An old Garden Gnome shot I intend to improve upon Week 3′s assignment has been announced, and it’s the always popular “Still Life”.

I’ve got a garden gnome in the courtyard that I like. I’ve shot it once before while testing one of my father in law’s old lenses. I think the piece is older then I am actually.

This gnome has been standing guard for about 3 years now. He’s pretty weathered, and I’m pretty sure it’s a he. He’s hanging out on a bed of red mulch, and surrounded by nice leafy green things. I think I’ll try improving on that last take, maybe with some artificial light this time. Try to create some hard, dramatic edges. Last time it was very dreamy.

Project52 Week 2 B&W test

Project52 Week 2 test image

These were both shot for week 2′s assignment, shoot a portrait of a stranger. I joined some friends at Fashion Island in Newport Beach, CA as they shopped for some denim. I thought it might be a solid place for this assignment.

I couldn’t quite bring myself to approach anyone, and didn’t really see anyone that fit what I had in my mind for the assignment either. As we decided it was time to head back to the cars, we rounded a fountain and found a pair of girls chatting away.

I asked if I could photograph them and after struggling to explain why, got to squeeze the shutter release a few times. This blonde caught my eye the most, her friend was leaning back and didn’t really fit into the image quite as well. It turned out that they were both pretty young and were disturbed that the boy of their affection had not returned a text message yet. In this image, she had just caught a glimpse of her mom walking back to meet with them, and had a bit of an embarrassed grin on her face. Realizing her age all at once and still being nervous about the experience anyways, I felt like a bit of a creeper and didn’t want to stick around to talk to mom.

I like this image quite a bit but feel like I hit a good one pretty quickly. I’d only attempted one other shot prior to this, so I’m stretching the due date out a bit and will attempt again this weekend. The other shot came from a quick trip to CES last week. I brought my Nikon with me specifically for this assignment. I happened across a photographer outside on a smoke break (his, I’ve quit). He fit perfectly what I’d hoped to find, texture. His hair was wild and salt and pepper colored. Atop his mussed do sat Ray Bans, and on his nose a pair of reading glasses. A few days of stubble graced his face, and he smoked a cigarette while reading emails (I imagine) on his iPhone. I asked if I could photograph him, again stumbling through an explanation why (I feel as if saying I’m a student would be cheating, as P52 is supposed to prepare you for professional assignments, hence the assignments and due dates). I managed to pop off one shot before thanking him and quickly returning to my fellow traveler.

I’d hoped to capture an image of a man with texture such as his with an off camera flash, enhancing the rough texture. I hadn’t exactly practiced this technique yet, but read all about it on the drive to Vegas. I’d played a bit in the car but once I hit the show floor I changed the settings to an aperture mode to quickly pickup snapshots of the wares. I didn’t remember to change things back before this shot, so it was terribly overexposed. I shoot in RAW primarily for situations such as this, to cover for my negligent skills. It’s saved me before. Some work in Aperture, a little fooling around in Snapseed, and I’ve got this. Better luck next time I say.

The week 1 critique just wrapped up. I tuned into the live broadcast on Vokle but discovered I didn’t really need to. In addition to the live show Don, head guy in charge of Project52, breezed through all of the submissions on the assignments flickr thread and did an audio critique of each vision statement. Not of the pictures though, which bummed me a bit because I was proud of my shot! I’m glad to know I can miss a live show and still manage to get the info I need as I’ll be attending a SmugMug meet up group next Thursday.

My critique consisted of cutting down my vision statement to simply “I tell the story of the day” or even shorter, “I tell stories”. Ehhhh, I think every photo tells a story in some way, so I don’t see that as necessarily a guiding light when I get lost on my path to greatness. I could have left out the second sentence, about capturing the experiences and hobbies I enjoy, though that’s what I enjoy shooting the most at the moment, “I capture a moment that others don’t get to see, in a way that those who were there did not see” is important to me. That really describes the way I try to shoot.

‘Til next time.

With week 1 wrapping up last night, I was motivated and ready for this weeks assignment to post. I really had no idea what to expect, and was definitely surprised to jump right into a solid project. This weeks assignment is to shoot a portrait of a stranger, not a candid or street photograph, but a real honest to goodness portrait of someone you’ve never met before.

Criteria:

- The person should be unknown to you.
- It can be a street portrait, studio portrait or environmental portrait.
- The portrait should be simply lit.
- Tell us a little bit about the person – through the image and the caption.
- Tell us how you approached and worked with the subject(s) for the project.

I live in Orange County, CA, and the weather right now is incredible. I’ve no doubt there will be all sorts of strangers available to photograph. I’m especially excited about this project because I’ve signed my wife and I up for a studio portrait lighting course at Calumet. It’s been awhile since I’ve done anything in a studio, and she’s just getting interested in picking up a camera to support her painting.

This week will be spent plotting ideas and concepts. I’ve got the lighting worked out, very simple, and looking for possible locations. Updates will come.