Project52 Week 1 Assignment – Vision Statement

 

I came across Project52 just before the new year and decided to give it a shot. Basically, you get assignments on Sunday/Monday and have two weeks to submit your image. The first assignment was to write your vision statement, and create an image to go along with it near/around your home.

http://project52.org/assignment-one-who-are-you/

Writing the vision statement for me was a little tough. Try not to sound arrogant, but give yourself some room to grow, make it something to look back on to guide yourself. I think I got it alright. For the image, I originally intended to shoot my wife standing at the work bench and grinding something, but I decided to make it a self portrait, and that it’d be a more interesting image with the moto in the shot then just a piece of steel in the vice.

I removed the Bonnies seat and clamped a piece of 1/4″ plate to the frame and had at it. Placed my SB-600 on the bench right across from the gas tank angled towards me. Triggered it with onboard flash via CLS. I set my focus and then turned off all the lights in the garage, which made it interesting trying to set the remote release with 5 second timer, set the flashlight down and keep the beam out of the shot, hit the correct spot with the grinder and not spray the camera too bad with sparks.

I left the camera in manual mode, and set the exposure off the integrated meter. Body is a d300s, lens a Tokina 11-16. Focal length is 12mm, though I ended up cropping tight. ISO set at 800, only because I forgot to change it to 200, my preferred ISO. Aperture is ƒ5.6. I started wide open, and then adjusted until I liked the amount of focus on the moto.

Post consisted of burning out a house in the background (opened the garage door for the black bg) and taking some of the glare off my face, then cutting the saturation a hair.

I’m happy I finally got around to a self portrait, and something that includes a few of my hobbies, just like the vision statement says.