Week 19: Growth

This week went a little better than last week. I still didn't get anything great, but I felt like I had a little bit more time to take some photos. During the weekend I sat and thought and came up with four ideas and that was much easier to shoot during the week. I still only got six photos this week, so hopefully I'll get seven next week.

I did a similar photo to this one a couple of weeks ago, but I figured the same effect would be good for this week. Beard growth is best seen when back-lit. I discovered something helpful this week, I can use a ladder as a light stand. It made it so much easier to clamp my light to it and then just move the ladder around. It's not ideal, and an actual light stand would be nice, but for now this works well.

This photo shows my growth as a photographer, or at least my attempt to grow. I saw a video this week on how to take better portraits by emphasizing jawline, it was amazing. I was dubious at first, but it really is an amazingly simple trick. You have your subject bring their forehead and jaw out to the camera. From the side it would look weird, but head-on you can't tell that they're sticking their head out. Below I have two examples. On the left I stood like I normally would if I was taking a picture, on the right I stuck my head out. My beard helps with jaw definition, in general, but the right photo still shows so much more definition. Definitely something I will do with portraits from now on. This technique can also be used from the side, you just have the subject stick the side of their head toward the camera. Here's a link to the video: http://vimeo.com/35732667

I haven't done a silly shot in a while, so this was my attempt. I liked the idea, but the execution was a little off. It's hard to make a composite image look real, especially when both subjects are you. This is what I imagine I would look like if I was actually seven feet tall.

This photo is an example of my growth in running. I took this right after running six miles. And while that is nowhere near the longest I've ever run, it's the longest I've run in this current plan. So I guess that's something.

I got pretty lucky with this shot. We've had these flowers start to grow up through some rocks in front of our house. I knew I was going to take a picture at some point, but then I got lucky and it started snowing. It stopped snowing, leaving just enough of the flower pushing out through the snow.

This one also didn't turn out great, and I've done other long exposures like this that were better. The kind of interesting thing about taking this shot is I actually had a flash trigger in my hand and stood in complete darkness. I left the shutter open and just pressed the trigger every time I got into position. A little different way of doing long exposures.