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:

1. 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…
2. 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!

Take a photo of SOMETHING at the start of your day

Technically, on work days, I don’t do this at the start of my day because I’m too busy getting ready for work, but as soon as I come home from work the first thing I do is change into pajama pants. The second thing I do is take a photo. Of something. Anything. Often it’s one of the cats, or maybe I’ll snap of photo of John’s work area as I go down to say “hi, I’m home from work, I love you.” This is key because it puts the stress off of me so I’m not scrambling around at 11PM thinking “OH NO! WHAT TO TAKE A PHOTO OF???”

This is one of the photos I took early in evening so I wouldn't forget later. Not the best photo ever, but hey, at least I have one for that day!

You have to eat every day, associate your photo-taking with eating

This doesn’t necessarily mean to take a photo of your food (though, I’m 30 days in, and I’d say at least 10 of my photos are of food or drinks), but if you eat three times a day, and you start associating eating with photo-taking, you’re less likely to forget to take a photo that day.

Besides, like I already mentioned, I’ve used a lot of photos of food. If you’re anything like me, you like food. A lot. I love to cook, I love to eat, and I especially love to make food for other people, so often the highlight of my day really does involve food. If I’m trying a new meal for the first time, I’m definitely taking a shot of it.

Sometimes food photos aren't so bad! I like this one! Hmmm... now I'm hungry.

If you’re doing something you don’t do every day, have your camera with you

I’m part of an organization called Young Professionals of Akron, and we only meet once a month, and even then, I can’t make a lot of meetings, but I was able to go in January, so I was sure to take my camera with me and took a picture while we all out eating dinner after the meeting. This might seem like an obvious tip for for a 366 project, but it’s easy to get swept up in the getting-ready process for something – especially big events – that you don’t think to grab your camera, too.

It doesn’t have to be a big event, either. I typically only go grocery shopping once every two weeks. I shop for clothes or shoes just a few times a year. And heck, with my Prius, I only get gas about once a month. Any of these things could be a photo for that day for me, especially if I keep this next tip in mind…

Look at daily events with a new perspective

Ok, we don’t play games in our house every day, but probably more than once a week, and I knew my flickr stream was going to get pretty inundated with photos of cards and meeples and the like, so instead just taking photos of the board itself, or all our friends sitting around our game table, I looked at the games from a new perspective. You can see the photo here where I got down on the same level as my Stone Age meeples, ready to be placed on the board for the round. I’ve also taken photos of my hand in Dominion (a card game) from my perspective, and another where my stuffed Yoshi was holding the cards instead of me. If you think the same thing is going to show up in your project a lot (like, for me, games), that’s ok! If you’re really trying to document your life, the things you do a lot should show up a lot, just try to make them creative and different each time so you don’t get bored. Or in my case, board. Get it? Ha! I’m hilarious.

Meeples from the game Stone Age

When all else fails…

Here are the things I take photos of when I just can’t think of anything else:

• My cats
• Whatever book I’m reading
• Whatever I’m eating
• Something I’m wearing that day
• A self-portrait
• The weather
• A macro of some ordinary object
• Things around the house that I can use as a texture in photos later (plaster walls, tile floors, woodwork, flour on my countertop, etc).
• The view from where I’m sitting (what my computer desk looks like, what I’m watching on TV, my feet propped up on the sofa, etc.)

Some of them might sound boring, but at least it’s all something!

First snow of the year!

Final Thoughts…

The key isn’t to take the Best Photo Ever every day. Really, the key is to pick up your camera every day. The more you pick it up, the more you start incorporating it into your everyday life, and you’ll be amazed at how, without even noticing or thinking about it, your photos improve and you feel more confident with your camera. After 4 years, I still know I have a long way to go to be an expert, and I’ll probably NEVER be an expert, there will always be something new for me to learn, some other skill I feel I haven’t mastered yet, and the more I use this amazing tool of mine, the more I’ll improve. And you can, too!

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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!

My Dos and Don’ts

Ask the bride/groom what they want I realize this is kind of a “duh” statement here, but we didn’t have a chance to actually do that, but it would have been helpful. I went into the event hoping to get certain shots that I realized she was interested in, and then I also worried I wasn’t getting shots that she dreamed of. We did get a chance to ask for specific photos she wanted (the one you see below is a request of hers), but I think if we had time to actually sit down and talk with her before-hand, we would have been even more prepared. Once again, I know this sounds obvious, and I knew going into the day that we were going in a bit blind, but I didn’t really realize how uncomfortable this was going to be until the actual day of the ceremony.

The bride specifically requested this photo

It’s not enough just to bring the extra battery and memory card with you. You have to actually have them on you. This is such a classic rookie mistake that I just don’t even want to admit it happened to me! But, the truth is, moments before the first kiss, I looked down to see how many photos I had left on my memory card, and there were only 2. My backup memory card? It was in my bag, which was all the way on the other side of the church. MOMENT OF PANIC. I managed to get 3 shots of the first kiss (hooray for my camera mis-estimating), then literally RAN (in the church!) to my bag, threw the old memory card on the ground and fished out the new memory card, and put it in the camera while RUNNING back. I missed the bride and groom walking back down the aisle.

Luckily, I still managed to get a shot of the first kiss

The solution? First of all, I meant to switch out for the new memory card before the ceremony even started, but I forgot. My first suggestion is to NOT FORGET THINGS. Also, I didn’t wear pants with pockets, where I could have stored a back-up battery and memory card. My fellow photographer had a little fanny-pack type back that she could throw in stuff like her lens cap, and extra cards and batteries. Fantastic idea, so that’s probably the route I’ll go with next time.

Slideshows are a crowd-pleaser. After the short, dry reception, the couple had an after-party at a local bar. There were a few hours to kill between the two, so the other photographer came over to my house where we went through the photos we had so far and whipped up a slideshow, then I brought my laptop to the bar and put it on a table to run through the slideshows. Everyone really seemed to enjoy it (and I put the laptop away before too many beverages were consumed… just in case!).

A natural, candid moment.

Never put your camera down I didn’t take my camera out of my hands the entire day! I was so afraid I’d miss a sweet, candid moment. That photo above? Was just one of those moments. She didn’t know I was taking that photo, and it’s one of my favorite from the day.

Capture the Details. Anyone who knows me and my photographic style knows that I didn’t need any reminder to capture to the details. It’s what I do, it’s what I love to do. I think my favorite part of the day was when we took the rings and took a number of different photos with them (including the one you see below), but I also enjoyed the early part of the day when I walked around the church and reception location (they were in the same building), getting detail photos. I’m glad we had the time to do that before jumping into the actually wedding. It was like a nice little warm-up!

The rings and some rocks!

Would I do it again?

This is probably the question I’ve been asked most since the big day, and honestly? I can’t decide. The day of, I was really loving it. Despite the stress, it was also really exciting, and I loved just being there and doing what I do, and really felt that, even with the memory card fiasco, I was doing a pretty good job! Sure, I’d do it again! Then, the day after when I first started looking through my photos, I thought I was a complete failure and there was no way I’d ever do it again! (I think following jasmine star is a big mistake – I’ll never be as good as her!). Nope, never doing this again! Then, as I got into a groove with editing, I thought, ok, these aren’t too bad… So, I settled on a “maybe”. I still don’t think this is anything I’d ever seek out to do, but I don’t think I’d ever turn down a request to be a second shooter, either.

For a first wedding, I'm saying I did not too bad.

Also, don’t forget! I’m picking photos from the iffles.com Monthly Themes group on flickr to post on Wordless Wednesday. July’s theme is Statues/Parks!

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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!

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A photo from my first "professional" photo shoot.

On Saturday, I will shoot my first wedding. Well, to clarify, I will be a Second Shooter on a wedding. Those of you that have been following me for a while may be aware that I have pretty much vowed to never become a wedding photographer, but a friend of mine has booked this wedding and asked for my help. I like the idea of helping out a friend, and any experience I gain can’t be too bad, right?

So, what am I doing to prepare for this event? And what am I hoping to get out of it? Well, read on for the answers to those questions!

What I Did – And Did Not – Buy

The first thing I thought of when it came to shooting an all-day event (we plan on shooting everything from the bride getting ready to the after-party at a local bar) was batteries and memory cards.

I already have two batteries, which I felt was probably enough (and I didn’t feel like buying another one when there’s a good chance I’ll be upgrading my camera within the year anyway). However, I only had two memory cards – an 8GB and 2GB. Since I shoot in RAW, that 2GB wasn’t going to provide enough extra memory for me, so I bought a second 8GB card.

Now, I just mentioned I’m seriously considering upgrading my camera body at some point this year, so you might be wondering why I didn’t take that opportunity to do that now, before the big event. Besides the fact that I like to think long and hard about big purchases like that, the main reason I’m uncomfortable with doing that is that I wouldn’t have had enough time between getting the camera and the day of the wedding to get comfortable using the camera. My current camera is far from top-of-the-line, but I know it like the back of my hand. I’d hate to miss out on a great photo because I couldn’t figure out how to change a setting quickly enough.

Packing My Bag

First I had to make the decision of which bag to pack. I was deciding between my Lowepro SlingShot 200 or my Tamrac Camera/Laptop bag. They actually hold about the same amount of photo gear, but the SlingShot is easier get things in and out of when walking around, because you don’t have to take it off your back. Ultimately, I decided on the Tamrac because I think carrying around my laptop might prove useful. This way, I can set it up somewhere and start backing up the photos on the memory cards midway through the day. Or, if 16GB turns out not to be enough, if I have to, I can always move all the photos from one card onto the computer and format that card. This makes me really nervous, but that’s better than telling the couple that I couldn’t shoot their exit from the reception because I ran out of space on my memory cards.

Another bonus to the laptop bag is that there’s an additional compartment for, well, stuff. It can easily hold my cell phone (which will be on silent, of course, but the GPS might come in handy getting from each location to the next), wallet, a flashlight, a notebook, pen and my lens cleaning supplies.

As for the camera gear itself, as a second shooter, I think it’s even more important for me to bring a variety of lenses, so I’m going to try and stuff in everything I’ve got. In addition, I’ll pack those two memory cards and batteries – throwing in some spare batteries for my flash, too, of course.

Reading over this, I’m sure you’re thinking I’m bringing too much. I’m worried about it myself. But for my first time, I’d rather over-prepare than under-prepare. If I don’t use my wide angle lens, so be it. But I’d hate to get there and find myself positioned up in the balcony of the church and just wishing I could get the entire view in one shot.

The Night Before

I have a checklist of things to do Friday night:

• Charge both batteries
• Pack my bag
• Clean my lenses
• Put my camera into my “default settings”

It’s pretty obvious why I want to do all these things the night before, though you might wonder what I mean by “default settings” on my camera. Have you ever taken a bunch of photos outside all day only to realize you’ve been at ISO 1600 the whole time? I have. It’s frustrating. I don’t notice it because there’s nothing I can see wrong about the photos, and I usually only mess with my ISO when I have to. So, I’m going to verify I’m not on ISO 1600, make sure I’m in Av Mode, and even though I always have this setting turned off, I’ll still double-check that I have the “beep when focused” turned off. No one wants to hear the photographer’s camera beep while the couple is exchanging their vows.

What I’m Going to Wear

Believe it or not, this might be the thing I put the most amount of thought into! I want to make sure I look nice enough for a wedding, but not stand out. I also want to be comfortable, as might have to get down low or climb on top of things to get a good shot.

My first decision was that I had to wear a black shirt. The honest truth is that I tend to sweat when I’m nervous or stressed. I think that will pretty much sum up the day, and since I’ll have to be lifting my arms up all the time to take a shot, I probably want to hide that as best as possible.

While, in general, I am more comfortable in a skirt than pants, I’ll be sure to wear pants the day of the wedding so I don’t have to worry about crouching down, etc.

Finally – the shoes. A decision I have not yet made, actually. I might have to make a trip to target to find some appropriate slip-on shoes that are comfortable. I am much more “geek” than “girl”, so I don’t have a wide variety of shoes at home to choose from!

Capturing a Moment

My Expectations

I certainly don’t expect to be the next Jasmine Star. I’m trying to set my expectations reasonably, but at the same time, I want to put my best foot forward. I want my friend to think she made a good decision asking me to help her (and I’d like to be asked to help again). I want the couple to have beautiful photos of their wedding day.

I think that’s the toughest hurdle for jumping into wedding photography. At some point, you have to do your first wedding. Chances are pretty high, that wedding won’t be your best one. And hopefully this bride only has one wedding, and I hate the idea of giving a bride photos that aren’t the most beautiful thing in the world for her One Special Day.

And so I have to remind myself how much my friends have appreciated my photos I take at their events. I want to capture the Big Picture of the day – something the bride can look at and remember the day fondly. And, most important, I want to capture the moments – when the bride and groom don’t know the camera is pointed at them – like the photo above taken at the after party of a wedding between the bride and her new husband.

Any Advice?

So. Those of you that have done this before. Any last-minute advice?

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And Shotslot was nice enough to set up a group on flickr called 50@50@50. So if you’re a flickr member, go ahead and add your shots to the group!

You don’t have to be a member of flickr to participate, though, just take your 50 shots on the 19th (and if you don’t have a 50mm lens, don’t worry, just use whatever you have), and post them wherever. I’d love to see the results of anyone who participates, so whether you’re on flickr or not, post a link to your wherever you uploaded so I can take a look!

And have fun!

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One of 50 photos I took with my 50mm on February 19, 2009

For those of you looking for a project that doesn’t last quite as long as 365 Project, may I suggest you consider joining me in a Day50 project?

Back in 2009, on the 50th day of the year, I took 50 photos with my 50mm lens (you can see all 50 photos in this set on flickr). What a blast! I loved the project for a couple reasons:

• There was no time large time commitment – the project was over in just one day.
• You didn’t have to do anything special – I just went through my normal day and took my camera with me wherever I went. Some of my photos were more artistic some were more “hey, this is what I’m doing right now”
• It forced me to use a lens that I love, and yet rarely use

The 50th day of the year is February 19, which happens to be a Saturday this year, which might make it easier for others to particpate (in 2009, it was a work day, so I had to bring my camera to work, which I felt a bit awkward about, so I didn’t get many pictures during the day). Don’t have a 50mm lens? No problem, just take 50 photos at 50mm on a zoom lens, or at any set focal length if you don’t have a zoom lens that covers 50mm. Don’t have a DSLR? That’s fine, just commit to taking 50 photos in one day.

This is my favorite “quickie” photography project I’ve ever done, so I think a few of you might enjoy it as much as I do. If you decide to do it, too, after you post your photos somewhere, leave a link in the comments (of this post or any post) and I promise to go check out your photos!

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One of the photos from this year's 365 project. It's tea, btw.

I remember reading a friend’s blog when she mentioned she was doing this 365 thing. She was taking a picture of herself once a day for a year. I thought this sounded so cool, so with my trusty point-and-shoot in hand, I started on January 1, 2008. 366 days (of course I picked a leap year) and one camera upgrade later, I had a set of 366 self portraits on my flickr account. It felt great to finish, I was proud of my accomplishment, and I could see how much my photography skills had improved in just one year. And then I decided I never wanted to do that again.

Not quite ready to completely walk away, in 2009, I started a open topic (read: not self portrait) 365 project. I quit after 264 days. Why? well, pretty much all the reasons I’m about to list below. Keep on reading to the end, though, if you want to know why I’ve decided to try again in 2011.

No one should feel obligated to take a photo

Yoshi actually showed up in a lot of my 366 photos (18, if I counted correctly), most of similar to this - late at night, when I wasn't inspired by anything else

I took 2010 off from any sort of photo-a-day project (and, as those of you following along already know, I even quit the weekly projects I set up for myself, too), and sure, I took fewer photos that year than I have any year since I got my DSLR, but there was a higher percentage of photos that I loved. I was taking photos because I wanted to. I was enjoying my hobby, not just doing it because some rule I set up for myself that said I had to take a picture before the clock struck midnight.

Too much pressure/Just not good enough

Not exactly what I wanted...

I don’t have a problem with taking a photo every day. I have a problem with being expected to take a good photo every day, and even if you tell yourself that’s not your goal, that it’s an accomplishment just to finish, I really wanted to take a good photo every day. I wanted to be this photography prodigy that stunned everyone with my ability to take your breath away with every photo I posted! …have I mentioned that I will never be that person? The frustration of not being good enough is healthy to deal with once a month or so, but almost every day was getting on my nerves.

For instance, the photo you see here, of me tangled up in the Christmas lights? It’s not a bad photo. But after multiple attempts, it wasn’t at all what I wanted. And maybe if I spent 3 hours a day prepping, shooting and editing, I could get some photos that met my expectations, but I have other things to do with my time, and maybe it speaks poorly of me and my dedication to photography, but 3 hours every day for a photo just isn’t worth it to me.

It takes time away from what I’d really like to be photographing

I have never been one to particular like to take photos of people, nor has it ever been a goal of mine to get really good at it (I wouldn’t complain about getting better, but it’s not high on my list of photography goals). When I first got my DSLR, I didn’t really know what I wanted to do with it, I just wanted to learn how to use it and take better photos. The more I got into photography, the more I realized that I loved taking photos outdoors, in natural light, of nature and landscapes – both man-made and not.

When I dropped my 365 project in 2009, it was because I started focusing more on the weekly photowalks I was doing. Those where the photos that inspired me. I wanted more time to prepare for them, take them, and edit them. I’ve always been a bit obsessed about my editing and refused to edit my photos out of order, but I remember being annoyed at having to edit the daily photos when there was a whole batch of photowalk photos just waiting to be pulled into UFRaw and Gimp.

A red leaf found on a walk in the fall

So, why am I doing it all over again?

Despite all of the above things, I still enjoyed my 366 project.

I met so many other talented photographers through the 366 group I joined on flickr. Many of whom I’m still following today and consider to be the photographers that have inspired me and helped me turn into the photographer I am today. And I’m following a lot of you on flickr right now and see many of you doing your own 365 project and I’m ready to be inspired by all of you again.

It felt really good to finish such a project, too. Sure, half the photos really sucked, but what an accomplishment. Not too many people can say that they managed to do something for 365 days in a row. And it feels darn good to do it. And I’ve quit projects for 2 years in a row (not every project, I did complete the 52 photowalks in 2009), and despite justifying it all to myself – and others – I’m ready to actually finish something again.

I took photos that I never would have otherwise… and some of them were actually good. Yes, I know, I just said that I didn’t like the fact that the 365 projects were taking me away from the photography I loved, but, maybe it’s good to step out of my comfort zone every once and a while. If I hadn’t been doing a 366 project in 2008, I never would have taken this photo:

Flickr claims this is my most interesting photo.

To this day, it is still one of my favorite photos, and definitely my most popular on flickr.

And so, yes, I’m doing it again. Here’s to 365 photos in 2011! If you want to follow along, you can find me on flickr and see the set of photos for this project here.

On a side note, I purchased 365: A Daily Creativity Journal to help prompt me when I’m stumped for ideas. I’m not following the prompt for each day – and when I do, I’m just getting inspired, not taking them literally, as it’s more of a book for making something every day than taking a photo, but it is nice to have. So keep it in mind if you’re already starting to wonder where your ideas are going to come from for the rest of the year.

Haven’t started a 365 project this year? It’s never too late to start if you want to! No one says they have to start on January 1!

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• January: Lines
• February: Drinks
• March: Transportation
• April: Leaves
• May: Street Art
• June: Doors/Windows
• July: Statues/Parks
• August: Sky
• September: Water
• October: Street Where I Live
• November: Books
• December: Pets

As a reminder, here are the “rules”:

• Really, the only rule is that you have to take the photo during the month. The idea of the themes is to get you inspired to take photos, not just look through your old photos
• You can take as few or as many photos for the month that you want – and you can submit all of them to the group. If you don’t like a theme, you can skip that month completely, there’s no sort of obligation!
• The themes are meant to inspire, and can mean whatever you want it to mean. For instance, for the theme “Books” – you can take photos of books, or you can take a photo inspired by a book (like an Alice in Wonderland theme photo). Although, if you do something that’s not obviously related to the theme, you might want to put in the description of the photo how you got inspired, for those of us looking through the pool of photos.
• Sometime after the month is over, I’ll go through the photos submitted to the group for that month and pick out some of my favorites to post in an entry here on iffles.com (yes, I realize I still haven’t even done November from 2010… but I will!)

That’s about all I got… Happy New Year, everyone!

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I love sharpies.

I hope those of you in the States had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend – I know that I did, and I’m not looking forward to getting back to the daily grind!

During the month of October, I was tweeting and posting on flickr some daily “quick tips”. I didn’t make it through the entire month, but I did promise to share all the tips over here, so here are the 26 Quick Tips I have to share – no matter what kind of camera or editing software you use, I think you’ll find at least one tip that applies to you!

Use Ctrl+Shift+O in Picasa to open photos in an editor

Those of you that have been reading for a while know that I use Picasa to organize and tag my photos, but that I use a combination of UFRaw and Gimp to edit them. I even wrote once about how I would find the photo in my file system in order to open it for editing (and someone was nice enough to point out the File –> Locate on Disk option. Even better, though, I found the File –> Open File(s) in an Editor option. Which is also activated by Ctrl+Shift+O. Since I have Gimp set as my default editor, with the UFRaw plugin, it automatically opens my Raw files in UFRaw!

Use Levels to make the foreground pop

I used to take a lot of pictures with the cheap version of lighting – the lamp on my side table. I would turn off all the other lights in the room to make the background as dark as possible, and I’d end up with photos like this:

Before Levels

The background is darker than the foreground, but youc an still see the outline of the entrance to my dining room. A quick adjustment of Levels in Gimp, gave me this:

After Levels

It’s such a small adjustment that I feel makes a big impact.

Shoot in Continious (Burst) Mode

Maia

When do I find it the most helpful? When taking photos of living things. It’s really great for group photos – the more chances you have to get everyone’s eyes open at the same time, the better! But even that photo of my cat Maia you see here, it’s from the middle of a group of photos where her eyes are droopy or squinty. I happened to get just the one where she’s looking clearly at the camera.

Try Different Sharpening

Did you know that FX Foundry has six different methods for sharpening photos? I have to admit I still use the default Unsharp Mask that comes out of the box from Gimp the most, but there are some photos where other methods just seem to work better. If you’re unhappy with one method of sharpening, but sure to try some others. You might get a feel for which methods work best for which type of photos (and if you do, let me know!)

Reformat your memory card, not just delete

I’m not going to prentend to understand all the ins and outs of data storage, but my basic understanding is that when you delete the files, they still remain there somehow, but if you reformat the card, you’re really wiping out all the data. While this might sound scary, I’m assuming you’re not reformatting until you have those photos backed up anyway. The real reason to do this is that if you reformat every time, you’re less likely to get a corrupt card in the long run. I repeat that I don’t really understand why this is (although, I suppose it makes sense if deleting isn’t really “cleaning things up” and your start piling more things on there, things could get confusing), but I will say I’ve always reformatted and never had issues with a corrupt card (*knocks on my wood desk top*), and I have friends who were just deleting and have had issues.

As for how to do that, check out the menu system in your camera. In my camera (a Canon Rebel XTi), it’s under the first orange (tools) tab, at the bottom it says Format. And yes, you should format the card in camera, because your camera is formatting it specifically for itself. Related, you should avoid using the same card in different cameras, if you’re lucky enough to have more than one camera!

Think about the background!

Grassy background

Think about the background for your photo. If necessary (and possible), move your subject to an area where the background “fits” more. For instance the photo you see here is one of my last CSA baskets of the year. I don’t usually take the baskets directly to my back yard, but I felt the green grass was a more appropriate background than the kitchen counter for a basket full of fresh veggies (and had the added benefit of there being better lighting out there).

Use everyday objects to spice up your photos

Yoshi!

Play with layers in Gimp scripts!

Most of the Gimp scripts I’ve used create at least one new layer to my photo, often changing the blend mode and/or opacity of that layer. I like to play with those layers – changing around the blend mode on some, removing others all-together, playing with the opacity, etc. I usually end up with something I like better, but even if I don’t, every time I play with the layers I gain a better understanding of the different blend modes in general and of that script in specific.

Surround yourself with creative friends

If you’re feeling like you’re in a rut creativity-wise, just surround yourself with creative friends. They don’t need to know a thing about photography, in fact, it’s often nice to get a completely different perspective than someone who already has their own photographic style. I’d rather here the outrageous “can you do this?” ideas and say “well, no, but that gets me thinking… I could do this…”. For instance, in October, I did my first Senior Photo shoot – for the younger brother of a friend of ours, there were five of us out there, including the subject of the photos, and we all had similar personalities and shared a crazy sense of humor. Not only did it make the day fun, but we all contributed different ideas for some of the more creative senior photos I’ve ever seen! It was really a blast and got me excited about photography again.

Turn off “Shoot w/o card” mode

When I first got my camera, it would allow me to shoot photos without a memory card in the camera. There was no internal memory, so all this did was display the photo on the LCD screen, and then it would be gone forever without any way for me to transfer to my computer at a later time. Can you imagine how dangerous this is? I could have taken the memory card out to transfer photos to my computer, never put it back, and then gone out on a long photo walk without ever realizing that there was no card in there! I don’t know if your camera even has this option or not, but for me (once again, with a Canon Rebel XTi), it can be found in the menu under the very first tab, there’s an option called “Shoot w/o card” and I have it set to off. When it’s set to off, the camera will tell you there’s no memory card in if you try and take a photo.

Turn off the beep!

I suppose this one is more of a personal preference, but I hate when my camera beeps when the auto-focus focuses on something. I find it distracting – especially when I’m “in the zone” taking photos and I just want to feel the camera in my hands. I know that sounds pretty cheesy, but it’s true – I find the beep a bit too… technical? I don’t know how to describe it. Anyway, I first turned off the beep when going to a wedding when I didn’t want the beep distracting other guests of the wedding when taking photos of the ceremony, and then I realized I really preferred it that way, so I kept it off. Once again, I don’t know how to do this on your camera (if yours even beeps at all…), but on my camera it was in the first tab of the menu, there was an option called Beep, and I set it to Off.

Hoodie

Zoom In

You don’t always have to see all of something to know what it is, so really zoom in and fill the frame in order to get more interesting photos of everyday things. For instance, to the left you can see the hoodie that I bought when on vacation this year. I knew I wanted a photo of it because it was the only new thing I brought home from the vacation, but pictures of hoodies aren’t really exciting. I’m not saying the photo you see here is the most artistic photo ever, but I think it’s a bit more exciting than typical clothing shots I take.

Lazy Vignettes

I’ve written before about a few ways to create vignettes in Gimp, and that’s just a couple of a handful of different ways I’ve done it before, but they all require a bit of work to get themd one. Sometimes, when I’m feeling lazy, I’ll just run the LOMO script from FX Foundry, because one of the layers is a vignette. I can just remove all the other layers and I’ve got a vignette with little effort!

Buy a remote trigger!

I did an entire year of daily self portraits without a remote for my camera. I have no idea what I was thinking. After I got one I realized how much I love it even when NOT doing self portraits (though, they’re definitely pretty handy for that). If you don’t already have one, I urge you to buy one (or ask for one for the Holidays!). They’re pretty inexpensive as far as camera equipment goes, and I think you’ll find you’ll use it more than you might think you would.

Also, for those of you that wondered, because I did before I bought one… I can only speak for my Canon, but if I have my lens set to Auto Focus and click the button on the remote, yes, it auto-focuses just like if I hit the shutter on the camera itself.

Set textures to Burn for a more grunge look

I’ve written about adding textures to your photos using Gimp, but I told you to set the blend mode to Overlay. If you set it to Burn, you’ll get a grungier look, like you see in this photo:

Setting textures to burn gives you a grunge look

Shoot in RAW to correct colors

It’s much easier to correct the color balance of photos if you shoot in RAW. You know how when you’re shooting photos you can select what white balance you want to use? Well, when you shoot in RAW, your RAW editor (I use UFRaw) will allow you to pick whatever white balance you want to use after-the-fact. In fact, you can even use sliders to get the white balance to an exact amount, and not just use the preset ones that come with the camera. I understand that shooting in RAW isn’t for everyone, but adjusting the color balance is something that I have really come to appreciate a lot.

Save your Curves settings

I actually just talked about how to do this in this article, but just remember, you can save your Curves settings. This is especially useful once you get into adjusting the Red, Green and Blue curves. You often end up with some cool effects that you might want to duplicate later.

Don’t always focus on things

Bokeh Tree

I don’t think you need to know what something is in order for it to be a good photo. For instance, I love this out of focus picture of a tree in my backyard. It’s not just playing with bokeh, though. Zoom in on things so close that it’s hard to tell what it’s a picture of (I seem to recall a magazine I read as a kid doing this and you were supposed to guess what everything was) or play with colors. Just try to play around remember there are no hard fast rules when it comes to photography.

Try rotating backwards

I know I’ve mentioned it more than once on this site, but I prefer to rotate backwards in Gimp. Just set the Direction radio button to Corrective (Backward), and then set the Preview dropdown to grid, then try rotating. Instead of your picture moving when you move the mouse, the grids will move, which means you can align the grids up with something on the photo that you want to be level. This is hard to explain, but pretty easy to use. Try it at some point if you’ve never done it and see if you like it better.

Watch that Reflection

When I was talking about using everyday objects up above, I mentioned that I like to use mirrors sometimes. I, obviously, did that for the photo at the top of this post, but be sure to watch out what’s also in the reflection. I wasn’t thinking at first and set up the mirror in my bathroom because the light is actually really good in my bathroom. But then I realized that it wasn’t just the Sharpies getting reflected! So I moved the mirror out into the hallway and what you see is a white wall instead!

Pick an organization system and stick to it!

There’s no much point in taking photos of memorable events and things in your life if you can’t find them later. I don’t think there’s anyone “right” way to organize your photos, but I can say you should really thinking about what’s going to work best for you… and then stick to it. I didn’t give it much thought at first and when I finally did and decide what I was going to do, it was easy to do going forward, but none of my old photos were organized that way, so it made it harder to find my older photos, and a pain to go back and reorganize them all (in fact, I still haven’t finished after coming up with my system over a year ago).

If you care, my basic system is as follows: Whenever I upload photos of my memory card, I put them in a folder on my drobo (a fancy external harddrive that automatically saves all the files on multiple drives incase one dies) that’s named “YYYY_MM_DD – short desc”. that’s obviously the date followed by a short description of what’s in the folder. For instance, I have a folder called “2010_10_05 – Smashed phone” from when I dropped my Android phone and the screen shattered back in early October. Then I review all the files in Picasa to decide which ones I want to edit (by hitting Ctrl+Shift+O!), and edit them in Gimp. Once I’ve saved them, they show up in Picasa, where I mark them with a star and tag them. I mark them with a star because I save all my photos, even the “rejects”, but if I ever want to see just the “good” photos, I can filter by the starred photos in Picasa. After they’re tagged, I export them to my laptop harddrive (usually resized, sicne I don’t upload the full size images most of the time). This way I have them there for uploading, and so that if I’m on the road and someone wants to see a photo, I can pull it up.

Remember that Canvas Wraps actually wrap

I love the canvas wraps I have in my house, and I often debate ordering some more – but one thing you really have to keep in mind when ordering them is that part of the photo actually does wrap around the frame! For instance, here’s a picture looking up at one of my wraps hanging on the wall:

bottom part of a canvas wrap

As you can see there’s a good portion of the photo that’s not seen when you look at it straight on. So, before you order a wrap, make sure there’s not a vital part of the photo (like somone’s eye!) that’s going to to be hidden on the side of the wrap.

Use the crop tool to see the Rule of Thirds lines

You may know that the Select tool in Gimp has a Guides dropdown that allows you to see the Rule of Thirds guides as you select parts of your image, but if I want to quickly the guides on my photo as a whole, I prefer to use the Crop tool. Why? Well, it has the same guides dropdown, but the reason I prefer the crop tool is because if I make my select bigger than the photo itself, it “snaps” to the outside edge of the photo. If you try this with the select tool, it doesn’t do the same thing – so in order to select the whole picture you have to actually carefully select just the photo. The crop tool is just easier!

Now I know where I was!

Take photos of signs

When I go on photo walks, I like to take photos of signs of where I am. It isn’t because I necessarily think they’ll make good pictures, but mostly so that when I finally get around to editing the photos (sometimes a month later), I can remember exactly where I was! For instance, when I went to Conneticut earlier this month, I went on a walk around Williams Park, which I’ve been to a handful of times but can never remember what it’s called. With a photo of the sign, it doesn’t matter that I can’t remember!

Put the camera down!

Feeling frustrated? Not like your photos? Sometimes I think the best solution for a creativity block is to just put the camera down for a few days. Don’t force yourself to take photos just to do it. From my personal experience, at least, I started to resent the camera and found I wasn’t taking pictures because I wanted to but because I felt I should. Once I took some time away and picked up my camera because I wanted to, everything felt much more natural and I started to get better photos.

Lie down for a different perspective

Some of my favorite photos have been taken while lying on the ground. Don’t take all your photos from standing up or sitting down. Get up high and down low for some different perspective.

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Project Fail.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about failure. Perhaps it’s because I’ve failed in pretty much all of my photography projects I was going to accomplish this year.

The weird thing, though, is that I’ve been thinking about it not because I’m mad at myself for failure, but actually because I’m not. Sure, I’m a little bummed, but why not so upset? In 2008 I did a year of daily self-portraits. In 2009, I did a photowalk a week. During both of those years I was extremely motivated to finish those projects and if I had missed a single day or a single week, goodness, I’d be so upset! (I did actually miss a day in the SP project. I actually cried. And I know others who have said the same thing, so at least I’m not alone!)

So, why I am a bit calmer about it this year? I think these are the three reasons:

Photography isn’t about Projects

I was already a member of flickr when I first “became a photographer” (I define that time period as when it first became a passion for me), as I was already using it as a place to store photos (mostly of my cats because, yes, I’m one of those people). When I suddenly found this passion, I turned to flickr for inspiration and I realized that most of the people that inspired me were doing some sort of project. Most of them were in the middle of a 365 Self Portrait project. And so, it’s not hard to see why I quickly associated passionate photography with such projects.

It’s really only this year that I realized that whenever I told someone I was into photography, none of them asked “oh, what project are you working on?” It was always one of three questions: “What kind of camera do you have?”, “What type of photos do you take?”, or “Where can I see your work?”. Now, granted, I don’t think just having a camera makes you a photographer, and while I question whether you can call yourself a photographer if you’re not sharing your work with anyone, even that one is debatable. But you can’t really get around the fact that people want to know what your passion is – what you like taking photos of, not what projects you’ve accomplished. In fact, when I tell people about my past projects, I mostly get a “ok. Well, that’s kind of crazy.” look from them!

Photography is about passion. And if you’re passionate about doing a project – like I was in the past – then GREAT! But I’m just not feeling it this year.

Asparagus Risotto. f/4.0; 1/60 sec; 60mm; ISO 800

There’s More to Life than Photography

Who knew, right? During 2008 and 2009, I defined myself (outside of work, at least) almost exclusively as A Hobbyist Photographer. That was who I was. That was what I did. And I don’t regret that. But this year I’ve realized there’s really more to me. I like to play geeky board games with my friends. I like pick up my CSA share and then plan and cook entire meals around them. I like to read books on my Nook. Heck, I even like to watch TV.

Maybe none of that is directly helping my photography (though the cooking has given me plenty of new meals to photograph), but being a bit more well-rounded has not only helped me deal with not accomplishing my photography goals, but I think it’s also indirectly making me a better photographer because I’m finding motivation in other things.

FIRE! f/4.0; 1/250 sec; 105mm; ISO 800

I’m Shooting What I Want

I really like taking photos of fire. I don’t think they’re amazing pictures. I don’t think it’s something anyone else couldn’t do with their point & shoot or iPhone. I just like it. During the warmer months, John and I spent a lot of nights sitting out our deck with a fire in the fire pit and/or a fire in our old, rusty charcoal grill. And every time I have to grab my camera and take some shots.

This isn’t some sort of goal of mine, and it doesn’t fit into any predefined project. I just have fun doing it and looking at the results. I’ve also been taking photos of the progress of the veggies in my garden. I’m not sure if this is something anyone other than me cares about looking at, but I like it. it makes me happy not only to see something I planted turn into something I eat, but I like making it look good in photos.

There were a few times last year that I really had to force myself to go on one of those photowalks, and I was only doing it because I didn’t want to fail. I’m still pretty proud that I accomplished my goal, but I also question why I went out and did things that I didn’t even want to do? I’m sure it’s no surprise, either, that on most of the “I don’t feel like doing this” walks, I didn’t get many good pictures. If I’m not feeling it, I’m not getting good photos.

Conclusion

I think my overall point of this entry is that what we individually define as failure isn’t necessarily actually failure. Yes, it’s true, there’s no real way for me to accomplish the goals I set forth at the beginning of the year. But that doesn’t mean I’m a failure. It just means that my goals have changed.

I mentioned at the start of this entry that I’ve been thinking a lot lately about this so-called concept of failure, so expect this entry to be the first a series.

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