Category: 365 Photo Project

I was not sure what to do for my 365 today so I asked my FaceBook friends for suggestions. My favorite suggestion was “a bottle of your favorite drink” by Jim Stefanik. I could not just take a photo of the bottle, I needed to add some interest to the photo. I decided to take a high speed photo of water pouring out of the bottle.

This was actually a pretty tricky shoot. I had to figure out a way to hang the bottle upside down, then get the lighting right. I ended up gently clamping the bottle upside down then hanging the clamp from a microphone stand. I used one fill flash behind me to light up the front of the bottle, then a second flash off to the left to light up the water as it fell. I pulled the cork and did a bunch of shots until I got something acceptable. It took a few tries but I am ok with the results.

Fall is here and the leaves are wonderful shades of red, orange and yellow. I spent some time hanging out under a tree in my back yard and decided to snap away at the leaves. This was my favorite shot, with some fantastic bokeh cause by the light shining through the leaves above.

I didn’t have a chance to take my 365 until after the sun was down, and I left my remote flash triggers at my clients office, so my options where limited for today’s 365. I started playing around and came up with this. Dead plants in front of a blue background that kinda looks like fake sky.

This was a last minute shot of pumpkin stem. I thought the green veins made it look like a  zombie arm or something, or it could just be late and I am super tired.

On day 160 I received a fortune cookie with a meal that stated “Good news will come to you by mail”. I decided that whatever was in my mailbox would be my 365 for Monday. I just so happened to get this postcard from my friend Taya in Colorado. Crazy how that worked out huh? I miss seeing your face Taya!

I got me some amazing General Tso’s Tofu from Shanghai on Thayer in Providence and got this fortune cookie. What will come in the mail on Monday? I do no know, but I know it better be good.

This Saturday at DGAF, a portion of the proceeds where donated to Susan G. Komen for the Cure. I decided that doing a new style of editing for this was in order, I basically did selective coloring for the background of each photo to make it look like all the lighting in the club was pink. I wanted to give a pink feel to the photos while maintaining the colors from my subjects bright clothing and accessories. Overall, I was really happy with the set and it should be posted soon.

Today something random happened, my clothing matched. I have a pretty bad fashion sense and pretty much wear the same type of clothing… ALL THE TIME. Today for some odd reason when I got home from a shoot I noticed that my shoes matched my shirt/sweatshirt combo and decided to take a photo of it.

I saw another artist do a series of portraits of people that focused on the details of their clothing, their head, their belt area, their shoes. I tried to mimic it with not so great results, but shooting myself and getting focus and lighting right is tough!

I did not want to put another photo of Charlie in this 365 project, but I snapped this shot and actually really liked it and just had to make it today’s 365. More cats? Deal with it.

One of my favorite techniques to play with lately has been super tight apertures with an off camera flash. I love how you can capture only the details and nothing else in the shot. This is a photo of my 8mm fisheye lens captured at f/16, 1/250, ISO 100 at 70mm. There was one off camera flash to the right of the lens just above the front element. So shaaap!

This is my friend Mr. Steve Hall Deluxe. This guy has lost 100lbs in a few months by cutting out soda and drinking lots of water. I am over joyed every time I see Steve out and about, it’s great to see a friend reach their goals so quickly and improve their quality of life at the same time.

It was 11:40pm, I realized I did not have a 365, then dragged Steve outside a local bar so I could take photos of him. I had no flash diffuser, no remote flash triggers, no tripod, nothing that would have made this easier at night with minimal ambient light. I did the best I could with the on-camera flash.

I had a craving for something sweet, a strawberry frosted donut to be exact. Dunkin Donuts ran out of Stawberry frosted so I had to settle for a Chocolate frosted and a Maple frosted. The maple frosted did not last 2 minutes in my site. The chocolate frosted almost didn’t make it either.

Everyone has a wire bucket, or junk box, that always seems to suck you in anytime you need something from it. My wire box sucked me in today.

This was done with 2 photos, one of the box, one of me. I almost broke my neck doing the hand stand, and the blending of the two images is not perfect, but I like the final product over all. I think I am going to try a few more of these.

When all else fails, I take a photo of myself in a mirror. I was not feeling well on Saturday at all, my jaw felt like it was shattered, my face was swollen, and I was  overall cranky.  I sat in front of a mirror and started snapping away, trying to get creative, but this is all I had in me. I will try to get more creative today.

Some of you may have seen this image of an owl in a cup of coffee with two of these British snacks called Hula Hoops in the cup. I tried to duplicate the effect with no luck at all. Instead, here is a look at some snacks that we don’t usually get in the USA. I had to order these from a British food company as I couldn’t find a local place that sold them. They look semi tastey, but I have not had a chance to try them out as I am still not able to eat crunchy foods just yet. I am holding on to the second bag until I am able to eat them!

I finally got my nasty, decayed, wisdom tooth removed from my face. Not being able to take pain meds sucks, but it’s better than having this gross thing in my mouth. That blackish brownish hole should be white tooth, disgusting right? How I have dealt with this thing in my mouth for a few years now is just beyond me. I will never again neglect my teeth and am looking forward to going back and getting some more minor work done.

I asked to keep the tooth but was informed it was a big bio-hazard, so they let me take photos of it. They where surpsied I was able to hop up off the operating chair and start snapping away. They said I took it extremely well. I then drove from Boston to Providence to meet a client, then drove from Providence to Fall River. As soon as I got home, the pain hit me like a ton of bricks and I could not do anything but sleep. So far so good!

Unless you’re living under a rock, or you’re not an American, you probably knew the first Presidential debate between Obama and Romney was this evening. I figured it would be a good idea to somehow document the debates in my 365, so I tried to get a candid of my mother watching the debates but she was watching while sewing and not having me all up in her business with my camera. I did my best to take a photo of me watching the debates, while paying attention to the debates. I am not going to get all political on here as to where I stand and who I am voting for, but I will say it was an interesting debate.

Part of this 365 project is giving the outside world an intimate look in to my daily life and well being. This is hard to deal with at times, but I think it’s a good thing in the end.

I had some sever pain coming from my mouth over the past few days and had to finally get them checked out.  Turns out I have a “grossly infected” wisdom tooth that needs to be removed ASAP. That adventure happens on Thursday, and will probably make for more photos. See that last tooth with the big chunk missing? Yeah that’s why I am in pain.

I was chillaxin in my PJ’s when I got a text message and my phone lit up my PJ pocket. It looked cool to me at the time, so here you have it. High tech pockets.

I shot DGAF on Saturday night and decided my favorite photo taken after midnight would be Sunday’s 365. So here you have it, Alex being attacked by a 50 foot long microphone cable. Shit gets wild on that stage.