Well if it hasn’t been glaringly obvious, I haven’t made the time to update this blog in a little while. I could rattle off the excuses of being busy, or simply get to the point of saying I just don’t have the willpower to post on the blog, but let’s pretend that’s not the case. Instead, I’ll frill up this blog with something new, something fresh. At least in the terms of me posting on the subject of my photography work.
If you’re a Flickr follower of mine, you’ll have noticed lately that my 365 project came to a halt a couple of weeks ago. I’ll admit, I gave up. It was much harder to do than I thought, especially with so much going on in my life. It’s really hard to set aside an hour of an already busy day to take a self-portriat, especially after commiting to the fact that I wasn’t just going to take regular, “sit in front of the camera” self portriats. Those are boring, and don’t really help with my overall photography progression. So when it really comes down to it, I was spending much more than just an hour a day trying to convolute creative ideas up for my daily 365 shot, which in turn became a daunting task of the day that just ran itself off the tracks as time went on. For the most part, I’m quite thrilled that I even made it past ten days of the 365 project; in fact, I made it all the way up to Day 89. Another 11 more and I would have hit the 100 milestone, but so much for that. Another factor in the whole departure of my 365 work was the whole concept of taking pictures of myself. When I first started the project, I already hated taking pictures of myself. Hell, I wont even let family take pictures of me without making a fuss in front of their cameras (I got really good at throwing my hand up in front of my face at the last second, paparazzi style, just before their shutters closed. I guess you could say that my years of using cameras has taught me one thing, how to avoid being in a picture). Needless to say, all the 365 project made me do was want to do more model/portrait work, but I’m at the periless stage of trying to find someone willing enough to sit in front of my camera. I don’t want to immediately start working with strangers, I need to be able to find my comfort level, blah blah blah and so on.
Basement Dwellers
Where does that leave me? Well, with Spring finally warming up this city, I’ve slowly started taking my photography to the streets. The first signs of warm weather in Edmonton had me wandering my new neighbourhood in the search of photo opertunities, it was wonderful being out and about again, especially being in a new area that I haven’t fully explored. I can foresee a lot of new places that my photography will take me this summer, I have easy access to Edmonton’s wonderful River Vallies, hipster/trendy areas and downtown areas. It should lead to an interesting summer of photography, who knows where I’ll end up next. Heck, I may even, someday if things all work out in my facor, have some amazing people that will sit in front of my camera for me.
Over the long weekend, I managed to take a ‘tour’ of the local mall and surrounding apartment complexes of the area. In the shot to the right, I spent an hour switching between a few filters on my 50mm waltzing through towering apartment complexes. I ended up attaching a Red Filter in hopes that the cloudless day would help me out with some Black & White post treatments. With such a sunny day, I was glad to have attached the Red Filter, as anything in colour was being blown out, but that’s what I get for shooting in the afternoon. This shoot grew my love of Black & White photography to an even higher level as well. There’s just something about the feeling that a Black & White photo will protray over a highly saturated colour photo. You could be anywhere in the world, with a Black & White photo and not know when the actual photo was taken. Be it that this is just an effect of the zero colour spectrum playing on our time-line receptors, but it’s just something I’ve always loved and is a format I will always continue shooting in. Thankfully, with this digital age, I can still shoot all my frames in colour and then sneak the conversion over to Black & White later.
Speaking of the age of Digital age of Photography, I’ve also recently been shooting with an old Pentax SLR. Yep, I’ve been toying around with film. A friend of mine lent me his Pentax MZ-50 SLR, insisting that I try out the way Photography used to be. He was sure to lecture me in his old man ways, telling me how hard and self-evolving the film ways used to be, and how he had to walk to work in snow uphill both ways… So I took him up on the offer and borrowed his SLR for some evaluation of the age of film. Embarrassingly enough, even though I’ve had the camera in my possession since February, I still haven’t finished the first roll of film I put into the camera. Maybe there’s a hippy deep down insie of me saying this, but I’m having a real hard time not wanting to waste any of the shots on the roll. With digital, I can shoot as much as I want for as long as my SD card can store all of the images. But when I’m confound to a roll of film, with only 24 frames on it, I get into this preservation mode and become a stickler for what I’m shooting and how I’m shooting it. I know film is cheap, but I just don’t feel right running about, clicking the shutter like a child on a sugar high. I think I’m sitting at 17/24 shots used on the camera, so hopefully I’ll finish the roll sometime soon, and once that happens I can start thinking about using the Black & White roll I have in my fridge, waiting to be used. I am quite glad that there really isn’t too much of a generational gap between digital and film though. I can still meter the shot, set the shutter speed, mess with the apature and (for the most part) set the ISO, so I don’t feel completely lost when it comes down to the whole technique. I’m more-or-less lost over the idea of not being able to preview your shots the second after taking them. I’m so use to taking the ease of the digital world for granted that I’m having a hard time enjoying the roll of film I should be having fun with. I know the arguements of those who prefer film over digital, but I was born into a digital photography world. It’s tough to return to it’s roots when you haven’t already once dabbled in its past. There isn’t a sentimental attachment for me to hang onto. Hell, I’m still a little scared of sending my film in to get it developed (no, I’m not developing it myself…). I just get this feeling the first roll of film I drop off to get developed, the guy doing the grunt work is going to spend his time laughing at my photography instead of developing it. Nightmarish!
Back to the digital side of things, I just recently purchased a Sigma 10-20mm lens. The UPS tracking says it’s sitting at the UPS depot here in Edmonton, so I’m looking forward to getting my grubby hands on it tomorrow afternoon. So stay tuned for some Wide Angled fun It just arrived and is it ever a sexy lens. I’m going to head out of work early just to run around and play with it! I may just have the energy to post something new to this blog sooner than later.
Also, on the website level of updates: My friend has begun work on the design on the main page of this site. If things go well, by the end of May, we might be seeing a fully functional portfolio/gallery. I’m excited to see what he comes up with! In the mean time, enjoy the Spring weather and go take some awesome shots to share with the world!
(Wow, I just ended my post with a cheesy catch-line… Sorry…)
