Bye, Bye, Blogger!

Time for bigger and better things!  I have been working on a new site for a few weeks and am now going to stop posting on this Blogger site.  Thank you everyone for dropping in here over the years.  I am now saying good-bye to Blogger but not to photography or my updates.  As my photography grows, my need for a new space has grown as well.   Please follow me to my new site:

http://www.cldavisphotography.com/

The site still is not fully up and running, but I have started making postings there and look forward to working from the new site from now on.   I will continue keep this site open, at least for a while longer.

I hope to see you all over here!

Advanced Pro - Week Four

For the last assignment I decided to take a song and use it as the theme of the photo shoot and interpret the message of the song into a more teen angst type of story here.   I had to post a couple extra shots to tell the story (I figured since I stuck to the limit in all the other weeks two extra pictures won't hurt this final week.)  I shot this with a 50mm lens and a Lensbaby.  Also, different this week, I decided to shoot this all inside.  I converted the shots to black and white as I felt it fits the mood of the song/theme better.  I did include a color photo at the end, so you can see how the photos originally looked.  This was fun and it was fun to see my daughter enjoy herself.  I told her what I wanted and then let her style herself and do the makeup.  (BTW - none of us smoke, so it was a challenge with the cigarette.  We had to borrow several from a neighbor and then use febreze on everything afterward to get the smell out!)

The song is "Lies of the Beautiful People" by Sixx A.M.

Well this ain't no sideshow

This is the great unknown

This is the poison we take

Yeah

Outside the velvet rope

Standing there all alone

All the grotesque and ashamed

Yeah

Well if you think real beauty's on the outside

Well that's a far cry

From the truth

Maybe all the information you received

Well you should not believe

There's no proof

Save yourself from al the lies of the beautiful people

It's time to run from the lies of the beautiful people

I feel so traumatized

Doped up and televised

Life can be cruel and insane

Yeah

But we've got these ugly scars

On our infected hearts

Maybe it's time for a change

Yeah

And if you think real beauty's on the outside

Well that's a far cry

From the truth

Maybe all the information you received

Well you should not believe

There's no proof

Save yourself from all the lies of the beautiful people

It's time to run from the lies of the beautiful people

Save yourself from all the lies of the beautiful people

Just run and hide from the lies of the beautiful people

Save yourself from all the lies of the beautiful people

It's time to run from the lies of the beautiful people

My daughter prefers the color versions, but I think for the mood and the "fit" of the project, the black and white work best.  Nevertheless, I decided to include a color version so you could see what it looked like.

Thanks for a great four weeks - it was very profitable and pushed me in directions which I never considered before.  I look forward to moving forward on this path in the future.

Advanced Pro - Week Three

Well, to start with this week I have to say, "I got nothin'!"  There was no couple nor a child which I could photograph, so it's back to my own kids...sigh.  With that, I decided to follow the soccer idea with my son.  I know and can question him about soccer as we were taking the photographs.  I asked him to do some things - try some tricks.  When he heard the camera click only once or so while he was doing tricks he got mad!  He wanted to hear the continuous shooting.  Given the mid-day light, those shots did not turn out the best.  

I kept him engaged by discussing soccer (we had been watching soccer all morning as well and he would talk about a player and some of the moves he was making and try to handle the ball in a similar manner or show me a ball handling trick.

He started out with a white ball and that one went over into the neighbor's pool.  Then he tried a black ball.  It wound up in the neighbor's yard.  The red ball was good for a while, until he kicked it over the wall.  We were shooting some with the mini ball (see second picture).  These were taken at the end and I got two, before he started acting silly and threw the ball and it wound up in the neighbor's pool as well.  They are used to it and all neighbors (behind and on both sides) regularly toss his balls back over the walls, thankfully. 

I decided I had better work at capturing his personality and I think some of comes through in the photos, including his "attitude" as well as his funny side.  In the end I like the way the photographs turned out and think I managed to get a few good portrait shots.  I didn't have a good location - just the back yard, we had to improvise and cropping helped with that.  I tried to keep things as simple as possible, so that the focus was on him and not the background and/or surroundings.

This assignment does coincide with another assignment I have with another class, which is to use reflective surfaces and without even trying, the areas I chose to shot in did have these reflective surfaces and I feel I got some very good light in the face and eyes. (When you can spy the eyes through the shaggy hair!)