The daily challenge...continued....

Here we are...today's photo. I took it this morning when I got to work. It's part of my workbench.

A new goal...

The other night I had a long talk with a friend I haven't seen or heard from in about 15 years. (wow, I feel old) In the course of our discussion, she told me about the blog she started to chronicle her life and challenges raising two young boys with Down Syndrome. Head over here to read her adventures.

She told me that her goal is to try and reach out to others who are going through similar challenges and offer hope and understanding. She also said that the biggest challenge is figuring out what to post when everything seems so boring and uninteresting to her.

In an effort to inspire her to post something more often, I am resurrecting a project I had started while still a student at Hallmark. Only now, I will be sharing the images I create with the readers of this blog. Here is an outline of said project...

I will challenge myself to create one image each day. But, there are criteria to how that image can be created.

1. I must not manipulate any items to create a pleasing composition. All images must be of items exactly as I find them. The purpose of this is to make myself better at composing images in the camera.

2. The image must be obtained in no more than 5 attempts. Exposure adjustments and angle tweaking must be done in less than five attempts. If an acceptable image cannot be obtained, then the day is a failure and no more attempts can be made until the following day. This will also help me to improve my skill at finding compositions and ensuring proper exposure.

3. The only things permitted in photoshop will be white balance and maybe a conversion to b+w or platinum process. (sort of a sepia look) The only other thing that photoshop will be used for will be resizing the raw image and saving as a jpeg. (so it can be posted online)

4. Images will be created wherever I may be on that day. This will allow me to keep up with the plan weather I'm at home, on the road, at a show, etc...

5. In the event of a failure, the five attempts will be posted on here for discussion. Yes, I will share my shame as well as my successes.

Here's a link to the images created in the original Apartment Project.


Now, to start things off I will show the three styles I might choose for the final image.

Color:


Black and White:


Platinum:


Now, do you folks think this is a good idea? Or do you feel I should choose one style and use it for every image? (Color, b+w, platinum)

Some changes are in the works...but first, something important.

Alright, my previous entry about the death of a close friend was a mistake.

See, she's still alive. I had been misinformed and through a series of events, I am now back in touch with her.

Her life is a wreck and she's in counseling now for a lot of rather horrible things that happened to her over the last 3-5 years. (things I was never aware of)

Rather than pass judgement and ignore her, I'm going to do my best to stay in touch with her and hope that she's honest with me.

Things will most likely never be like they were...but I still consider her a close friend.


This is the last I will speak of this here...

Her last wish was to talk to me one last time...

A year ago, I was making plans with her. She was going to move here from baltimore when her lease expired and we'd finally be together.

Then, there was a car accident that broke her collarbone.

This was followed by the diagnoses of inoperable brain cancer and a month of daily chemo and radiation treatment.

I found out in January that the cancer had spread through the rest of her body and she was in the hospital. I wanted to get to see her while she was still alive. But, she didn't want me to see her in the condition she was in. (which was described to me as grey, skeletal, her veins had burst from the treatments, and she looked worse than something from a horror movie)

Earlier tonight, I was notified that she was being taken off the respirator but wanted to talk to me one last time before she died. All she wanted was to hear my voice again. Her family had to sneak her phone into the room and dial it for her.

I spoke with her for about 5 minutes before she had to go because she was too weak to talk.

Now, she's with me in my heart and memories. And free from suffering.

Rest in peace Brighteyes...I will miss you.

Some new stuff

First, a couple shots from vacation followed by a pair from a recent photo shoot.

On vacation

Friday morning I left with the company I work for on the annual company vacation.

This year it's a Disney vacation...a week in orlando, with a wide assortment of entertaining activities to do. (and I only have to pay for my food)

On the way down, we saw the flaming wreckage of what was either an SUV or a minivan.


Then, saturday morning I did my share of driving in torrential downpours while driving through southern Georgia and north florida. (though I didn't take pictures as I was driving)

Saturday night we went to a great club called "The Castle" near Tampa. I met some cool people, saw some scary people, and took a lot of pictures of the things I found interesting....




These have not been edited properly yet. I've only had this laptop for about a week and I haven't had time to properly compare the results of photoshop on this vs my desktop. So I've only resized and applied watermarks to the images thus far.

Today was a cookout. It rained a lot. (naturally) It was still fun to meet new people and have a lot of fun conversations.

Tomorrow we journey to Orlando. We will be staying in condos for a week, going to pirate dinner theatre, mystery theatre, disney stuff, and more. We were promised to be taken out every night for drinking...(which I hope to avoid since I don't drink)

Guess I'll take a look at today's photos and see if anything was worth taking....

Not a lot going on.

It's been a fun few weeks.

I was on the set of the movie "All's Faire in Love" last week. Where I shot a lot of pictures of various stars. (including Ann Margaret, Christina Ricci, Matthew Lillard, Marty Klebba, and more)

Unfortunately I am under contract to not release or post those images online until the movie is released. So you're not going to be able to see them for at least another year.

Instead, here's some other images from the Michigan ren faire.