My attempt at what we call photography

Week 36 and 37 here.

I sold my 2 Vivitar 285 hvs + my cactus triggers. So I’m had to do these 2 weeks with on camera flash =(. Which isn’t too bad, it just limits my creativity a LOT! Even with this limitation, I still think I did pretty good.

Week 36 is a simple shot…. or well I should say shots. Its a photo I’ve always wanted to do. I did something similar for my photography class a year or so ago and it came out well. So I decided to try it out again.

My concept was to have a bunch of “Me’s” at the table eating different cereals. So late Sunday night Val and I went to the kitchen, cleared off the table, and got to shooting. Luckily we had enough different cereals to get the shot done.

I think I did a really good job on this one. I love that I’m doing something different with each cereal. There’s a lot going on in this picture, it keeps your eye moving. Overall I think I did pretty dandy haha. I did mess up a few times by not changing my shirt LoL. So I had to retake certain shots, but I got it right by the end of the night…

Week 37…..
Week 37 was a random “I wonder what would happen if I…” type of shot. I was trying to think of something to take. I wanted to try something with Bokeh and the Christmas lights, but I didn’t really have anything to shoot. I was sitting on the couch trying to think of an idea and I was starring into my lens. I started playing around with it and started auto focusing it and watching the lens internals move around. It was pretty kool. Then I thought “I wonder how much detail I could get if I did a photo of my eye.” So thats what I did…. Just pointed the camera at my face, tried my best to focus on my eyeball, and fired away.

Its kind of a creepy shot haha. I like all the details around the eye and inside the pupil. I like that you can see all the veins LoL. I wish the eyebrow was in focus just a bit more, but oh well. Its not too much of a biggie.

Anyways, have fun shooting all. Enjoy the holidays, and I hope you got all your shopping over with.
- T.J.

Slacking once again haha. Damn you Wowcrack! LoL.

This weeks were pretty simple setups. Of course they were late minute shots. Sunday night, running out of time, running out of ideas. The usual. Week 33 came out pretty good. I like the concept and the final product.

Week 33.

The cause of my procrastination…. I like how this picture makes you think though. What am I looking at? What is making me have this reaction. Am I just weird? (most likely haha.) I really like the subtle details too. Overall a good picture.

For week 34 I was trying to work with silhouettes and flares. So I set up a flash behind Val and I, and tried to get whatever I could.

Week 34.

It’s a bit corny I know haha, but I like the way the flare came out. This setup is actually a retake of another setup I used in the beginning of this 52 Week project. Even though it’s a setup I’ve used before, I still like the outcome.

Happy Shooting Everyone…
- T.J.

Man, why do 2 sodas in 1 big cup go flat so fast? I hate that… Its happened twice in the past two days haha. Oh well.

Well as you can see, I’ve been slacking pretty bad lately. Sorry everyone…. My last post was a month and a half ago haha.  I was pretty busy with the whole wedding (which I’ll blog in a little ‘hopefully’).

The wedding took up a week, but then editing took up another 2 weeks. I still managed to get out and do my 1 photo a week except for 1 week. I actually failed this 52 Week project on Week 30…. =( /fail. Even though I failed this project, I decided (with some help from Val) to continue the project. It may not be a continuous 52 weeks, but it will still be a years worth of work. I’m still gonna try and keep the last 22 weeks continuous, so I can keep up with my photography and not get lazy.

Anyways, without boring you any further… Here are the last 4 weeks of my project. Weeks 29-32.

Week 29.

This was a very late / rushed picture. I didn’t feel like doing a self portrait, so I tried some still life photography.
Week 30. /Fail    LoL

Since I got my beautiful (sucking up) model back, we decided to go to Coronado and try out some portraiture. I really like the way this one came out.

Week 31.

Ito Pretty Baby!! Hahaha. Val’s niece. Yet another late / rushed picture. I think it came out rather well.

and finally Week 32.

A fun little shoot I did with Janai and Andrea. The results weren’t exactly what I wanted, but that’s what this whole project is about. I did like the way this one and a few others came out though.

Welp… Now you’re all caught up. Got 5 more days to take Week 33s picture. Hopefully I don’t get too lazy and procrastinate till the last minute.

Have fun Errone – and just shoot.
- T.J.

I’m really slacking on this blog. Its kinda sad. Val keeps pushing me to update my blog, but I always forget haha.
Anyways… Week 26 was another Zoo shot. I tried to do this same shot earlier, but the sun made it hard to focus. So when I got home and uploaded the picture it wasn’t sharp enough. Val was pretty upset with my lack of uber skills haha. So I told her we would try again. So this week we went to the Zoo and tried to get the shot done. We set up the strobes and just went at it. Took about 15 shots and tried to make sure the focus was as sharp as possible. I learned that if you cover half of the lens and block out the sun, it makes it a lot easier to focus haha. So if you’re ever shooting directly into the sun, and you cant focus…. Just cover the sun out of your lens with your hand, and leave your focus point uncovered and BOOM! LoL…

Welp… Here’s week 26.

I think it came out pretty good. I love the hair lighting =).

On Week 27 Andrea wanted Jeff to take some family photos, so I went along to take some too. I figured I might as well get my weeks shot done. So we went to this spot Jeff found near Heritage Park and started shooting. I went in to the shoot with a shot in mind. I wanted to take a picture of Jeff while he was taking a picture of the family. I did a similar shot like this in the early weeks of this project, but that was with only one strobe. So I wanted to get a shot using both my strobes. So while Jeff was shooting, I set up a strobe on each side of him. I just laid them on the floor, because I was too lazy to set up my stands haha. Set them to the appropriate power and shot away. Took around 4 shots, and they all came out pretty good. The lighting on the 4th one was the best, so I’m using that one as my Week 27.

Here it is.

Super sharp =) haha.

Have fun all
- T.J.

Week 24 here and SURPRISE it’s not a zoo shot haha.

It almost was LoL. There’s a lot of really nice scenery there, so its easy to find a spot. Instead of going to the Zoo Val and I decided to look for a different place to shoot. We haven’t been to Seaport Village near downtown San Diego in a while, so we decided to roll over there. Since it was a Saturday and there was a good amount of performers / people there, it was a little hard to find an open spot. We eventually found one and took a few pictures, but they weren’t the greatest haha. I didn’t care for the angles I was using. So the next day we went to Coronado. They had this nice park that has the bridge in the background. It was pretty packed, but for the photo I had in mind it didn’t matter.

I wanted to get a shot where Val sat in a tree, and I climbed above her and took a shot looking down. We began setting up my umbrella stand, and quickly realized it was a little too windy haha. My umbrella was going everywhere. We had to strap it down to the tree. We took a few shots, and there were some really good ones. After we were just messing around, and Val started telling me a story that was really funny. I got a really good candid of her laughing that I loved. (She doesn’t, but oh well haha)

So here you go Ladies and Gentlemen….
Week 24

Beautiful smile…

So just remember, Candids can make REALLY good photos. So don’t always try and force your poses.
- TJ