The chances for photography outside of the normal happy snaps with my pocket camera have been few. I have a few ideas floating around in my head but it is the matter of finding time between college and work to shoot photos.

I did how ever enter one of my waterfall shots [link] into the NC State Fair Photography Contest and didn't get any awards, along with other a handful talented contestants who honestly had much better pics than myself. The type of pics that won this year at the fair either had a child or wildlife in the frame, but in the end this just proves you do not know what the judges are looking for; that is the toughest part. On the bright side my photo was chosen for exhibition at the fair amongst the 2,100 entries they claimed to have in which they only chose half of to exhibit. Also, speaking of the NC Fair I did take some night shots of the fair environment; which was very interesting to shoot in and was a great creative challenge.

Lately I have been in a state of mind of a grease monkey to where I want to shoot stuff that is automotive related, especially older garages and gasoline stations. I have even been looking for old cars on the side of the road or in a field to shoot that great rust texture that we all have a soft spot for. As far as other projects, I have been needing to shoot my friend Christian in his SteamPunk attire around a old farm setting but getting our schedules to meet in the middle is always the constant challenge. Lastly, I have been meaning to do a night shoot at the Raleigh Durham International Airport, shooting long and multiple exposures. As a side note, I did have a local print sale of a 18x24 [link] in a 22x28 frame for a nice sale.

Wish Me Luck!

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Life has been satisfying lately, other than some surprise car problems; but it was not a major fix just annoying. On the art side of life I have had a handful of portrait shoots lately, some I can post on DevArt and others I can not. It is up to the client if I can post the shots on DevART, but in the end I can use them in my hard-copy portfolio. I have more portrait shoots lined up for the following two months that will make me some money as I continue to build my portfolio and always expanding skills. In the past, I always used the natural lighting of the situation to make a great picture, but I finally stopped being stubborn and started using TTL flash in some shots with great results.

In August, I plan to take another camping trip to the North Carolina Outer Banks in which I plan to camping near Cape Hatteras, in the area of Buxton. This time I have planned to have more time to focus on the area including nature and the lighthouse. Unlike last time I went to the area I was in a major rush since I only had two days to shoot. Also on this trip I plan to take the ferry ride over to the island of Ocracoke to visit the lighthouse and surrounding area; which I have never visited. Hopefully my shooting goes well at both locations over the four days and I might also sneak in so weird Cokin filter shots for fun.

On the design side of things, me and my partner Christian are hoping we have just gotten our first website job for our free-lance business. It should bring us a notable amount of profit, if we get the job. I will be making the graphics as Christian puts it altogether into a website using Dreamweaver. We should get the jobs seeing that the client has given us most of the research information for building what is wanted in the website. The website is part flash and non-flash so in the end the website should look great after Christian completes the code. hope we get the job, it would be a great way to jump the business.

Wish Me Luck!!!
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I recently just got back from my paradise on earth, Cape Lookout National Seashore. I took some pictures of the lighthouse, surrounding beaches, and my girlfriend Brandy. The pictures all turned out very well and this time when taking pictures of the lighthouse I wanted to shoot more Black/White. I shot one roll with a green 11 filter to lighten foliage and shot the other roll with a red 25 filter to get sharp contrast. Both rolls came out great! Then I shot some pictures of my girlfriend Brandy at the beach with some light pale cloths to make a nice connection with the beach environment. i was trying to go for a 1890's look of a lighthouse keepers daughter or something similar. Overall the shoot went great and for her first photo shoot ever she did a pretty darn good job. The rest of the time i put some 100iso color film in the camera and shot some of the beach features and the lighthouses in the morning hours. Other than that the camping trip went well and i plan to go back in May of this year.

As far as any future projects I ave some ideas but nothing set in stone. The only shoot I plan to do are some more low light shots at the RDU airport and around the Raleigh area. What can I say other than low light photography in fun and interesting. But like said above I really have nothing solid planned.

In some sad news, my Nikon N90S decided to break. The mirror got dis aligned and would jam almost every other shot. I took it to the local shop to get repaired but it was going to need to be sent to Nikon for a $175 repair. I bought the camera itself for only $150 so I decided to buy another N90S and fit all my add-ons from my previous N90S. I had planned to wait til after my Cape Lookout Trip to buy another N90S but my girlfriend saved the day and decided to buy me the N90S. I was speechless and just thanked her a million times over. Buying me a camera is at the top of my scale of being super-cool and a awesome girlfriend! So, the camera was in the same condition and we got it for only $115.

All is well in my world.

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Well things have been slow for me since the Waterfall photo trip in the North Carolina Mountains. I have been so busy with working full time and class it has been hard to have much time for brainstorming let alone shooting. As you can see though I did have my first true payed shoot. My best friend Ryan could not think of what to get his parents for the holidays, so he figure he get them some nice pictures of him. Also, this payed photo shoot has brought business from his family my way. But with what little time I have had for brainstorming I have a few ideas.

My next adventure in photography will be a subject i have never attempted because of the difficulty, or atleast i thought. After some research night/low light photography is not really that hard at all. So I plan in the very near future to do some night shots of gas stations in the area. I have always found the colors and lights of gas stations at night very interesting. Also plan to play around with the Multi-Exposure idea on some of the shots just for fun. But this small project is only the start of a possible new obsession with night/low light photography.

The practice of night/low light photography leads into a much more experimental project. I plan to use moonlight in a graveyard and a model to make ghost. I figure if i find a spot of headstones that at very white and dress my model in as much white as possible i could make ghosts. It is all about getting the white to reflect the moonlight to make nice contrast. The exposure would be for atleast 30secs if not more so i figure i would have the model walk very slow across the image and about 3/4 the way i will spot flash her to make her body and eyes pop; to make a true figure. Hopefully the end product will have nice contrast on the landscape and the model will be a nice white blur.

I also plan to shoot some "SteamPunk" style model shoots. I figure i'll try to find a industrial park and use that as the back drop. Then since it is winter i thought of making some "fake" snow and throw that into the mix. also maybe some red roses on the ground or in the models hand. I plan to shoot this with and with out the snow. overall the project is pretty straight forward.

Wish Me Luck!

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