January 30, 2012
One of my favorite photos so far from this year's 366 Project
Four years have passed since I last did a photo-a-day-for-a-year project – often referred to as a 365 Project (many months have passed since I posted in here, too, I’m aware of that, but I’m ignoring that and jumping right into this topic). Because four years ago – 2008 – was a leap year, it was actually 366 Project for me. I’ve decided to make it a leap year tradition for me and do a 366 Project every four years. I know I’ve attempted projects of some sort every year since 2008, and have failed every one but the 52 photowalks I did in 2009, but I’m pretty confident I will succeed this year because:
- I’m motivated by the fact that I will only get a chance once every four years to do a 366 project (I realize, technically, I could take 366 photos a day in whatever year-and-a-day I would like, but you know what I mean), and, related…
- It’s been four years since I’ve done this so I’m not worn out from having just done this. I think breaks between projects are very important. Or maybe I’m just lazy?
Anyway. In 2008, I was doing 366 Self Portraits. What was I thinking? I have no idea! This was crazy-hard, but I was just learning my DSLR (in fact, I got my first one in February of that year), and I think having such a strict subject matter really helped me learn and be creative without being overwhelmed with also trying to figure out WHAT I was going to photograph.
This year, I have decided to really do a “Year in the Life of Iffles” idea. Each photo will represent just what I’m doing that day. Nothing will be staged (other than perhaps moving something around to help with lighting or composition), and at the end of the year it will be like I have a photo diary of 2012. It could turn out to be incredibly boring, but I don’t care!
I was talking about this with a friend and she asked me how I decided what to take a photo of each day, and I decided to let you all in on my strategy, which might also be considered some 366 Survival Tips for those of you also attempting this (somewhat insane) project this year!
Read the rest of this post…
August 10, 2011
by mothman0 (click on photo to see in flickr)
All Wordless Wednesday photos are not taken by me, but are photos submitted to the iffles.com Monthly Themes group on flickr. Join the group to see your photo featured! August’s theme is Sky!
(And yes, I promise a real post soon!)
August 3, 2011
by Joe_R (click to photo to see in flickr)
All Wordless Wednesday photos are not taken by me, but are photos submitted to the iffles.com Monthly Themes group on flickr. Join the group to see your photo featured! July’s theme was Statues/Parks, and August’s theme is Sky!
July 21, 2011
by Peter De Klerk (click to go to photo on flickr)
All Wordless Wednesday photos are not taken by me, but are photos submitted to the iffles.com Monthly Themes group on flickr. Join the group to see your photo featured! July’s theme is Statues/Parks
(sorry I’m a day late, yesterday was John’s birthday, and I guess I got distracted!)
July 19, 2011
f/4.0; 1/13sec; 58mm; ISO 400
This is one of my quick tips that I haven’t mentioned before because I was afraid it was some sort of “fad” for me. I often find that I do some trick when editing that after a while I stop doing because I think it looks stupid. But I’ve been using this particular method for a quite a few months and I still try it on a lot of my portraits.
You guys know I usually like to describe what exactly is happening and why it works to produce a better photo. But to be honest? I don’t know the math behind this one or why it always seem to like how it looks on portraits. But… I do like it on portraits!
Read the rest of this post…
July 13, 2011
by rachel_pics (click to view in flickr)
All Wordless Wednesday photos are not taken by me, but are photos submitted to the iffles.com Monthly Themes group on flickr. Join the group to see your photo featured! July’s theme is Statues/Parks
July 11, 2011
A photo from the first wedding I shot
As you all know, I was a second shooter in my first wedding back in March. For those of you that don’t remember the background, I was asked to help out a friend. I was incredibly nervous about it, as I think anyone should be the first time they shoot a wedding – it’s a big deal! You only get one shot!
I’ve already written about what I was doing to prepare for the shoot, but of course on the day of the wedding, I learned a few more Dos and Don’ts, so if you’re wondering how it all went, please, read on!
Read the rest of this post…
June 29, 2011
by bgottsab (click to view in flickr)
All Wordless Wednesday photos are not taken by me, but are photos submitted to the iffles.com Monthly Themes group on flickr. Join the group to see your photo featured! June’s theme is Doors/Windows. July’s theme is Statues/Parks
June 24, 2011
f/4.0; 1/125sec; 105mm; ISO 800
In late 2009, I wrote a post about adding a vignette to a photo. I was never really happy with that post, and it has bothered me now for a year and half that I never wrote about a better option. Then, almost exactly a year later, I posted about the FIL Script (side note: I totally forgot about that script! I really liked it, too. I should use it more often), and I made a quick reference to the fact that if you wanted to use some of the grain options, you would have to download the G’MIC plug-in.
What I did not mention in that entry was that, after downloading that plug-in, I finally came full circle and was able to provide a way of creating vignettes that I’m much happier with. The concepts are the same as from my first post – either create a new layer with a black area set to overlay, or create a duplicate layer with a layer mask and make that layer darker somehow (don’t worry, if you’re confused, I’ll detail the concepts below).
The key that G’MIC provides is the ability to produce a radial gradient starting at the center of your photo without you having to eyeball. Now this seems to me that this is something that gimp really should provide for you out of the box, and I looked all over for it, and maybe I’m missing something obviously but I could never find it! Even if they do, and I am blind for missing it, there’s still a reason I’d use G’MIC, but I’ll get to that in a bit. First, let’s see this in action…
Read the rest of this post…
June 22, 2011
Window and door in Akron, Ohio
I’m sure you’ve heard of the Wordless Wednesday concept. The idea is on Wednesdays, you post one entry that has no text, just a photo. It’s an idea I’ve always enjoyed on other blogs and wanted to implement over here on iffles.com, too, but I’m always feeling like you must be tired of seeing my photos anyway. Plus I think I’ve duplicated on posts (in fact, I’m pretty sure you’ve seen the above photo before… but I’ll get to why I posted that one in a second).
I’ve also, as mentioned in the last entry, wanted to change some stuff around here so I’m not as stressed about posting, and one post that always took me a while to create, and was constantly stressing over both the content and how fast I was able to get it up, was the recaps of the photos posted to the iffles.com Monthly Themes group on flickr.
And so, I’m merging the two ideas into one. Instead of picking out a number of my favorite photos in the group at the end of the month, I’m going to pick just one a week to showcase in Wordless Wednesday. I will still, of course, give the photographer all the credit and link back to his or her photo on flickr.
Because June’s theme is Doors/Windows, I decided to post the photo you see above to kick this whole thing off in a Worded Wednesday entry. It’s one I took, and not this month, either, so it’s all-around cheating, I suppose. But from here on out – YOUR photos!
