DAY 15 - "The Painting"

Growing up as a kid and visiting my Grandmother, I always remember this oil painting on her wall. I did ask her if it was my dad and don't remember what she said, but I recall she said it was. I remember first looking at it and knowing it was him. I knew even as a kid, that he wasn't a Roman soldier, but that maybe somebody used a picture of him and painted him in that scene...very cool. It wasn't until he passed away and I was asked if I wanted this oil painting that I found out the truth...It wasn't my Dad. BUT my mom told me that he bought this for his apartment in Los Angeles when he was 22 years old. I love this painting and will forever cherish it...and know that it IS my dad :) I added a photo of him with my mom when they were younger...I think he looks a lot like the painting.

DAY 14 "Behind the Lens"

I'm dying here, seriously :) Yes, I say that with a smile, but what a change for me to photograph myself. I did say this project will make me grow, so at any chance to make myself uncomfortable in a situation or that may be new, then so be it...it will be done. My hope here, is in the end of this project, any "shield" that may have been in front of me, will no longer be in my vocabulary/sight. Here's the funny thing, I went into tonight, thinking I would scan some old photo's I had found in my storage unit today....ahh, but as fate would have it, I mis-placed the power cord to my scanner and it was 11pm...DOH! So what do I do for my Project 365 !?!?! Get my arse in front of the camera. I would love to have Photoshop'd this, but I will accept where I'm at in life...I'm getting older and I am who I am. By the way, I'm on vacation and I don't have to shave if I don't want to :) I will now try to aim to get myself in P-365 at least once a month...that should cure a few things.

DAY 13 "Roadside Flowers"

A pair that is meant to be together in the wild.

DAY 12 "The Panorama"

This photo is case and point of why this project will excel my photography (I have a full year to keep repeating that statement :) ). I say that for the fact that I will be pushing myself in areas that I haven't tried before...if I don't fail, then I'm not growing and the more I fail (and quicker) the better I'll be (the beauty behind taking a photo everyday. BTW, I take much more than a photo a day. Any photographer knows that in the digital age, a LOT will be taken to get that shot) Not that this is "the shot" but is a shot :) Here's what happened and why I feel the shot here fell short...literally :) First off the left side of the photo is missing...this is a panorama right? What happened? Ask my laptop...it damn near blew up on me. Seriously, I went to "auto stitch" these together (30% overlay) in CS5 and...well, my compilation of photos (shot in RAW) with 14 photos, totaled 1.79 Gigabytes. My sweet little, reliable laptop tried to speak to me and all I heard was "HOLY SHIT"...the word frozen wasn't even on the agenda. This poor thing was grinding and burping and the heat from the fan was enough to roast some smores. After an hour, I relieved my laptop by just stopping the process and cropping at the left side. So I learned a lot here, maybe not in the field, but in the post process side of things. I take that back...I did see many things out there and in the photo that can be capture/adjusted, but the main problems I experienced was in my hardware. Not the end of the world, as I stated earlier, problems are good at this stage. So a good session :) I was proud of inserting my Starbucks in the photo that morning...at least it made it in the photo :)

DAY 11 "The fields"

I took a trip up to Northern Cal for the holidays and of course I was seeing a thousand photos I wanted to take, but I had a schedule of 5 hours to meet and was running an hour late as it was. The one shot that stood out, was how wonderful the lines looked in the fields...there's just so much going on with it. I love seeing it narrow in the distance and how the road intersects up front and absolutely LOVE bare trees. So on the way home I decided to take my chance and snap several photos of this area. I use my tripod a lot, so I decided to bracket a set (-2, 0, +2) then compress and play :) this was the result.

DAY 10 " "

I have no idea what happened here, that's why it's "black". When Christmas hit, I had it all up to date...I think it was Christmas night :) I can't find any pictures I took on the 26th, they are just gone. The memory card shows the 25th and the 27th. So this is a real picture :) Time to get caught up, organized and then head out tonight for some photo's.

DAY 9 - "Hanging Out"

You know the party has begun when the pirate patch is pulled out.

DAY 8 - "The Lone Star"

"Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse; I sit here alone, with my vino and an empty house" :)

DAY 7 - "After Midnight"

At Leadbetter beach in Santa Barbara, Ca.
This was a 7 minute exposure on a full moon (key to the exposure) Everything in the photo is natural and only exposed through Lightroom from RAW to .jpg

DAY 6 - "Hooking for Money"

60 feet in the air, hooks and all dangling below. This image says it all for this holiday. I'll let the viewer create their own opinion on this...for me, I'm looking through my lens...literally to I guess :)

DAY 5 - "Time to Shoot"

What do you do when you're up at 4am and can't go back to bed...Grab the camera and go capture the sunrise. Well maybe rain, since we're on our 8th or 9th day straight of it.

DAY 4 - "Contacts"

I figured if I was going to do this project, I might as well meet people along the way and hand out my cards. I decided to stamp some cards with "Project 365 Day No." (and then write down whatever day it is in the series). All my contact info is on the backside. We'll see how it goes.

DAY 3 - "The Boys"

Downtown with my boys waiting for Dad's favorite thing to do...Ride the trolley! Yes, California does have rain and a little too much of it right now.

DAY 2 - "The Flag"

At the Santa Barbara Mission - 30 second exposure - Night Shot. I liked this long exposure, it gave a haunting look and fitting for the environment where I was at (Near the Mission grave yard ~ 1:30am)

DAY 1 - "My name is Ann"

I can't say that this photo is exactly what made me start Project 365, but it did seed the idea. After taking this shot, I instantly wanted to share it for some reason...here was the scenario;

I went downtown to shoot lights and buildings in the rain, trying different angles and lighting. I was on the sidewalk just off of state street, trying to change my smaller lens for a longer telephoto, in the rain while holding an umbrella. I just pulled off this great achievement, when a lady walked up to me and asked "do you want to take a photo of me" A bit puzzled and preoccupied with what my task was, I just stated "Oh, I'm sorry I don't have the right lens on for that" She just said "okay" turned and walked away. I kinda of felt bad, but I wasn't there for taking pictures of people. But she was such a happy person and the way she asked, was as if it would have been to my benefit...at that point I realized I better snap a photo of her, because I could be missing something wonderful.
"Excuse me, I would LIKE to take a photo of you if you don't mind?" I explained to her I had a telephoto lens on and she would have to be at a decent distance to capture it, plus I couldn't use the onboard flash due to the long lens (shadowing). She was more than happy to turn and give a warm, beautiful smile. As she walked away, she stopped and turned around and yelled back "My name is Ann...and you can you use that photo however you wish, I don't care about any signing or copyright stuff"...Love it! "Thank you Ann".

So I'll use it Ann, you're now DAY 1 of Project 365!!!