Seeing Red

I've had sort of a crummy few days as far as photography goes. This past Friday I had a model shoot planned with a girl I've never worked with before, so I was pretty excited. Usually the models I've worked with are never on time and I'm usually early. But the one time I'm running late, the girl shows up to the location early! I was in rush hour traffic heading toward downtown and I made my best effort to get there as soon as I could while giving her updates along my way.

I finally get there 15 minutes late and call her and tell her where I am. I wait 10 minutes but she never shows and so I call her again only to hear that she decided to leave. She gives me an ear full about how unhappy she was by the whole thing and I feel bad but I didn't see the need for her to get so upset. She lives downtown also so its not like she went out of her way to get there. But oh well, what's done is done.

Then my new ball-head on my tripod broke. I think I now know why it was substantially cheaper than the brand name ones. Just a note out to anyone looking to buy a ball-head, avoid getting a Smith-Victor; they are junk. The thing is supposed to be rated for 40 lbs but that doesn't matter at all once you break off the knob that locks it in place. Guess I'll be shopping for a new one soon...or someday when I can afford something good.

Then finally the photo you see here was probably on the top 5 list of the hardest things I've ever photographed. It consisted of two days of trial and error, a lot of preparation, patience, and frustration. I planned to post this photo days earlier but failed miserably on my first attempt. But I finally got the shot I wanted and finally something worked out well. Macro photography is something I've been thinking about doing for some time now and I'm interested to see if I'll continue with it.

Sorry this post was so negative but I felt the need to vent and aside from photography my week has been really awesome.

Your Soul is Mine

Work has been pretty slow lately. My days at work consist of staring at an email inbox containing nothing related to work and studying texts books I drooled on in college. Nothing exciting. Time slows down. Life passes by.

I had to get out of the office so I decided to leave early today; many already had a head start on me. I like to mix it up and lately I've been trying my hand at street photography, so that became my afternoon activity once I escaped the life sucking abyss of my cubicle.

I have to admit, street photography is hard. I think I suck at it, there are many others who do a way better job. I've tried this a few times before and this is the first time I really made an effort at shooting people's faces. Usually it's the back of their head or someone going by on a bicycle.

But I busted out the ninja skills and actually really got into it and started to have fun. It became my mission to track down interesting looking subjects and I got kind of a rush from doing something completely outside my comfort zone. It's kind of like the feeling you get from approaching a pretty girl, you're nervous and you think of all the ways things can go wrong.

I did however have my 85mm lens, which allowed me to keep a little more distance away from the subjects to make things a little easier, less intrusive and hopefully keep me unnoticed. The photos can lose value if the person becomes aware of what you're doing. The thing I like about street photography is that you are capturing moments in people's life when they aren't expecting their photo to be taken and you kind of get an insight into their world, every photo tells a story.

Everyone has things going on in their own life and we rarely care about what's going on in a stranger's life. We focus in on ourselves, our family and friends; people of which who typically share common interests and social class. We complain about things a stranger would find a luxury. We laugh at things a stranger would find sad. We throw away things a stranger would find useful. We neglect opportunities a stranger would never get. We get frustrated with our jobs a stranger would love to have.

But think about this: We are all strangers to someone.

The High Road

I think it goes without saying, drinking and driving do not mix and I encourage everyone to always drink responsibly. I've made some bad decisions before and luckily nothing bad came of it, but it only takes one mistake to ruin your life.

Knowing your limit, staying in control and making sure you have a safe way home is something everyone should remember and do. Also being able to say no when you don't want to drink is important too. Enjoy life, but don't forget how fragile it is.

This photo was taken with my Sigma 50mm that I recently got back from being re-calibrated. Despite the new camera body being able to adjust the focusing, it was still causing problems before. It seems to be working better now and I'm looking forward to shooting with it more.

The Alchemist

I recently read a book called The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho that I thought was really great and I would recommend it to anyone. I won't spoil the book but it's about going after your dreams and living your life to its full potential.

It got me thinking about my own life and the things that I would like to do. While I haven't fully figured out all that I want to accomplish, I know one thing I'd like to do is travel and see the world as much as I can. Hopefully by continuing to expand my horizons I can one day discover my own personal legend. But for sure I'll be taking photos the whole way.