Trying to find my voice

While this post is not entirely photographic in nature, it does have a part
to play.

For the longest time now I've felt that I slip unnoticed through life -
almost like a mute invisible person. While this may seem a bonus if doing
street photography, I've tended to feel overtly self conscious pointing a
camera at strangers in the street...as if I'm intruding where I shouldn't.

I'm starting to think that my lack of voice (presence even) could be
contributing to my mediocre photo output lately and some pretty mediocre
photos to be honest.

My wife suggested I look at adding writing to my creative endevours as she
thinks I have a certain eloquence of words. Not sure I see this myself but
it is something I will look at in some depth.

Maybe in all this self examination I will finally find voice to my creative
urges and finally move forward. Also, it is possible when this happens I
will have more people viewing and liking my creations and I will no longer
be in the shadows.

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Portrait follow up

In my last post I mentioned about posting some photos from my portrait session with Kristin.  Well, today I'm going to do that but with a little difference.  I'm actually going to be posting a couple of photos, taken 1 year and 8 months apart - one to show her strength as she undertook chemo treatment for breast cancer and the newest one to show her strength and beauty as a winner/survivor.

As you can see in this photo, I'm not the one behind the camera (very rare thing) and my wife, Lisa is rather nervously at the controls to record the moment.

Now jump forward 1 year 8 months to the new Kristin:

This time I am behind the camera, Lisa is behind a reflector just off camera doing a wonderful job of lightening the shadows and the mood, injecting lots of humour into the session.  In fact in a couple of photos it is surprising we could actually take the photos from laughing so much.

More portrait practice

This weekend I had the opportunity to further practice taking portrait shots
when a good friend finally decided to sit for me. And the really good news,
she really liked the photos. Which, for someone who doesn't like having her
picture taken was a big compliment to me. Thank you Kristin for believing
in my photography to capture the real you in a manner that you could be
happy with, it was a great and much needed boost to my confidence in my
photographic skills. And when I next sit down at my photo workstation I
will post some of the photos here on my blog.

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Updates and musings

Not posted much lately, mainly due to being kept busy on other tasks but felt it time to post something on what I've been up to.My first roll of film through the Holga 120N was a little disappointing.  But it most definitely showed me where things needed to be adjusted.  ISO200 film is a little too slow especially in lower or changeable light.  Also it may be best to stick with negative film instead of slide film...although this may not be so bad if the place you take the film processes it correctly.  Cross processing can give interesting effects but it can also make an under exposed image look really much worse!  Anyway, for the next film I switched to Ilford HP5 and I'm keen to see how well it handles the faster film.My big project over the last couple of months has been a pictorial timeline of a new data center construction at my day job.  The photos follow the clearing of the space; the demolition of the flooring and ceiling; framing of new office spaces and the data center itself.  So far the photos are available to view on the official company website but I have plans to make a selection available to view on my own website.  Admittedly not something I can be very artistic with as the most important thing is to accurately record the subject.  It has certainly helped me with framing and composition, as the slightest movement of the camera away from horizontal is very apparent due to all the horizontal and vertical edges. It also highlighted an issue with my Nikon 18-55 zoom lens having pretty noticeable barrel distortion at the 18mm end. Just glad that ACR (Adobe Camera Raw) has a ready-made preset for this lens to correct the distortion with 1 click.

Sent from my Motorola Smartphone on the Now Network from Sprint!