then come back inside to get warm for a bit. Dryer has been running pretty much non stop all day.  

Molly is having a BLAST!!  Have to admit, I am too.  We'll be going back out soon, and taking more pictures, but I like this one because you can see snow getting sprayed up at the front of the toboggan.  And...with my post out of the way for the day...it's all down hill from here.
Please check out my main blog: http://bmcportraits.wordpress.com/

Day Twenty Nine: Let it Snow, Let it Snow, PLEASE Let it Snow

Molly and I are ready for some SNOW!!!  Looks like we're getting 6-8 inches starting soon.  We are both very excited...though Molly chose this picture instead of one where she's holding her sled and looking excited.  When she models, she gets to choose.  She also gets to shoot.  Here are a few she took of me:

That's it til tomorrow.  When, with any luck, we'll be taking pics out in the snow.

Please check out my main blog: http://bmcportraits.wordpress.com/

Day Twenty-Eight: Bright Sunshiney Day

Today was an absolutely gorgeous day in Durham.  It was 60 degrees and sunny with great clouds in the sky all over.  I went for a ride in the country (which is about 10 minutes from my suburban home) and took pictures of farms and fields.  The weather report calls for a "wintry mix" the next two days, so I really wanted to capture how beautiful a day it was today. 

Hoping we get snow...fun to play (and shoot) in the snow.  Til tomorrow...

Please check out my main blog: http://bmcportraits.wordpress.com/

Day Twenty-Seven: The Decisive Moment

This afternoon I drove out to Chapel Hill to shoot on Franklin Street and on the quad there.  The light was filtering through the enormous old trees and making interesting shadows on the paths and lawns.  So I found myself a spot into which life would move, and I waited.  I liked the balance of the lamposts on the left and windows on the right.  And I wanted the figure in my photo to be moving perpendicular to the point of view, which creates tension in the composition.  Then I waited for life to stroll by.

I had groups, singles, people walking dogs and pushing bikes.  I shot some of them, but none of that was what I was looking for.  I was waiting for the "decisive moment."  That term (coined by Henri Cartier Bresson) has always seemed somewhat limited to me.  While I understand the objective, to me, it's not necessarily that the moment be decisive, but rather that the elements in the composition be caught at the apogee of their action within the frame.

Here, the gentlemen striding down the path interplays with the girl in the background,  His stride is long and purposeful, moving along his path.  Her stride is more casaul.  He is moving across the frame, she deeper into it.  While there are two figures in the frame, they are isolated from each other.  The eye is drawn to the path into the photo by the placement of the subjects-- the static lamposts and windows, and the dynamic figures.  Neither has crossed into the plane of the vertical path...in an instant, both will.  And an instant ago, they were not yet in the frame.

This is the apogee, or, if you prefer, the decisive moment.
 

Please check out my main blog: http://bmcportraits.wordpress.com/

Day Twenty-Six: Today is January 26, 2010

I'm not exactly sure why this photograph captures my day.  It could be the sense of marching in place that these towers give me from this perspective.  It could be the connectivity they represent.  It could be the bleakness of their industrial architechture.  Or the disconnected mazes the lines create.

I guess all those things spoke to me today.  I took a bunch of pretty pictures.  The sun was out and the sky was bright with puffy white clouds.  I looked for vivid colors as I usually do on a day like that.  But what spoke to me today was something darker...more menacing. 

I struggled with this post.  Picked a nice picture with lots of rich colors.  But found I didn't have anything to say about it.  Then I thought about this image.  I hadn't priocessed it yet, but I remembered taking it.  I remember visualizing it in my head to look like it does in this post.  I remember I made an illegal U-turn and parked in some mud on the side of the road to take it.  One of the things about the 365 is that it's a chance to chronicle a year in my life.  I've talked to people who've done one before and many of them have remarked about going back and looking at the images and remembering the day they took it.  And that made me realize that this image and this day are linked.  And I want to record that, so when I look back at the end of the road, and see this image, I'll remember why it's there.  It's January 26, 2010.  And this is how my day was.

Please check out my main blog: http://bmcportraits.wordpress.com/

Day Twenty-Five: KISS

As in Keep It Simple Stupid.  I am three weeks into this project and each day I have a plan to go somewhere, set something up, find someone to sit in front of my camera...But part of being a good photographer is being able to use the simplest of subjects in compelling ways.  Here, some dry brown foliage, sitting against the bright sky and some distant branches makes a simple sketch.  I used split toning (an old process for adding color to monochrome prints) in Lightroom to get the green tones which are soothing and seem well suited to the subject and composition.

So much of being a better photographer is embedded in seeing the possibilities and then composing to realize them.  And my goal for today was to shoot something simple in a compelling way.  I am quite pleased with the result.  Hope you like it too.

Please check out my main blog: http://bmcportraits.wordpress.com/

Day Twenty-Four: A morning ride

I managed to make it out for about an hour this morning while breakfast was being made and the baby was sleeping.  I still had the big lens on the camera from my rugby shoot yeseterday and went off to see about photographing some nearby horses.  But the horses had blankets on and were all on the far side of field and I just couldn't get anything interested.  Giving up on that plan, I was just about to pull off when a bicyclist came up the road.  I liked the strong graphic element of her hat and knew it would make a nice black and white photograph.  The light was gray and flat, though bright enough to give nice crisp lighting to the cyclist. 

Molly and I also set up a quick studio shoot (actually in the hallway in our basement) with a background and lights and I shot both Molly and Isaac for a bit this afternoon.  Some nice stuff.  You can see it on my main blog.  Thought about using one of Isaac for today's official photo, but I am trying to limit the number of times I photograph the kids for the blog, and with something I liked already in the can, decided that shoot would be just for fun.  http://bmcportraits.wordpress.com/

Please check out my main blog: http://bmcportraits.wordpress.com/

Day Twenty Three: Rugby

I got an email from my buddy James (Flickr: Jimbo N http://www.flickr.com/photos/jimbon/) yesterday asking if I wanted to go shoot his son's Rugby match in Chapel Hill today.  Jim's son, Cole, plays for State and they kicked off their season (with a win) against UNC this afternoon.  Cole, unfortunately wasn't able to make the game, but James and I had some fun and got some nice stuff.  I am way out of my element shooting sports.  But being out of my element is a lot of what this project is intended to be about.  I have a plan to go shoot some Duke Women's tennis soon with another buddy and if anyone has suggestions for sporting events I can shoot for the project, please let me know.  I'd never shot Club Rugby (or any kind of Rugby) before, but I've seen it played and the great thing was that we were pretty much free to roam the sidelines, even wander out onto the field during timeouts.  We minded our manners, of course.  I love how accessible it was.  I will definitely shoot more rugby there at UNC. 

I was going to post some additional images from the match, but am going to make a post about today's shoot with all my keeper images on my main blog instead.  Please come check it out:  http://bmcportraits.wordpress.com/

Please check out my main blog: http://bmcportraits.wordpress.com/

Day Twenty-Two: Lady Bug Umbrella

It was cold and gray today so I decided to head into the studio to shoot.  This was just a quickie, with fluoresent strip lights from the left front and right rear.  Simple.  Need to help make dinner and then it's family movie night.  Til tomorrow...

Please check out my main blog: http://bmcportraits.wordpress.com/

Day Twenty-One: Not much to see here

It was a rainy and gray afternoon here in Durham.  Hoped it would rain hard as I had a few locations in mind where I could shoot from under cover and wait for a colorful umbrella to come along.  But it just rained lightly off and on...enough to make the day gray, but not enough to prompt that many umbrellas.  I gave up on my original plan and headed off to the bus station.  It was all but deserted, with one lone passenger waiting for a bus.  In the end I decided it was a good representation of the kind of day it was. 

Please check out my main blog: http://bmcportraits.wordpress.com/

Day Twenty: Pandering to Interestingness

This photo is a somewhat canned attempt to mimic the type of works that get on Explore in Flickr.  Flickr calls it interestingness.  While the mysterious algorithm that determines interstingness can be frustrating for those of us aspiring to be included, I have to admit it is one of the (very few) things I like about Flickr.  The images that make it, while a seemingly random assortment, all have something special about them.  Sometimes it jumps out at you...somtimes it's far more subtle.

Two of my images have made it to date.  One of Molly:

And one abstract::

And I did once before make a deliberate photo with the express thought of it being Explore-like:

Anyway, aside from being a bit of a cliche, I do like today's image.  I like the motion, the colors and that her boot is the only part of her that is sharp.  I also like the baskets inside the door which gives another plane to the image and the way the doors frame her and reinforce the sense of motion.

Please check out my main blog: http://bmcportraits.wordpress.com/

Day Nineteen: Cool Under Pressure

Went to a Triangle Strobist meetup tonight at Mojo's Billiards in Apex.  Had fun...but got home late.  Got lots of good stuff and will add some more to this post tomorrow once I have a chance to process my images.  Dyvo (Flickr name) modeled for me (and others) some and also got a bunch of candids of people playing pool and just generally in the bar.  More later...

Please check out my main blog: http://bmcportraits.wordpress.com/

Day Eighteen: We're not in Kansas...never were.

Today was a long day at work and all day I couldn't figure out what I was going to shoot for today's shot.  I had nothing.  Usually I go for a couple of short walks during the day with the point-n-shoot at least just getting some suff that I could use in a pinch.  But today, didn't even manage to do that.  I had about 45 minutes when I left work and decided I'd shoot Molly's Wizard of Oz figurines.  They've been living in a pocket of my camera bag for the last two weeks, and I've posed them in various places for my idea file I've been keeping to draw back on when things get to feeling stale. 

I remembered seeing yellow bricks at a location I was shooting at last week.  The picture of the castle at the bottom of this post is also from that location.  It was one of last weeks runner-ups.  I brought a flash and reflectors with me, but the light was nicely broken up and interesting looking filtering through trees, some high grass, and the castle and I was able to position Dorothy and the Witch to take advantage of the natural light.  I under exposed to give an ominous feel and pumped the saturation up a good bit (the yellow bricks are kind of pale and faded) to get rich warm tones.

One of the concepts I really want to learn to develop is having a good sense of visual weight for the subjects in my photos.  After years of practicing classic rule-of-thirds composition, producing relatively boring photos that weren't snapshots...but weren't much better, I started reading some ebooks by David duChemin, (http://www.pixelatedimage.com/blog/) Drawing the Eye, in particular,  and learning to think not in terms of thirds of the frame but rather about the visual weight given to the subject matter.   In the past, I've tried to shoot stuff like this and have always been disappointed.  But it occurred to me today that all I needed to do was to apply the same principles to make a shot like this work. 

Here is the castle which is also at this same (abandoned) location:

Please check out my main blog: http://bmcportraits.wordpress.com/

Day Seventeen: Donna

It rained off and on today. During one of the breaks between showers the family went down to the side driveway to take a picture of my wife, Donna, for today's post. Molly assisted, holding a flash and small softbox on a painter's extension pole and keeping the light on Donna while staying out of the shot. She's become a valuable assistant, and knows her stuff. And she was thrilled to help with a photo of mommy for the blog.  And of the three candidates I had for today's post, Molly chose this one.  I would have chosen the first of the two below, a candid moment when Molly coached Donna to "move around" while posing.

Strobist: Shot with D300 in manual mode with the background underexposed by about 1.5 stops. Light on Donna is from an SB900 in a small (12x18) softbox, held on a Shurline extension pole and fired CLS set on 1/8th power, camera left.

Please check out my main blog: http://bmcportraits.wordpress.com/

Day Sixteen: Wendy

My friend Wendy came by the studio today to pick up a softbox I had for her and to get a look at processing in Adobe Lightroom. We spent about 5 minutes in the studio shooting two quick setups. I'd calibrated my lights with Molly earlier in the afternoon and when Wendy got there, I sat her down in the first setup (the one this picture comes from) and shot 10 or so shots, then moved to a second setup to shoot some 3/4 lengths portraits on black. I will post the others from the session to my main blog (http://bmcportraits.wordpress.com/) tomorrow.

Getting settled in to watch the Ravens-Colts game, so that's it for today.

Strobist: AB800 in AB beauty dish with blocker in place and diffusion sock on. The BD is high and about 18 in from Wendy's face. Fill from a silver 48in reflector held just out of shot low. Kicker light, from the back at camera left is an AB800 with 20 degree grid and barndoors (keeping it from hitting the background and from creating lens flare.

Added Sunday: Here is my other favorite of Wendy yesterday. I had a hard time deciding between the two. Also, wanted to let the readers know that I need people to shoot for this project. Wendy told me she looked terrible in pictures...but I think our collaboration yesterday, which took all of 10 minutes, produced images she can proudly use on her Facebook page, in other social media, and on her website. If anyone wants to get 3-5 free digital portraits they can use for any electronic use they want, for FREE, just email me at bmcportraits@gmail.com and we can set something up...on location or at my studio. All I ask in exchange is the right to use an image of you on this and my other blog and Flicrk stream. So..if you need a new profile picture for work, Facebook, etc. get in touch.

Day Fifteen: Warm and Sunny

Today was a beautiful day, with afternoon temps in the low 60s and a clear blue sky. My only time to shoot today was mid afternoon which left me out in the kind of harsh light photographers are taught to avoid. And it's true that it's not a good time to photograph people (unless you can find some open shade or create some of your own). But a day with a clear blue sky is a day I go looking for vivid colors. I don't mind the deep shadows caused by the strong front lighting on a sunny day. As long as the colors pop, the contrast in the shadows just gives them even a bit more life.

This is part of the facade at Sitar, an Indian restaurant (and a good one at that) in Durham. I love the Indian architechture they added when they took over the building from the Lone Star. And the bright red trim, against the bright blue sky, makes this image my favorite from the day.

But it was tough to choose, as I went to a few different locations and got images I liked at all of them. Here are the rejects and also-rans that I considered for today's post. Guess they all won in a way.

Day Fourteen: Things are looking up.

Finally today it was warm enough to actually enjoy some time shooting outside. I went off this afternoon with my 10-20mm zoom lens, a flash and a plan. And I executed...got some perfectly pleasant self portraits of me lit against a darkened background and dramatic sky. Nice. But kind of boring, and kind of in my niche. And I need to save the things I know I can do quickly and easily for the days when I am up against it. I have a few favorite places and favorite approaches that I am saving for days when I need to pull something out...days when my motivation may be low or I'm pressed for time.

So instead today, I am using this image. I took it under an archway at St. Barnabas Greek Orthodox Church on Fayetteville Road. It's an architechtually beautiful new church and I've been shooting there since it was just an unshelled steel structure. For this image, I put my camera with the zoom set to 10mm on the ground pointing up at the arch and then leaned over into the frame. I took about 10 of these from sligtly differenn angles. This is the one I liked the best.

Strobist: Natural light (again).

Day Thirteen: Getting (a little) warmer

Had some time to get to downtown (Durham) this afternoon and went up to the top floor of a parking deck to get an aerial perspective on the new bus station. Unfortunately, didn't have the right lens with me and wasn't able to get what I went there for. But I walked around the permieter of the parking deck taking pictures of people on the sidewalks and courtyards below. In the end though, I liked this shot of the warm sun on the bricks of one of the facades of the American Tobacco development. The 200mm lens compresses the distance between the brick spires and makes for a strong pattern which stands out against the gray wall of windows that sits in shadow across the street.

Day Twelve: A Warm Portrait on a Chilly Day

It was another raw day outside today and once again I decided to shoot in the warm studio. This time, a warm feeling and warm toned portrait of Molly. It's been a busy day and I still have a meeting tonight, so this is going to be short today.

Strobist: AB1600 in Westcott Apollo 28in softbox, camera left and above with its lower half flagged by black foamcore to increase fall-oof. 48in gold reflector camera right and slightly behind just out of frame. SB800 with 10 degree grid camera left as "hair" light set at 1/16th to just keep separation and not highlight the camera left side of the hood.

Day Eleven: Alien Landscape Abstract

I went for a walk at lunchtime around my building and the adjoining one...now empty due to the struggling economy. I had my "real" camera in the car and just took the Canon point-n-shoot (which is technically Molly's) and took shots in the full harsh light of the afternoon. Looking for contrast and color. Walking along the backside of the vacant building, I came across this arrangement on the wall and took the picture because I liked the minimalist composition. The one drawback of shooting with the point-n-shoot for a high contrast shot is that the JPG it creates is not as workable as a raw file would be. So I had to go a little beyond my usual post processing.

To me (and to my wife, who first mentioned it) it lloks like an alien landscape. The conduit, spigot, and rust stain on the lower wall looks like a person (to me, a shepherd with staff; to my wife, something from Star Wars). Wish I could say that I saw the potential when I took the image...but it took a lot of post processing to get to this point. I did like the simplicity and strength of the composition and it's component parts...and in the end, was rewarded with a happy accident.

Strobist: Natural light. LR, CS4, OnOne Phototools 2

Day Ten: The Intrepids

I was driving home late morning along the golf course near my house and saw this group of golfers hit their balls off the tee. The thermometer in my car said it was 33 degrees. I parked and waited for them at the top of the hill and struck up a conversation with them while I was photographing. They, like many of us here, were just plain tired of being holed up inside through 2 plus weeks of temperatures 20 degrees below our winter norm. So they dressed warm and went out to play a round.

The weather forecast is looking much more pleasant for the days ahead with temps back in the 50s by midweek. It's about time. Maybe I'll play some golf myself.

Day Nine: The patio is closed for dining.

Day nine was another cold one but I managed to get out (and even get out of the car) for a little while this afternoon. I was looking to take some street photos of people looking cold (to emphasize the point) but it was cold enough by Durham standards for very few people to be out at all this afternoon. So, I thought this photo of the closed up patio umbrellas and empty tables at a local eatery managed to tell the story in more subtle way.

Strobist: Natural light.

Inside the house, later in the afternoon, Molly took some pictures of me playing with my son, Isaac. We call this game superbaby. Molly (age 7 1/2) got the better photo of the day.



Actually, Molly has taken a good number of excellent photos in the last year. I am working on a post of Molly's stuff on my BMC Portraits blog:


I'll post a link here when I do.

Day Eight: Batman

Had some time to play in the studio this afternoon and decided to use my fluorescent strip work lights and a black background. I shot several different setups over the course of 90 minutes, eventually adding in two Nikon flashes to give my face and the batman logo some pop and to light the black background up to a pleasant gray. Not much else to say. Friday night is family movie night around here, so this is short and sweet.

Strobist: Fluorsecent work lights hung from light stands in vertical orientation, right and left and behind. These define the sides of my face and keep separation of my black turtleneck from the background. There are two large silver refelectors camera righ and left front just out of frame bouncing the worklights on the front of my face. Key is an SB800 with a grid (ala Zack Arias, I painted in the insdie of a Fong diffuser black and then bungeed a Buff 10 degree grid over the top.) this is on a boom and about a foot off the floor firing up at my face at 1/16th power. There are a few strips of black gaffer tape over parts of the grid to break the light up a little and keep dimension on my face. The background (in addition to spill from the worklights) is lit by an SB900 with a stofen on the floor behind me at 1/4 power.

Day Seven: This is Isaac

After an aborted attempt the other night (Day 5) Molly and I went to Buy Buy Baby after school today and bought a Bumbo. At 14 weeks, he can't sit up by himself for more than about 10 seconds before losing his balance and falling over on his side. But the Bumbo sits him up and finally let's me photograph him from angles I understand. I am terrible at newborn portraits...I see people put peacefully sleeping newborns in things that look like the macrame plant holders I made at summer camp as a kid. I tried to put Isaac in a basket to photograph him once. Once.

The Bumbo let's him sit up and move his arms, kick his feet and play while safe and secure. Shot this in a quick 10 minute session this evvening. I set up the Bumbo on the couch in the nursery, bounced my on camera flash around til I found nice directional light on the Bumbo, then put Isaac in and shot. Got a handful I like, and let Molly choose the one for today's post.

You can see the also-rans on my primary blog: http://bmcportraits.wordpress.com/
On Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/#/profile.php?ref=profile&id=100000147498632
or in my Flickr stream: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bmcphoto/

Strobist: On camera SB800 bounced into the corner camera left and behind Isaac. I used a black foam flag on the flash to keep any direct light from falling on Isaac. This gave soft diretional light with no more than a stop difference on the shadow side (which seems about right to me for babies and young children). There was an overhead light above and behind camera position but at f5.6 and 1/200th of a second it barely registered, though it can be seen in the catchlights in his eyse. FEV +0.3 shot with a D300 in manual mode.

Day Six: Mesa

This evening my friend Mesa came by to get some help with processing some images she took last week. She's far more accomplished in Photoshop than I am and I have the edge when it comes to Lightroom. We worked on the images together...me showing her ways to process in Lightroom...her showing me some Photoshop tricks I didn't know. Give and take. The community of photographers locally, nationally and even internationally is great at sharing techniques, advice and inspiration. There's always more to learn...no matter what level you're at. Me...I have plenty to learn and then some...but this project will certainly move me along the path.

Mesa and I found a combination of Photoshop actions for a grainy warm black and white look that we both really liked. We used it on two of her images, and I've used it on the image above I took of Mesa before she left this evening. I'd set the lights and background up this afternoon so I'd be ready when she was here and we shot for less than 5 minutes. I planned on black and white and finding a combination of actions that produced a warm black and white I really like was serendipity.

Strobist: 2 AB800 at 1/16th power on background. Key is AB1600 at 1/8th power in 24x36 softbox with a grid, high camera left. There is a 4x8 reflector camera right to add a bit of fill to the shadow side. It's also flagging the AB800 camera right to keep it from spilling on to the shadow side of Mesa's face. The AB800 camera left is spilling a little on the camera left shoulder.

Day Five: Plan C (meet Flash)

This morning I really planned on going out to a park this afternoon to shoot a self portrait I've been thinking about doing for awhile. But it was cold and by 4:30 the light I was hoping for had slipped below a row of trees. So...Plan B. Plan B was shooting my son, Isaac, who's about 14 weeks old. But he's not feeling quite himself these last two days and while we did shoot for about 15 minutes, with the whole family pitching in, I really didn't get anything I liked.

Plan C. This is Flash. He's lived with me for over 20 years...sitting on this shelf or that in my various offices, dens, shops and now studio. So Flash and I put our heads together and this is what we came up with.

Strobist: Key is SB900 with ~10 degree grid, fired CLS at 0EV. Background is gridded and snooted SB800 with a blue gel, fired CLS at -.7EV. On camera (D300) flash is firing as well at -1.7EV to just keep any of the shadows on the front from getting too deep. Shot with 35mm F2.

Day Four: Expanding Horizons

One of the primary goals of this project for me is to photograph subjects that are not within my usual work. Mostly I shoot well lit people, whether kids, friends, or myself. So today I took my cameras (my D300 and my daughter's point and shoot Canon SD750) and went off in search of interesting compositions of line and form. I shot in black and white on both cameras (though I shot raw too on the D300). My goal was to find a strong composition based on line, shadow and found-framing.

I have to admit that I'm not the best judge of this type of photo. I look at the work done by others and am inspired...but when I shoot my own attempts at this genre, I am often conflicted as to whether or not I like the photo. This entry is no exception. What I do like is that I set a goal for the day's photo and I executed and that is a big big part of what I want to get out of this project.

I'd love to hear your comments. Thanks.

I've posted a few other candidates from the day's shooting to my Flickr stream. You can see them here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bmcphoto/sets/72157623124995328

Day Three: One more (sorta) out of the blue

Here, I've shot on the same background as yesterday. Lazy? In part. But after working on some of the images from yesterday, I discovered that I really liked the blue backdrop in black and white. And since this has a very different feel from Day Two's post...and since it WAS already setup...

Strobist: AB1600 in Westcott Apollo (with bottom half masked, making it a 28 in wide by 14 in tall lightbox) camera right and low. AB800 camera with 40 degree grid camera left and behind to separate and highlight side of face and brim of hat.

Here is one of Day Two's rejects processed in black and white that I like:

Day Two: Blue Sky in the Studio

Molly and I worked hard on getting the studio organized today. Once we got the studio in order, we set up a new blue muslin that arrived via UPS while we were away for the Christmas holiday and I broke out the big lens (Nikkor 70-200/2.8 VR) and she put on her colorful scarf and hat and we had some fun. The goal was sharp, poppy colors...I think we got what we set out to get.

Two done, a lot lot lot more to go...

Strobist info: SB800 at 1/2 power camera left into a 40 in Photoflex silver bounce umbrella. Fill from camera right with a Westcott 40in square silver reflector. Fired with Buff CSTs.

Day One: No Pressure

I've been trying to think about the photo I'd use to start this project. Our New Year's Day tradition around here is to tackle the clutter. We spent the morning and early afternoon organizing the storage area and the garage, with a little cleaning up in the studio as well. I thought about trying to photograph that process, but wanted to get it done and get it behind me and then turn to taking the kick-off photo. I gave some thought to going down town, and to a host of other locations, but in the end I decided to just take a self portrait of me relaxing, beer in hand, after finishing our organizational mission for the day. I know it's been noted that a journey of 1000 miles starts with a single step. My journey of 365 days, apparently, starts sitting down. Who knew?

A quick administrative note: There is a link at the bottom of the page by which you can subscribe to this blog via email (you can also add it to a Reader if you use one. I use Google Reader and highly recommend it.) You can subscribe using the reader of your choice through the gadget on the bottom of the right hand panel.

If you like my work (here or on the main blog at www.bmcportraits.wordpress.com/) please subscribe and leave me comments when you like (or don't like) a photo. Thanks, and I hope you enjoy...and have a GREAT new year.

Introduction

This is me. Taken a few months ago. Later today (January 1, 2010) I'll be posting my first photo to kick off my 365 project. My main blog is on Wordpress (www.bmcportraits.wordpress.com/) but I wanted to try Blogger for this project. Anyway...they'll likely be a lot of self portraits (as 365 days is a big commitment and there will no doubt be days that I either shoot me, or drop the ball. I expect to learn a lot and to be a better photographer at the other end. I hope you'll take the journey with me and offer words of support now and again...a little encouragement will no doubt be a great help during the slumps that must inevitably come. Dustin Diaz (http://photography.dustindiaz.com/) has just completed an impressive 365 for which he has earned (and deserved) great kudos. The quality level from end to end is the daunting thing for me...he delivered and I am inspired (and a tad awed) by that. Still, there are a number of similar images of him, at night, in SF, on the street/sidewalk. And I don't live in SF...here in Durham, it isn't that easy to find big city bokeh to carry a self portrait.

Back in a few hours....