Smackthatbird's photostream  

Part 3 of the picnic set!

So I've changed my mind and this'll be the last picture of the set, but there'll be plenty more (and outtakes) on Facebook, if you're friends with me. This is my personal favorite out of the three, so I figured it was a good note to end on.

I hope everyone had wonderful Valentine's Days! We definitely enjoyed it. I made fillets for dinner (which, surprisingly, turned out just about perfect) and did the whole cute candle thing and it was a lot of fun. :)

As long as the weather cooperates, I'm gonna be exploring shops in downtown Harrisonburg and shooting a lot this weekend. Should have some new stuff to upload by the end of it!

Also, on an unrelated side note, I set up Chrome so I can only spend an hour on Facebook + Twitter + blogs per day. I'm trying to waste less time on those and focus on more imporant stuff. We'll see how that goes, hahaha.

This is an old shot from last summer in West Virginia that was originally color, but I decided that it looked better without it - the light and shadows are strong enough that it doesn't need color. I loved her curious expression and the way the tall grass kind of seems like a jungle.

I've been spending a lot of time with photography lately, but more with learning fundamentals than shooting for now. I've known how to use my camera well for quite a while, but never learned that much about good pictures. The first step is going to be shooting in black and white, with a focus on strong contrast and composition. I agree with everyone who says it's best learned in B&W. Not shooting in color and then converting it to B&W, but actually shooting it that way for now. I know the in-camera B&W isn't as good as after the fact conversion, but for right now I just want to commit to the practice and not decide to keep pictures in color after the fact. I want to get good at taking pictures that are good enough to be strong black and white pictures.

On a happier and more fun side note, this picture was a reminder that I'm extremely lucky to have an awesome girlfriend who's fun to shoot with and who's beautiful and lets me take pictures of her. It makes the learning process way more enjoyable, haha. :)

PS: I'm contemplating using 500PX for this black and white project and keeping this for my backlog of other pictures, but we'll see. Haven't decided yet.

Mr. Marshmallow has finally returned!

And he'll be around more often now. I have one shoot idea in particular in mind for him soon once I get my new lighting equipment.

I had my interview yesterday and it didn't go quite as well as I hoped, but I think I've been given a chance to fix some of the mistakes I made, so I'm still hopeful. Something about the whole process really made me determined to work harder on becoming the best photographer I can be, even if I don't get the job.

(Part 2 of the Picnic set)

Sometimes there are moments that just make me happy.

Like this. I told Elli I was just pretending to take a picture with my film camera, but then I actually took one and this was her smile right after I took the picture. This was definitely not the shot we were going for, but I liked it more than any of the posed things we did.

Come to think of it, a lot of my happy moments have to do with Elli smiling.

I've been out shooting a lot lately. Gonna do more today + a ton this weekend with hopefully a lot of keepers. I'm also excited to be interviewing for a new photography related job on Thursday afternoon. Definitely excited.

Heading out to take advantage of the 70 degree weather right now but I'll check out everyone's streams later.

This is why I love my 85mm f/1.4.

This is my favorite concert picture ever. I know, for professional purposes, the client would most likely want the whole thing in focus, but I really love the look of his sax out of focus. And I wasn't shooting this for anyone but myself, so I don't care, haha.

This was at Festival in the Park over the summer and I believe the band was Sly and the Family Stone. I managed to get press access without a press pass, which meant I was right up against the stage. I got some other really good shots of the band, but this has always been my absolute favorite.