On and On We Go

I got over my nervousness and ended up doing some maternity shots for Sarah the other week. As it happens, she is a wonderful model, it was a very relaxing atmosphere, and I discovered something about myself that day too: when I look through the viewfinder, I lose all self-consciousness about what I'm doing. I kept the camera glued to my face most of the time which enabled me to find some great angles of her as she turned to talk to her sister or boyfriend:


Posted with permission

I had no qualms in telling her to "HOLD IT!" and overall they were really happy with the shots.

Another great thing was again, how much it taught me about post-processing. I had a minor disaster which turned out to be a blessing in disguise; each time I opened a shot and edited it, GIMP was compressing the JPEG a little further, until I ended up with some really weird and pixelated results which I only happened to notice on close inspection the day I was supposed to hand the shots over. I had to redo them all from scratch - but it was a good thing really, because I had overcooked the shots a little bit, and second time around I went a little easier, just let the mother's beauty show through with less editing, and I was much happier with the results.

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In other news, I did another gig shoot for Goldrush Radio where the lighting was terrible and I wasn't as happy with this set as the previous:



Still, the guys liked them enough to ask me to do a promo shoot with them. This will again test my creativity as I have no idea how to do this sort of thing without it coming out cheesy. Much input from the band will be needed.

In between all that I've been shooting some more nature shots, mostly because I find them easy and fun and very relaxing. Cliché I know but I am still able to use this type of shooting as a learning experience. For example:



Ah, I love love love this shot. The light, the colour, the bokeh... The sun was just setting and the light was such a beautiful colour; I was lucky enough to chance upon these blooms coming out of someone's garden so I took a few shots of them from different angles and this one really captures the scene I saw. Taking light into account in composition is not something I'd considered that much because in the past couple of months, due to the time of year the light has always been pretty much the same. Now I can see what the spring/summer evenings have to offer and again, it has given me something else to think about.

One area I am struggling with is my 365 Project. A 365 is, simply put, a project where you have a shot for each day of the year (preferably taken on the day in question). For the first three weeks it was a piece of cake to pick up my camera every day and get something a little different each time, but the past ten days or so have proven a little trickier. It's not that I have no opportunity to shoot, but more that I have no idea how to be original every single day. So yeah, between you and me I have cheated a little bit; missing a couple of days then uploading a few from the same day and changing the date stamp. It's hard, man! Although on reflection I'm surprised I only have four flower shots in the whole collection thus far.

The hardest part is getting out and about. There's only so much random crap in my home that I can take extreme DOF shots of. But out in the world there is no end of opportunity as long as you keep your eyes open:



MOO.

Happy snapping, darlings.