This assignment I found to be somewhat easy. We had to take a format, for a magazine article, and shoot the photo to fit the format of the text. I asked for models on Facebook and my friend Lisa VK stepped up! I went to her house on an overcast day. Her deck was nice, with a nice background of Puget Sound. I filled in light with a medium octo-box and a flash from camera right.
This week was a fun assignment. We had to take a self-portrait, without our face in the image. This wasn’t easy! After looking around my house, I settled on books. I have a lot of books, I’ve always been surrounded by books. So this was a random selection of books that I have read, reflecting my many interests.
Thanks for reading! ~Erin
This assignment was interesting because of the timing! We were to make an image of summer baseball, based on or inspired by “Field of Dreams“, and include a ball in the shot. Remember the cornfield baseball diamond?
Interestingly, the Project 52 Pro group is very international, and not everyone was familiar with baseball, let alone the movie. Don modified the assignment to include one’s local summer game; for some it was tennis or cricket.
In Seattle, it’s raining half the time in the spring. I went to a local field and shot my old softball mitt, and a baseball I had lying around. The baseball signed by some Everett Aquasox (Seattle Mariners Short Season A affiliate) more than a decade ago. I have no idea who the signatures belong to.
Don suggested that some light coming from the side to highlight the edge of the glove would have made a better image. I would agree. Maybe I’ll re-shoot it sometime.
Thanks for reading! ~ Erin
This was more of a commercial assignment. We had to create a photo for a financial services company brochure. The image had to fit a particular dimension, be black and white, and feature coins.
“The job at hand is to create a photograph for a brochure cover. The client is a financial services company. They help people take the mystery out of financial planning. The point of this brochure is to show some new plans they have for money management, and how that new strategy can benefit the consumer. The brochure is a wide format landscape. Completed size will be 6×12… twice as wide as tall…The shot is to be in black and white, and it is to feature coins… no paper money to be shown at all.” (from the assignment post)
I got some points for lighting on the coins; they are lit so that we can see the details and different colors of the coins. I needed less stem and more leaf on the plant. It’s lit from above and to the right, on a white seamless background.
Thanks for reading! ~ Erin
I love music; I enjoy and appreciate just about any kind of music. Project 52 assignment #8 was to create a CD cover for a piece of music by composer Samuel Barber. This was String Quartet performed by a new quartet.
Movement One | Movement Two | Movement Three
The images had to be a standard square size, before standard text was added. The music is complicated, complex, contemplative. It has been in many movie and tv show soundtracks; listen closely and you will recognize it!
Since I had no access to a string quartet or even a violin, I went with a mood/feeling shot. The music brought to mind sitting, drinking bourbon and thinking deep thoughts.
Enjoy the music!
Thanks for reading! ~ Erin
Assignment #7 was a concept shot. This is where we were given a topic and told to shoot however we want. Red Balloon was our topic or subject.
I had a hard time coming up with something. so I set up a white seamless background and tossed the balloons on the table.
I don’t think that’s what our intrepid instructor Don was looking for. So I blew up one of them, and noticed the interesting reflections the flat balloons made in the inflated balloon.
thanks for reading!
Erin
An Azerbaijani teenager’s view of her bikini-clad friends at a beach outside of Baku. A 28-year-old Georgian photojournalist’s journey to the mysterious, haunting border regions of her Caucasian country. A 27-year-old Romanian graphic artist’s portraits of workers in Turkey. A 49-year-old American’s spare, mystical vision of Yerevan, Armenia.
I had no idea, when I began curating this photo show of female photographers living in or traveling through the Balkans, Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia, how very edifying it would be to open my inbox every day to look at these snapshots of daily life.
More Project 52:
Assignment 5 was to create a poster for our local chamber of commerce. They want a poster to bring people in to the local area, and the theme is weather. Assignment 6 had a lot of reading/writing work for our business, along with either a retake or a shot about sports. I did a retake of #5, since I was not able to get a shot the week before.
For the Chamber poster, I envisioned two images together: one would be the front door of the Nordic Heritage Museum in Ballard through rain, and the second image would be an outdoor activity shot, with sunny weather. The theme would be “Rain or shine, there’s always something to do in Ballard”.
Well, as typical for Seattle Spring, the weather was not cooperative. it was just blah and grey most of both weeks. Then, when I had a chance to drive around for my shots, the Norwegian Heritage Museum was bathed in setting sunlight reflecting beautifully off of the windows, and it was a little misty as well. So much for that shot. I then ventured down to Shilshole Marina, and Golden Gardens Park.
There I was able to find some sailors out for a lesson, and the clouds were numerous but broken. I took the image of two Lasers out with an instructor. It was windy enough for sailing, but cold.
The original shot was a landscape oriented (horizontal) photo, so I cropped it down to get to a vertical image, focusing on the lesson. Don thought I should bring the sails out more, so the light looked as if it was coming through the white sails, and I should make the mountain a bit brighter. My Photoshop skills really stink, so I need to learn how to do this.
I was not very happy with the image, but I guess it turned out ok.
Thanks for reading ~ Erin
The point of this 52 week course is to develop our style and our direction. To that end, Don had us look at magazines to find the images that we are most drawn to. I had to think about what I liked in the past, and I picked up the magazines that I enjoy for the photography. Most of these were food and lifestyle magazines; Sunset Magazine, Saveur, Seattle Metropolitan, Fine Cooking. So I bought a few and had at it. I ended up with a lot of pictures that I really liked, for topic or style. We had to narrow down the tear-outs to 8 of our favorites. Here are mine:
I had some help for this assignment. My foster kitties were helping with my selecitons.
The next step was to shoot an image based on our tearsheets. I had a date with my friend Denise for wine happy hour, so I took some photos, as if I were shooting for a magazine article. I actually made a graphic postcard for the business to mail to neighbors (not really, but that was the idea in my mind when I was shooting).
The images were declared … okay. I need to work on better interior photography, and learn how to combine shots to make an image.
Now I have a good idea of what I’d like to shoot, and a direction for my photography.
Thanks for reading! ~ Erin
Cooking spray
2 cups all-purpose flour (about 9 ounces) $
1/2 cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup fat-free sour cream
1/4 cup canola oil $
1/4 cup 1% low-fat milk $
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 large egg whites $
1 large egg $
3 cups grated carrot (about 6 medium)
1/2 cup dried currants
1/4 cup chopped pecans, toasted
Preparation
Preheat oven to 350°.
Place 18 paper muffin cup liners in muffin cups; coat liners with cooking spray. Set aside.
Lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Combine flour and next 4 ingredients (through salt) in a large bowl, stirring with a whisk. Make a well in center of mixture. Combine sour cream and next 5 ingredients (through egg), stirring well with a whisk; add to flour mixture, stirring just until moist. Add carrot, currants, and pecans; stir just until combined.
Spoon batter into prepared muffin cups. Bake at 350° for 25 minutes or until muffins spring back when touched lightly in the center. Remove muffins from pans immediately, and place on a wire rack.
Note: I eliminated the currants. I don’t like them.
