Apathetic Thursday

Today begins the internet release the photographic project that I have been working on for the past few months. I will be releasing one set of three photos each day for the next nine days.

I have so much to say about this project that I don’t know where to start. The idea for this project came to me this last fall. There are a several reasons I wanted to do this project. First, I had some really good ideas for neat photos. I could see the images in my mind and wanted to find out if I could capture them with my camera. Another thing that spurred me on was that I wanted to work with models. I don’t usually like taking pictures of people, but I do it from time to time. I wanted to try something where I was specifically shooting people and even more so, posing them and setting up my shot perfectly. Lastly, I really wanted to do some sort of project that involved a tangible outcome. I wanted something to show for my work and I wanted something I could be proud of when I was done.

The original plan was to have one photo from each set, but after my first few photo shoots I realized that I was going to have a terrible time narrowing my favorites down to one photo. I finally caved and decided that three would be a good number of photos for each set. My original list included five different pictures, but the more I thought about it, the more ideas I was able to come up with. It didn’t take long for me to come up with a total of nine sets.

My goal was to make the photos convey a message that could be encapsulated in a single word. Sometimes this required some editing the Photoshop. My Photoshop work was mainly limited to correcting the color, adding saturation, cropping the photo and blurring or darkening the background. Knowing I could always touch things up in Photoshop, I really wanted to try to do as much as I could with just my camera. (For the record, the photos of David jumping are simply layered and made translucent. I didn’t have to move them around.) A few of the photos did require a bit more post editing than the rest though. The Practice series has a funky background which I created and, believe it or not, the Enlightenment series was actually shot in the chapel.

The hardest set of photos to take was the Daydream set. My original concept required a sunny day and a group of people The weather was at odds against me for several weeks. I was almost despairing that the photo would be simply impossible for me to take when two things happened. First I had a whack on the side of the head and came up with a new idea and secondly God gave me the perfect day and perfect timing to grab the necessary photos.

There were aspects of this project that were extremely frustrating and some of the pictures still are not quite perfect. However, I believe I have found a good stopping point, and I am very happy with my final results. The feeling of accomplishment at finally having completed this project is absolutely wonderful. I hope that you enjoy these photos as much as I do.

A lot of time and effort went into this project and there are many people who helped make this project what it is. I would like to thank all my models for being so willing to help me and make time in their busy schedule. I would like to thank Anna for whacking me on the side of the head when it came to the Daydream photos. I need to thank Andy Overn for saving the day and printing out my photos when the original prints didn’t turn out. Lastly, but never least, I want to thank God for giving me the perfect day and the perfect timing to get my final photos taken. Soli Deo Gloria!