Old School Challenge: results!

Scott Kelby of NAPP challenged the photo world to shoot 24 or 36 frames old-school style; no chimping on the LCD.

I accepted *part* of his challenge - I shot my 24 frames just like I would have if I was shooting film. Manual focus, manual exposure, no chimping. I did not, however, have a print made from Mpix - they're not cheap and I have better uses for my limited funds. Don't get me wrong, I've had orders for clients done by Mpix and they rock.

Anyway, here are my picks.

Bertie

Sean

Front yard

Sparklers

Overall I very much enjoyed the challenge! 

With any luck I'll have a self-portrait up sometime this week. Not sure when - I have to wait for my muse to strike. Sometime before Sunday though.

Unless something terribly interesting comes along, I probably will not be posting regularly during the week. I hope you had a great Memorial Day!

Old School Challenge

Scott Kelby put up a challenge today - shoot 24 or 36 frames without looking at your LCD. I'm gonna do it.

LINK to his original post!

His challenge also includes the opportunity to donate $$$ to an orphanage in Kenya.

Openness

I was out shooting yesterday evening for a project that will remain un-named for now. This project required several things to come together *just* right, so I was focused rather intently on the factors that were going to change and make this picture super awesome.

As such, it took me a solid 10 minutes to realize I was surrounded by other potential pictures, each of them as good or better than the one that was in my head at the time.

While I waited for the sun to set, I shot the following:

Then as the light approached I got the pictures I wanted (sort of). I then ran from the approaching rain.

The moral of the story: look around and keep your mind open to the world around you. You are almost always surrounded by photos just waiting to be taken!

Car ride back to Boulder

During my long road trips I keep my D300 + 18-55mm kit lens at hand.

Got some decent shots, considering I was rocking 75+ mph on the highway...

Both look a little HDR-ish, but they aren't. They each have just a few adjustments in post processing.

Whenever I establish a driving buddy, as in the case of this Ford Fusion, I make sure to photograph them. I enjoyed about an hour with an older Porsche 911 as well, unfortunatelyAlbuquerque from the highway doesn't exactly make for an inspiring background and I couldn't get a decent angle on the Porsche.

I finished off my first day of a real job today - 8 hours of paperwork, orientation and stuffing envelopes (I am the intern, after all).

More pictures to come *sometime* in the next few days... I just don't know when.

Yesterday...

I spent yesterday hiking to and around downtown Flagstaff. I brought my camera along and took pictures of anything and everything that caught my fancy - a few of them are good enough to show off here. I shot with my 28mm f/2.8 all day, most of the time wide open with high shutter speeds. 

I spent today cleaning and packing; tomorrow I'll be driving back to Boulder, CO to start a summer internship and to (hopefully) get back into my groove shooting families, portraits, and a gorgeous car once in a while... We'll likely experience some continuing Blog Lite around here whilst I get settled in Boulder. Have a great couple days!

Inspired: Thanks to Luna Luciani Photography

I spent some time wandering through Flickr yesterday afternoon, and I came upon a collection of Photography by Sara Strimpel, one of my little brother's friends and a talented photographer.
She has a bunch of very diverse work and I spent probably an hour going through her 440 pictures.

This photo really inspired me to get off my ass, grab my camera and go shoot.

© Luna Luciani Photography 

It seems that everyone is always looking for a new interesting way to show the world... but so few people do it upside down! I grabbed my camera, turned it upside down and practically ran out the door to try my hand at seeing the world upside down.

 Unsurprisingly, most of what I shot was crap. Seeing the world in a new way is really tough and I just couldn't get ahold of any compositions that looked better upside down than they did right side up.

It was a great exercise though; anything that forces me to change my perspective can help me grow as a photographer and, I think, as a person in general.

After I got back from this shoot, I did the whiskey shoot in the following post, which turned out much better in my opinion.

TGIF: first round is on me

Had a bit of fun yesterday afternoon in my pseudo-studio:

Jim Beam. I used two glasses so I could pour from one glass to the other fairly quickly. This allowed me to get a variety of activities from the liquid without wasting a bunch. If Beam Global Spirits & Wine were to ask me to do this shoot for them, I'd shoot at a lower ISO (100 instead of 800) and I'd pour from the bottle... that I assume they would provide.

Lit with my ever-trusty pizza softbox. 1/250 sec at f/5.6 or so.

I've got another post coming tomorrow, inspired by a high school photographer who will go un-named for now...

Please, enjoy your Friday responsibly ;-)