Chris Casciano’s Place Name Here

Many photographers on Flickr and across the web have come across Project365 in the last few years. As described by early driving force Photojojo, along with other benefits:

Taking a photo a day will make you a better photographer. Using your camera every day will help you learn its limits. You will get better at composing your shots, you’ll start to care about lighting, and you’ll become more creative with your photography when you’re forced to come up with something new every single day.

I’ve thought about joining in each of the last few years — hey, I already take photos a few times a week, what’s a few more? But that’s why I never have. I already shoot a few times a week, carry one of my cameras almost everywhere and spend more time then most looking around for a potential photo op. In the end I just didn’t think taking more photographs would advance my skills.

Twisting It Around For 2009

So I’m not one to typically make resolutions but I have been thinking about what I do need to do to improve my shooting. And I don’t think its spending more time taking pictures or taking more pictures but instead spending more time taking the pictures and on the pictures I do take. My typical routine over the last two years has been go out for the day and shoot 200 or so pictures and skim through for the 10 or so shots I want to quickly tweak and drop on Flickr. But then I move on and don’t look back or look closer.

So my plan for 2009 is to twist the idea of Project365 on its side a little and try and come up with one photograph a week that I’ve spent some time in the field thinking about and trying a few things to get just right and then coming back and really giving it a good look when I get back in both Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop in post production to make the image the best it can be. Like shooting every day, it should force me to get out regularly, spend time focusing on shooting in the field and coming up with something new. But I hope it also helps me slow down a little, pay more attention, and spend some time really critiquing my work instead of taking a snap and then quickly moving on.

Project52 – Week 1

I was at the local park again shooting primarily in two locations along the trail. The pine grove and its long shadows gave me some good candidates for the first week’s image, but ultimately is was the more iconic waterfalls shots that grabbed me. This photo of Black Rock Falls offered some shooting challenges [mix of lighting & harsh highlights] and a lot of things to try.

In the end I think the image right our of the camera was pretty good [though unfortunately a little soft] so I didn’t do too much in post, but a trip though LR and PS for a little cropping, brighting of the cascading waterfalls which was in shadow areas and a little cropping made the resulting image something I’m a lot happier with.

I don’t know if I’ll blog each week’s posting, but you can watch my Project52 set on Flickr to see how I progress and if I keep up with it all year.

As 2008 comes to a close many sites are doing year end wrap ups see previous post and here are two sites highlighting how New Jersey saw the year.

Star-Ledger highlights best photography from 2008

A slideshow posted to the newpaper’s website entitled 2008 In Photos offers 50 or so of the top news images of 2008. Some really great work in there that holds up as great photojournalism regardless of the locale.

New Jersey 2008 on Flickr

On a less photojournalistic note, but none the less interesting, The Flcikr group Anybody Want OT Have A NJ Photo Outing? — which is dedicated to people from the internets meeting up in real life for photowalks and the like — has a thread asking us amateurs to Post your best NJ image from 2008. It is interesting to see the great images and read a little about why someone picked the image they did. As for my pick in the thread…

I think this is one of my favorite shots from the year. It just came out of a short time spent one afternoon in may – breaking the winter blues with some nice color and some active birds. I think ir has some good depth, color and i like the way it prints.

This image is now available for sale at shop.placenamehere.com.

After reading Moose Peterson’s blog post on the Nikon GP-1 GPS Device I need to correct a bit of misinformation from my earlier post Nikon D80 To D90 Upgrade First Impressions.

There I lamented the fact that you could only plug in the Nikon MC-DC2 remote cord, or the GPS unit, but in fact the GPS unit has a remote plug in is so you can daisy chain the two devices. Also in the blog post, Moose mentions the GP-1 includes a clip to attach it to your camera strap instead of the hot shoe leaving the hot shoe free for flash usage.

Though I’ll continue using my off camera geologger for now, with these two options the GP-1 design looks much better and it will be an alternative I’ll consider should the time come that I want to change up my system.