I Thought I Was Going Nowhere.

Now I can see there was a pattern.  I have been out of town for the last couple of days and I haven't posted pictures since last Thursday, so I decided to post a couple to make up for them.  Patterns.

Day 90/Life

"This is...This is....

Gone Ape Muuuuusic"

These were all shot with no flash, super high ISO for a grainy look.

Day 89/Life

Perspective

The first thing you might notice about this pear is all of the bruising and the cuts on it's skin.  To a person who hasn't eaten in a day, they will see nourishment.  It's all about persepctive.  What is truth to one person, may not be so true to another. 

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Day 88/Life

The Crown

The Lil One's engagement ring.

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Day 87/Life

Lines and Form

Playing with paint

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Day 86/Life

Tree of Life

"The whole point of being alive is to evolve into the complete person you were intended to be."
Oprah

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Day 85/Life

A Must Have....

Is my Texas Pete, I love you guys, thank you for making such a delicious and nutritious product.  I would bathe in you and lather my body with your scent.  Bet you didn't know they are from right here in the Carolinas, hmmmm?

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Day 84/Life

5 Months

It is said that the present is pregnant with the future.  Thank you Ms. Angela Mary Monique Brown for a wonderful shoot today.  I am looking forward to documenting this project with you.

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Day 83/Life

Eddie Von Spaghetti

Introducing Eddie, the tennis ball loving, scared to go outside if it's raining/snowing/cloudy/wind is blowing too hard/the grass isn't cut short enough/too many leaves blowing on the ground/the temperature isn't between 70-80 degrees/it's too early/it's too late, scared of everything, picky eating weenie dog who is the most loveable, cuddable(that's a real word, I promise) little thing we know.

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Day 82/Life

The Truth

"Freedom is the recognition that no single person, no single authority or government has a monopoly on the truth, but that every individual life is infinitely precious, that every one of us put in this world has been put there for a reason and has something to offer."
Ronald Reagan

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Day 81/Life

No Boundaries, No Borders

"Emancipation from the bondage of the soil is no freedom for the tree."

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Day 80/Life (I will now be putting up Life as my number because I feel I will always be taking pictures and to restrain myself with just a 365 day project would be limiting.  I may miss a few days here and there but Life happens, it's a "trip".)

Exploring

Seeing with a fresh pair of eyes. 

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Day 79/365

And....

you fake thugs is Unplugged like MTV
I empty three, take your treasure, my pleasure
Dead presidentials, politics as usual, BLAOW
Jay-Z

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Day 78/365

Form

I have always known what I wanted and that's Beauty....in every form.

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Day 77/365

Half Full

Today I wanted to play with some liquid again so I set up basically the same light situation as yesterday(2-lights).  I started off with some Modelo in a glass, and I wanted to take some pictures of the bubbles, kind of like a beer commercial.  I found out that in order to light up beer how I wanted, the beer being a very rich color, I needed one of my light sources directly behind the glass.  A softbox directly behind would have been better but I wouldn't have come across this great pattern if I hadn't been using my umbrella.  I turned off the light in the front and moved the umbrella in the back to the left of the glass and shot a frame, I loved how the pattern played with the light.  This just shows, try different things, you never know what you will come away with.  I knew once I saw this shot, I changed my plans of a beer commercial into a fine art piece.  This is a simple one light set up, with nothing more than an umbrella and a flash.  I didn't take any pictures this time because I was positioning my light in so many different positions it would have been impossible, well nearly.  I would have liked to use a softbox next time and get some better definition on the bright side of the glass towards the top.
Camera was set to f/9 at 1/00sec to obatin a good bit of depth of field.  Flash was set to 1/8power.  I brought the image into photoshop and played with the Hue/Saturation adjustment layer and some contrast, sharpened it just a tad and that was it.

Day 76/365

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Neon Drops With Just a Few Props

I wanted to do some more splash photography so I went and picked up some clear balls from Michael's.  I read on someone's blog about these specific ones that they sell there.  I used a colorful plate with some water on the bottom, not too much, but enough to make a splash.  I tried various angles and perspectives for composition and dropping the balls from different heights to get some different looks.  I think I shot close to 300 pictures just playing around with various ideas.  I found that dropping the clear balls from a higher perspective gives some good splash effects.  This is something fun to try to break up the cycle of editing photos and gets your brain working artistically.  I brought the image into photoshop and changed the color of the plate using the the Hue/Saturation adjustment layer, a little sharpening and some darkening of the shadows and BAM! this is what you get.  Like I said, I have a lot of crazy shots but this one is probably one of the best shots from the session.
For the set up I used two flashes, two umbrella softboxes, and a black background.  I show the position of the umbrellas in the video below.

Day 75/365

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Submerged

I wanted to play with some shadows and light...so that's what I did.  Thought it would be cool to add another dimension also so I added some water in the mix.  I had my subject (who will be left un-named, and definitely not tagged on facebook) submerge themselves in some bath water.  I had a flash set up on a stand pointing down at the subject and in between I set up a plant so the light would throw shapes on my subject's face.  I had the flash set to 1/32 power and my zoom was set to 80mm so it would produce a more direct light source.  Also attached to the flash was a grid spot.  The subject's head was to the left of the plant in the picture.
In photoshop I turned the picture into a black and white image and then toned it with a blue because I thought it played well with her ambiguous look. 

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Day 74/365

Looking Ahead

"My future is righteousness."

Bob Marley

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Day 73/365