day 6 of 7

getting things back on track...

nikkor 50mm f/1.8D: 6 of 7

day 5 of 7 (um yeah)

Well, so much for shooting an image a day for seven consecutive days. Getting sick put a bit of a kink in my plan. I feel a lot better today, so I'm going to pick up where I left off. I guess now I'll have to say it was seven images over the course of nine days. I'll post up today's image a little later.

day 4 of 7

Bummed. I'm fighting a cold and didn't get around to shooting anything for day four. I should of embraced the misery and shot something appropriately themed for my day of being out of sorts. Oh well.

to be continued...

day 3 of 7

It's very cold outside and I'm feeling a little under the weather.

nikkor 50mm f/1.8D: 3 of 7

7 days with a 50 gallery

day 2 of 7

An abstract macro shot with the 50 and an extension tube.

nikkor 50mm f/1.8D: 2 of 7
7 days with a 50 gallery

day 1 of 7

So starting yesterday, I'm creating an image a day for 7 consecutive days with a single lens.

nikkor 50mm f/1.8D: 1 of 7

7 days with a 50 gallery

aiad reflection

Here it is, the second day of December, two days after a month long "an image a day" project and I have to say it. It felt weird not taking a photo yesterday. It was also a bit of a relief though. Finding time to create an idea, set up a shot and execute it during my already busy schedule was difficult sometimes. Some of the images came easily and some not so much. The quick ones took thirty minutes or so to shoot, process and make a blog post about them. Then there were some that ended up taking closer to two hours to get through the whole process. That's a lot of time spent chasing an image, but I really enjoyed doing it.

I learned a few things along the way too, which was part of the reason I wanted to do the project. I had a couple eureka moments with lighting and delved further into post-processing software/methods. I also spent a lot of time thinking about photography. I had several photo ideas come to mind that would take much more effort than what I could cram into two hours. Soooo I have almost convinced myself to do a 52 week project for 2011, which would mean shooting one image a week for the year. I think I could produce a "better" image given a week's time to stroll through the creative process.

I'm pretty stoked on every image from the series, but
here are some of my favorites from the month:


11/08/10 - strummin'
(It's my boy doing what he does... I like that.)


11/10/10 - it's getting dark too early
(I never shoot landscapes.)


11/19/10 mike and das boot
(Mike just looks pimp!)


11/24/10 headed to mellow(Maybe I played too much in high school... I don't know.)



Here's another for the outtake gallery.
I'm pretty sure there are a few more that will end up there.

11/28/10 - CT Kitteh

see the rest from the month long project at and a others at kinetic-images.com/projects

aiad 11/30/10

The last one of the project... number 30

11/30/10 late night weirdness

see all thirty images form the month
long exercise at kinetic-images.com

aiad 11/29/10

Project photo number 29.
I was pretty tired when this image came about.
I pretty much had a get a shot and get to bed mentality.

11/29/10 - 11:21 pm

check out more at kinetic-images.com

aiad 11/28/10

Project photograph number 28.
I set up a flash to shoot something else, but ended up with a self portrait as my photo for the day.

11/28/10 - self portrait
see more form the series at kinetic-images.com

aiad 11/27/10

This is what happens when it's late, I'm tired and have a headache.
project photo no. 27

11/27/10 - hanging feet

check out more at kinetic-images.com

aiad 11/26/10

Project photo number 26. This was a quick test shot using a chinese lantern as a light modifier. The quality of light was pretty sick. I'll use it again, fer sure.

11/26/10 - soft light

check out more at kinetic-images.com

aiad 11/25/10

Project photo number 25... I was setting up for a shoot I had the next morning and popped a few test exposures. I decided to use one of the tests as my image of the day. I ended up going a little strange with the processing too.

11/25/10 - test shot

check out more at kinetic-images.com

aiad 11/24/10

An image a day project photo number 24. This one was shot on my way to the mellow mushroom. I wasn't feeling too serious about photos at the moment.

11/24/10 - on the way to mellow

check out more at kinetic-images.com

aiad 11/23/10

Project photo number 23. When I first started shooting, I used four different film bodies before going to digital. One of those four was a Zeiss Ikon Super B. I enjoyed using it, but I was stoked to move on to a camera that had a functioning light meter.

11/23/10 - super b

check out the rest of the series at kinetic-images.com

aiad 11/22/10

Project photo number 22... I was tired and parked in front of the tv when this one came to mind.

11/22/10 - idiot box

check out more form the series at kinetic-images.com

aiad 11/21/10

Project photo number 21. This was another one of those I needed a photo and didn't have much time to make it happen. My buddy in the photo was on a schedule, so we spent about 10 minutes grabbing the kid's bike from the basement and setting up the shot. A few frames later I was putting the lights away.

11/21/10 - big kid


check out more at kinetic-images.com

aiad 11/20/10

Project photo number 20. This photo sort of just happened. It was late and we were hanging out and I needed a photo for the day.

11/20/10 - mike and das boot


check out more at kinetic-images.com

aiad 11/19/10

Project photo number 19. This shot was set up and executed pretty quickly. We were getting ready to eat dinner and needed the table. I spent a little bit of extra time processing this one. I was trying to create a cool/blue gray sort of look and it took some time playing to find the end result I was after. I'm digging what I came up with.

11/19/10 - photo of a photographer

check out more from the series at kinetic-images.com

aiad 11/18/10 (plus an outtake)

Project photo number 18. I'm pretty stoked that I've managed to make it this far into the month long project. There has definitely been a few days/nights I really wasn't into shooting anything. But for each of those not so feeling it moments, I managed to push through and ended up enjoying the time spent chasing an image.

11/18/10 - raaaaarrrrrrr

Here is an outtake from the same setup. It will probably end up being my new face book profile photo.

11/18/10 - chillin'

check out more from this months project at kinetic-images.com

aiad 11/17/10

Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale, enough said.

11/17/10 - celebration ale
check out my currently on going project at kinetic-images.com

aiad outtakes 11/14/10

Here are a couple of outtakes from my current project.

11/14/10 - street light moon


11/14/10 - slice of light

aiad 11/16/10

Project photo number 16. I have lots of odd stuff in my basement that was left by the previous home owners. The old guy that used to lived here had a small wood working area down there. When he and his wife moved out, I inherited most of the more useless tidbits. The majority of the items are pretty old and possibly worthless, but they can be interesting to look at. For example check out this old container of Boraxo powdered hand soap. After a quick Google search, it appears this tin container and the soap in it could be 60 years old. Kind of neat, I thought.

11/16/10 phs

I also want to mention the lighting in this shot. I used the same lighting set up for this shot, but scaled it down and controlled it a little better. Which is very cool to me. Part of my reasoning for doing this project was to learn new things and develop better techniques. To me this images is an example of accomplishing both. Stoked!

check out the rest of the series at kinetic-images.com

aiad 11/15/10

I had a tough time getting an image idea for my most recent project photo. I wandered around in my head for a while trying to come up with a shot idea. Eventually I sort of caved in and decided to just get some random object and shoot it with a simple one light setup... So I grabbed a potato. It's not the most exciting photo, but it kept me from missing the 15th day of my month long project.

11/15/10 - red tater


check out more from the series at kinetic-images.com

aiad 11/14/10

Sometimes it's fun just to walk around with the camera way out of focus and see what you come up with. I spent about 10 minutes walking around a friends house photographing shadows and light sources and came up with this image of the day.

11/14/10 - soft glow

see more images from this project at kinetic-images.com

aiad 11/13/10

It was late in the evening before I managed to grab an image for this day.

11/13/10 - bourbon by the campfire
see more images from the project at kinetic-images.com

aiad 11/12/10 (plus outtakes)

Project photo number 12.

11/12/10 - just dande
During the ten minutes I was laying on the ground shooting this lone dandelion, I ended up with a few different images happening . I played with a few angles and tried to accomplish a few different affects with the existing light and a small bounce card. In doing so I ended up with a few different images that I liked. The last image I shot was the one I put the most effort into, so it was chosen as my image of the day. But I had several others that worked and that I liked also. I've had this happen a couple of times so far, so I decided to make an aiad-outtake gallery. I'll try and update this gallery a little as I go.


11/12/10 - happy accident

11/12/10 - dande lens flair

check out more at kinetic-images.com

aiad 11/11/10

I had a very lazy day behind the lens. Today's project photo (No. 11) was just a quick snapshot utilizing some nice window light.

11/11/10 - crazy face

check out more photos at kinetic-images.com

aiad 11/10/10

10 days in...



check out the whole series at kinetic-images.com

aiad 11/09/10

An image a day number nine. I'm pretty pumped on this one. There is a little photoshop trickery going on, but I'm way stoked on the lighting.


check out more from the series at kinetic-images.com

aiad 11/08/10

An image a day project photo number eight. I had a pretty big grin on my face during the capture of this image. As I was composing the shot, my son started playing the theme song to the Super Mario Brothers video game. I couldn't help but chuckle a bit.

11/08/10 - strummin'

check out more at kinetic-images.com

aiad 11/07/10

The 7th image of the project is just a quick snapshot from Sunday morning.

11/07/10 - kids snapshot

you can see more at: kinetic-images.com

aiad 11/06/10

It was about 11:00 am when I checked my phone and saw a pic message of the subject for my image of the day. It wasn't until about 11:00 pm that I started setting up the shot though. My buddy Merritt, owner of Re:Cycles Bike Shop, brought his new hotness over to my place for a late night shoot. He has a polished black market killswitch, freshly built with all kinds of shinny polished bits. I was stoked to get a photograph of it in it's still virgin state.
This bike is sick!

11/06/10 - killswitch

(click for a larger image)

check out more from the aiad project: kinetic-images.com

Dylan - Senior Portraits

I mentioned my nephew's senior portraits in an earlier blog post, so I figured I should post some other images from the shoot. It wasn't anything real serious. We were just having fun and trying to make some rad photos. We broke it into two sessions. The first being more of the typical senior portrait style shoot. My nephew's friend John was a great help acting as my lighting assistant. I think several shots from the first session worked out very well.

The second session was shot focusing on Dylan's interest in mixed martial arts. This was a first for me. I have a background in martial arts, but never had the opportunity to shoot anything that was related. We shot a few fight scenes and they were mostly a trial and error sort of event. We had an idea of what we were looking for, but getting that moment captured was a challenge. I think we did well, but I see room for improvement.


more images can be seen at kinetic-images.com

aiad 11/05/10

Project photo number 5. This one was a bit of an experiment. I created the rim light using a technique I had not seen before. It was something I saw applied in a product shot and I wanted to try using it for a portrait. Since it was a first attempt, I think it worked out pretty well. I saw a few things to try differently next time, but I also saw some things that definitely worked.

11/05/10 white shades head shot


more images from the series can be seen here: kinetic-images.com


******
This is sort of a project photo within a photo project. I've had a white shades thing going for a bit and this one belongs in that series as well.

aiad 11/04/10

Here is the 4th photo of the project. I don't have much to say about it, it's just my truck.


11/04/10 - it still has the factory tape deck


Check out a larger version of this image and others in the series at kinetic-images.com

aiad 11/03/10

So I've now completed three days of this project and I'm still at it. Yesterday's shot idea came about on the way home form work. I had a dried flower hanging out at the house to use as a subject. The flower was clipped for another photo I had in mind that never happened, so the flower ended up getting tossed on a table and forgotten about. The image I came up with is nothing like the first idea the flower was intended for, but I like the results.


11/03/10 - dried flower


a larger image can be seen here: kinetic-images.com

an image a day

I've been feeling a little unfulfilled with my photography habits here lately. I mess around with photography in some form almost everyday, but I usually end up with very little to show for it or showing very little of it. I'm starting to think I have a "flaw" in how I approach my photography.

So in an effort to help my creative process flourish, I have decided to commit myself to a month long photo project. My plan is to shoot something, then process and post an image every day for the month of November. I hope by focusing on completing these multiple "short term" photo assignments, I'll learn a little more about my process of creating images and develop better habits. So far I'm two for two...

11/01/10 - suki

11/02/10 - abstract leaves


larger images can be seen here : kinetic-images.com

white-shades-backflip

It's been a while since I've shot a white shades image, but that doesn't mean I've forgotten about them. I shot my nephew's senior portraits this past weekend and slipped in a white shades photo during the session. I'm pretty stoked on this one!

dirty bird

DIRTY BIRD

photo booth

So a while ago, I started playing around with a "photo booth" idea. My wife and I spend a good bit of time hanging out around the house with friends. So I thought it would be cool/fun to have a "photo booth" set up sometime when we had company over. So I tried it out one night and we had a ton of fun, so we did it on two other occasions.

The Idea:
Set up the Booth
Instruct the guest on how to use the equipment

Create fun, silly no pressure photos

The Booth:
Camera on a tripod, with a remote, set on a 5 second delay
Some reference points for depth of field ("x" on the floor)
Simple solid background
Simple lighting set up
Simple instructions: Have fun!


The Photo:
After capture, I cropped the images and made most of them black and white. Nothing fancy, just a quick and dirty edit.

I really like how many of the images turned out.
Check out about 40 more images
from the this photo exercise here ---> kinetic-images.com