New Photographic Projects

For as long as I can remember I have been a spontaneous photographer with all of my shoots. With limited exception, I have always just taken my camera with me most everywhere I went and just hoped to take some excellent pictures. 

Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it didn’t.

In fact, I sort of considered myself a journalistic sort of photographer who had an artistic bent and took all kinds of artistic abstracts and landscapes. Sort of an overly broad range for a photographer but it worked. A bit. I would travel somewhere that I had never been and just take random pictures hoping for a lucky shot and failing a lot of the time.

That being said, I have been trying to rework my way of shooting, as should you, to be more targeted. Now, I’m not saying that you need to decide you’re going to only do macro and then forsake all other forms of photography. In fact, I’d never advocate something that extreme. Instead, I think that the photographer’s focus should be on a topic and some research should be done when possible.

It may sound a little bit stuffy but it really isn’t that straight-laced. In my own life, my photography coincides with the travel I do and needs to ride shotgun with a host of other responsibilities including sightseeing with family and friends (read: not dedicated photographers) and not keeping them tapping their toes waiting for me, navigating new places with minimal information (although I do have my Garmin), and trying to make sure all of the plans stay in place. All of this while trying to take photos.

See the issue?

I may have every desire to make photography the primary focus of what I’m out doing but that’s not usually possible for how I usually travel. Have you ever set up a tripod and an intervalometer with family waiting on vacation? Don’t bother; unless the whole family is a strange amalgamation of photographers then it most likely won’t be appreciated. Now, I’m not saying that they aren’t supportive of the hobby, they most certainly are, but It’s hard for someone who’s not a nut for f/stops to understand why it takes 15 minutes to set up for a landscape or why you get up at 4 am for a sunrise.

That being said, back to the crux of this post. I’m trying to nail down a method that I can use to make more effective and targeted photos with less fuss and “spray and pray”. I would like to get into the habit of having at least a minimal idea of I want to shoot and if not at least what to expect from any given location.

So to bring it back to the idea of photographic projects, my next project is an incredibly broad one that is designed to help in my goal. I plan on making sure that:

a)      I research the places I am going to before I go and mentally visualize what I want to shoot at that location and how I plan on handling that. I also plan on having a pre and post shoot log in a notebook with me at all times for ideas and debrief after I get back home or to the hotel.

b)      Be able to develop a tighter style while shooting out and about that creates a story of the location that I’m at

c)       That being said, I plan on developing a method of a groundwork shot that will setup the location for the viewer and follow up with tighter shots working down to portraits and detail shots, aiming for 30-40 unique printable photos of the location

Now, this won’t happen overnight and may not happen just as I planned out here but the goal is to get as close to this as possible. This project will culminate in a Blurb book that will let me track the progress. It’s important to have a final product you can look at the end of a project and this is mine.

Here’s to working on projects and more importantly to finishing them! Wish me luck!

The Importance of Working with Your Hands

Again, I know this is a photography blog but I have to write every once and a while about things that are important to me (expect this more often as time goes on and I post more).

Today's topic is about the importance of building/fixing things with your own two hands. Now, I don't get enough time to do this as of now but I plan on making a concerted effort in to doing it more in the coming year (wanna see what else I wanna do? Check out yesterday's post here).

Working with your hands has been sort of written off in the last several years with more and more people sitting behind their desks at work all day long and then coming home to their disposable goods. After a full day's "work" of staring at a computer screen, let's face, we don't want to fix things that break or bother to craft something new. It's easier to plop down in front of the soft glow of the LCD and let the tube pander to us with the soft hum of Dancing With The Stars while we eat Ben and Jerry's. Now I know this isn't how everyone is but it has reached a startling level.

How do we fix this? Well, my first step was to start fixing things that broke. Like a lot of my compatriots, I grew up in a disposable society where if something broke it was easier to go down to Wal-Mart and buy a new one than it was to bother to fix it yourself (and let's face it, they just don't make products to last like they used to). But my thoughts on this have changed and now if something breaks, I fix it. If something doesn't do what I want, I work to make it better. Thankfully, I'm not the only one out there apparently that feels like this and that has put even more wind in my newly repaired sails.

Websites like Instructables and Make have made working with your hands a group activity. There are forums and project ideas that make it all too easy to get all sorts of things done (some more MacGyver than others...) as well as fun and rewarding. Got a great story about something you created? You can post on the forums and even upload directions so people can utilize the knowledge you have gained. Not only do you benefit but so does everyone else on the site.

Looking for something with a slightly stronger photography bent? Check out Larry Becker's Cheap Shots for cheap DIY tips that any photographer can use to save money and do some pretty cool tricks. Larry Becker does this spot on DTown TV a Kelby Media podcast and it is incredibly popular and beneficial to photographers.

My next project is going to come from a piece I saw on the Make website about restoring an old toolbox to its former glory (details available in a downloadable pdf off of the Make website). The restorer bought an old rusted toolbox for 13 dollars and restored it to its original state so that he could have a well made toolbox, not one of the cheap plastic ones they sell in stores these days. I think I'd like to do a similar project so its off to the flea markets for me!

No matter what it is, photography or not, just get out there this year and fix something, make something no matter what just get your hands dirty in 2011 and you'll feel better for it!

2011: New Year, New Opportunities

Happy New Year everyone!

No new photo today but it is the beginning of the new year and it's time I jumped back on the band wagon writing for this blog.

2010 was a unique year and a lot of transition for me and my photography and more than anything else I was too busy to get a lot of the things completed that I wanted to. School and work take a lot out of the day but as a new year's resolution (one of my many this year) I resolve that I will write as frequently as possible on the blog. I'm going to focus on the growth I make with my photography. I'll be working as hard as possible to keep new focus on both my photography and my blog.

If you're a follower of any of the other photography blogs out in the wild today you will notice that a lot of the new year's resolutions include taking more photos this year and I'm no exception in this regard, I'm going to try and make a concerted effort to take as many photos as possible in the next 364 days.

I could write an anthology on all the things I want to accomplish this year but here's the quick rundown:

1. Take more photos
2. Take better photos
3. Relay the stories of those photos on the blog more regularly
4. Learn a new skill
5. Lose some weight! (don't we all say that? but this year is going to be different!)

That's it for the resolutions and the only thing I have left to say is that it's a new year with new opportunities and we can only seize those opportunities if we set goals for ourselves and do our best to improve ourselves!

I hope 2011 is a happy and blessed new year for everyone!

A Revamp Coming Soon

So, as my counter tells me, I only have ten posts on the site so far but it's time for a revamp. I have been working furiously on some new pictures and a couple of new projects that are taking longer than expected, the reason for my sporadic postings, and as these come together I'm also redoing the site so I can more adequately update it and maintain it. It may be a week or so until I get the new site up but it will still be here on blogger but should be a little bit more polished. We'll see what I can do but under any circumstances I will have more regular posts coming up. I know I keep promising it but this time...its going to happen!

The Hoover Dam

Welcome back yet again!

I'm officially back sitting at my desk again and trying to work on some photos. I have to say, this trip to Vegas has certainly taught me something. Number 1 - Nevada is hot. But that's besides the point. Number 2 is the real meat of the issue. I need a better workflow. It has really never been an issue before but with so many photos in one trip, it has gone way, way out of control. I took about 2763 photos between 5 days...and 2 of those days I didn't even carry a camera around with me. Not good. Well, actually it's a perfectly fine thing but when you have no management for the data let alone the actual working on photos, you're just putting unnecessary strain on the shutter.

This isn't really an insane amount of photos. There are probably a couple hundred that I dedicated to panoramics (which may or may not get built depending on time I have available) and many were forays into the world of HDR. I have a couple HDR images in my portfolio but nothing since those has really been very effective (I haven't dedicated much time to this pursuit). So we can, in fact, drop the number of photos by, let's say, 200.

This leaves me with just about 2500 photos, give or take a few. Not a terribly huge amount but not easy or good to work with if you have a low powered Intel Atom netbook and your woefully underpowered desktop is halfway cross the country. I was stuck in a position where I had to dump my cards to the netbook and leave them to be worked on at a later date. By time I got home, the number was too much to handle in 5 sittings let alone 1. So, I have been gradually working on them one by one every couple of days and have a handful that I'm proud of.

But I will never be able to find all of the good ones. My life would be dedicated to editing for the next month (if my only editing time is after work and Sunday mornings) without even adding new photos to the catalog.

So what could have been done to avoid this disaster?

Step 1 - This can be no stronger message for a powerful laptop. Now, I'm not saying that you should do all of your work on a laptop but a solid machine could have saved me some serious trouble here. That will be the next purchase.

Step2 - Now that I have successfully whined about gear as any self respecting photographer/technophile would, I have to point out that a large portion of my problem is the inability to let go of photos. I believe one of the biggest hindrances to a photographer can be too many photos. This may sound like a contradiction but too many photos all in one place can make it hard to navigate and edit the ones that are diamonds in the rough.

I think it's important (and I haven't done this till now) that photographers need to use some sort of rating system to categorize photos. Lightroom uses a star method and I'm sure Aperture has it's own method as well. I will be implementing a new plan myself for separating the wheat from the chaff before I ever edit one photo. Chris Marquardt, a German photographer with an awesome podcast, Tips From The Top Floor, suggested a great method in one of his podcasts that I will be using a variant of for my own work (I can't recall all the details so if this sounds exactly like his then all credit goes to him!) I will label my photos 1-5 stars. 1 stars get pitched IMMEDIATELY. There will be no movement on this. 2's make it to a second pass and either get upgraded to a 3 or are put into an archive before any other editing, 3's are in need of processing. 4's are finished but could be better (the bulk of the processed work: good photos that aren't "Portfolio" quality) and 5's are....well...Holy God.  (I don't expect many of those)

This should certainly make it easier to work with my photos and will eliminate any unneeded excess.

Step 3 - TAKE MORE TIME. This sounds like an easy one, but I regret, with my job it isn't really possible. I do have a job that is not photography related so photos are a hobby...for now. But until further notice I need to take more time, if possible, in composing and thinking about my photos. After this trip I have been sorely disappointed with my performance and I know that a lot of it can be attributed to rushing. Admittedly, this was not a photo excursion. This was a trip for celebration and I tried to adhere to that. But I produced a lot of terrible images along the way. Which leads to the point: for a trip like this the DSLR may have been overkill. We were on a "Run and Gun" status and lugging the DSLR and 5 lenses was a totally unacceptable way to travel. So, in response, I will be using limiting my kit from now on on trips like this. More time changing lenses means more time not spent composing a shot. My ultimate preference would be to get an Olympus EP-2 or the like for this purpose but money doesn't allow for that right now so I will be limiting myself to my D90 and my 18-200 lens. It has a broad range and is totally versatile for the types of shooting I usually do. So without the extra lenses and the desire to avoid just spray and pray tactics, I will dedicate more time to composing and thinking about my shots and my lighting.

This seems like enough of a rant for now but I will have more to say on this subject tomorrow so be sure to look for it. As for now, enjoy a couple parting shots and keep shooting!

Las Vegas Lights

First post in a while but I'm back at it now and hope to be doing some more regular posts. There should be some more now also because I'm going to begin working on a couple photo books. One of which is going to be a car book that I've been thinking about and another one as a book about Lake Erie. The last, and most recent idea, is a book on, what else? Vegas. In one day I took about 1200 photos and tomorrow we will be going to the Grand Canyon and Hoover Dam and that's sure to be some more photos. But as of right now I'll show off a couple photos and start posting some more as the books progress!

P.S I added two Grand Canyon pictures but I want to put a little caveat on them... the computer I am using to post process these is neither calibrated nor powerful enough to handle photos....of any sort. So these are really just so that you can see them right now as opposed to waiting till I get home. But I promise I'll have several more fully fledged posts when I do get home!

But there will also be a quote of the day now, heard this in the lobby of the Aria casino

Girl 1 (drink in hand) - Hey listen to me!
Girl 2 (grabs Girl 1 by shoulders) - Chelsea! Shut the F*** up! We have to get to the next club! There are more drinks to be had!

Nate Deyarmin Memorial Benefit and Poker Run

I'm back from my hiatus! It was kind of a strange break, one I wasn't planning on taking but it happened anyway. A lot has been going on since my last post and I haven't had the time necessary to write anything or get any photos posted. But don't worry I haven't stopped taking photos and actually have a pretty nice back catalog of things I'd like to get posted as soon as possible so look for a set of posts coming in rapid fire pretty soon.

But I do have three pictures today that I would really like to show. These are shots of a gentleman's car at the Nate Deyarmin Memorial Benefit and Poker Run (an event in my town that my dad's band plays at - Check em out at TheLegendsBand.net! They do 50's and 60's rock and roll!) This Cobra was a great looking car and has always been one of my favorites.

That's it for the post. Check out the photos and check back often for the next couple posts and there will MOST CERTAINLY be more car photos coming up!