Photo A Day

I used to practice a self discipline called Photo A Day (PAD) up until a couple years ago. I found it to be an excellent way to make me pick up my camera every day and to work on my chops. I got started back in 2004 when I joined pbase.com to host my photos online. I’d been watching a couple friends post their daily PAD’s for a while and it really inspired me. I did PAD until 2010 when I needed a serious break to deal with things going on at my day job. Now I’m at a place where I can start back up, so I have. I’ll do some cross posting here from time to time. Be sure to take a look at the stuff I put up. Leave me a comment, either here or there, and let me know what you think…

Sinaloa Sign

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If you’ve been around here for any length of time then you know of my affinity for old signs. Today’s pic is from a local restaurant I frequent, an old family establishment that is a local institution. The sign really captures a different place and time. As so many things like this are disappearing fast, I didn’t want to take it for granted that it would always be here. I thought it best to get it now before it’s gone from our local landscape.

And yes, the food is excellent!

Foot

From a mini-shoot I did with Faith yesterday. I was trying to think of a way to show her shoes and feet in the best light and still have some theme contrast. I didn’t want to see just her feet in a pose on a white background, too boring. So we went outside on the loading dock where some old equipment gathers dust. One foot up, shoot across to the other shoe… a juxtaposition of the hardware with the leopard-print shoes and the little taste of red on her toes. I’m pretty happy with the result.

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1919

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1919

Sometimes I get stuck for photo ideas. When that happens, one of the things I like to do is a little photo exercise. I stop in the downtown area and take a walk with my camera. I start by shooting anything and everything, taking pictures just to take pictures. Snap, snap, snap. Get the eye looking and the finger twitching and the mind seeing. Most of those shots are crap; bad composition, to bright or dark, whatever. I throw those away. Delete. But then things start to fall into place. The mind warms up, the images start to come and things start to click. I did that exercise tonight on my way home for work, walking around for about twenty minutes before the daylight gave out.

29 | February | 2008

I love wandering in the alleyways downtown for pictures. Seems there’s always something of interest. Often it’s a wall, or a bit of asphalt or some detritus that catches my eye. Tonight I found myself looking at a wall of windows on the back side of an apartment building downtown. It was just about sunset, the direct sunlight was gone. I stepped up to ISO 200 and f/5.0 and shot a couple shots. A little tweaking in Lightroom for my post processing…