day 1/365

dino

today i am starting a 365 photo blog inside my regular CSP blog. so what’s a 365 photo blog?

a 365 photo blog is a blog where photographers, professional and amateur alike, post a photograph every day for 365 days. it can be of anything – there are no rules regarding content except for anything that’s self-imposed. the only rule is that the photographer must take a photograph every day and post it to their blog.

so what’s the point?

this is an incredibly good exercise for all photographers for the following reason:

1. over time, it improves your photography skills considerably and in an overall manner. you learn flexibility and efficiency while handling the camera, fluent manipulation of camera settings, immediate and correct response to any sort of lighting situation, and more intimate knowledge of the way your camera reacts to certain settings.

2. it jumpstarts creativity and refines personal style. although there are no rules on what you’d like your photograph to be of, it’s helpful to imagine a specific scene in your mind and try to recreate it through your lens. this exercise helps immensely with being able to verbalize posing and position models during shoots according to the vision in your head.

3. a year is a long time to take a photograph every day. after a while you wonder what there is left to take a picture of. however, this exercise helps you look at the same objects in different ways. this comes in handy when photographing weddings so that they all have a unique flair.

as you can see, it is very handy for photographers. it’s also interesting to the readers of a blog and their clients. people can see how you take every day objects in different situations and in different lighting scenarios and make them interesting. it also helps clients see a general sense of your photography style.

so why not just take a photograph and call it a day? posting it on your blog holds you accountable. sure, you might take photographs every day, but after a while professional photographers get bogged down and get “shooter’s block”. they start going through the motions, repeating the same poses, and stop trying to think outside the box. they also become complacent with lighting conditions and photography skills. this blog not only pushes the boundaries of subjects and scenery, but it forces you to strive for the highest quality and most creative image you can achieve because you are accountable to your blog readers.

i attempted to post every day to my blog in the past, but it just doesn’t work. i get busy – very busy – and stop posting. this forces me to post every day.

and what’s perhaps more important than anything is that this allows a very creative outlet for me. i shoot almost entirely weddings and people, but this is not where i started from. i originally started in my teens taking photographs of city skylines and landscapes accompanied by a heavy interest in macro photography. since my business takes up a majority of my time traveling, shooting, editing, creating coffee table books, etc, i don’t have time any more for my original love of taking photographs of just plain random stuff. this will allow me to take photographs of anything and an excuse to post it. :)

PLEASE feel free to leave comments, post suggestions, ideas, or challenges. it’s going to be an interesting ride!

so now for entry 1/365, an out-of-focus me…slightly representative of the fact that i am beginning a new adventure to mold and “focus” my skills for the 365 challenge. :)

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hey!

hope everyone had a fantastic holiday! we had a great time home in the ‘burgh, driving in snow, snow tubing, and scraping ice off our cars in the -8 degree windchill. :) we’ve been scrambling to get our lives back together and in order since we’ve gotten back…and this week we’re getting on the right track. :) new pricing for the new year, new packages, and a very busy schedule await us this year and we’re pumped! but now it’s time to play catch up.

shortly before the holidays my friend jennifer received the lovely gift of a beautiful niece! mackenzie was born november 23, 2009 at 6lbs and 15oz and is as healthy and amazing as can be. she’s really an adorable baby girl who is incredibly happy and content. jennifer bought her sister a session with me for christmas and i got to meet the lovely mom danielle and her gorgeous newborn! we all had a great time catching up with each other, admiring baby mackenzie, and enjoying the company of max…the greatest weiner dog ever.

the following two pictures demonstrate the impact a weiner dog has on the level of fun in your photoshoot.

geoff standing in for a lighting test by himself: not so fun

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geoff standing in for a lighting test with a weiner dog: totally fun

geoff

and now for the adorable baby!!

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so when we were at the beach we spotted these crazy lizards on our deck. they were green but had stretchy red skin under their mouths that would puff out every time they breathed. sweet!:

beach-061-copy“hey ladies.”

anyway – they’re called carolina anoles and they are awesome. they can change colors kind of like a chameleon, but they can’t change their color to match whatever they’re on. they pretty much alternate between bright green and brown. sometimes they have awesome stripes and blue eyes:

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beach-072-copy“no one knows what it’s like.”

they hopped around our decks all week and jumped into trees when they saw us coming. pretty cool little dudes. just part of our wildlife adventures. geoff and laura saw several bald eagles while i was driving. despite my swerving and my shouts of, “WHERE? WHERE?” i saw nothing.

and of course, despite my promises of updating every day, i forgot to update yesterday. but it was friday, ok? that should be a given. we went out to dinner with geoff’s cousin and his wife and then saw the hangover. it’s an amazing movie.

– carolynbeach-274-copy