52 Faces in 2010

I haven't blogged since last year! Good grief.

I've always said that goals are important, big and small. They give you something to work towards, and to look forward to. My mind seems to work best when its always looking ahead so I always try to have something (however small) lined up on my horizon.

One of my goals this year is to become a more intuitive lighting photographer. What I mean by that is, I'm going to be working very hard at letting my subject determine my lighting technique, not what I'm comfortable doing the most. Once you learn a few techniques that work for you, its easy to go out and do the same shots over and over again because you're comfortable with the technique and know its going to work every time ...at least that's been the case with me.

So, in an effort to improve my own skills, I have vowed to not use the umbrella'd strobe camera left with the kicker camera right rear, for every single shot. Instead, I plan on packing my usual weapons of choice, and should I decide to use them, or only one of them, or not at all, then so be it. I'm after a good, resonating portrait ...regardless of the 'style' of light.

In an endeavor to help me with this goal, I joined a group on Flickr called 52 Faces of 2010 in which you take one portrait, every week, for 52 weeks in a row. So far I have taken two portraits, a self-y and one of my girlfriend's oldest son. You can follow my project HERE, and with any luck (and an ounce of motivation) I may come up with a few interesting words on what drove me to shoot the portrait the way I did.

Artistic note: the above portrait was shot purposefully from a wide angle, and up close to distort the perspective and view. This guy does not have one huge, behemoth right hand.

-mtc

P.S, if anyone is needing a new, classy headshot for their portfolio, blog or Facebook profile, hit me up ...I may be scrounging models that aren't job related.