So, I have been shooting with the Land Camera, but I think it’s gonna take me a few film packs to get used to it…I’m definitely not happy with my results yet, but I think it will just take some time to get used to a new camera, the same thing happens with any new piece of equipment.  In the meantime, here’s the past few days’ photos.

5/9:

A little Lensbaby portrait of the Land Camera…I debated cropping it because of that little white thing on the right side, but I felt like it didn’t detract terribly, and I prefer to maintain the full frame as much as possible.  Still, I’m not sure, should I have cropped?  There’s another photo coming up that was definitely improved by cropping, but I like to keep the full frame for continuity I guess.  That and I feel like you should be able to compose a good photo with the full frame, and cropping should be a last resort.  Thoughts?

5/10:

It’s so difficult to get reds right with my camera!  This is not exactly how it looked, but my camera tends to make reds look too pink, or otherwise oversaturate them, I think.  I can’t really figure out exactly why they look off, so I’m not sure of the best way to fix it.  I think I’ll try to research it…I love red, but I’m never happy with the way reds look when I photograph them.

5/11:

Another hard image to edit; I think the lighting had something to do with it this time.  I’m also beginning to fine tune my Camera Raw skills, and starting to learn things like the difference between the exposure control and the brightness control.  I’d like to have a better raw editing program, but I’m broke at the moment, and I’m also kind of a creature of habit and like using Camera Raw.  I got a book about it last year for my digital photography class but never so much as glanced at it until a couple of weeks ago.  I think it will end up being summer reading.

5/12:

Not much to say about this one…It was just a quick snap, the lighting just caught my eye.  This one was cropped, to remove part of his jeans showing on the right side, because I thought it was just totally confusing and took away from an otherwise nice image.

5/13:

It’s not 100% sharp, but this was truly my favorite image from the day.  We went to my dad’s cousin’s restaurant (Uffa! in Portland, ME, really beautiful place and delicious food, check it out!) for a graduation party for my cousin, so I was trying to get some shots of family members and the atmosphere, but I had a hard time.  I switched between a wide angle lens and my 50mm, but I just couldn’t get much I was satisfied with.  I thought this was just a really nice portrait (of one of my dad’s other cousins, we’re a big family), I didn’t think the softness really detracted from the image.

While we were at the restaurant, I noticed the photos hanging around the main dining area, beautiful images from various places in Africa and I think Central America.  It occurred to me that maybe I should find out if I could show some of my work there; well wouldn’t you know it, the owner/head chef James said he actually has a hard time finding people to show work!  He was totally enthusiastic about having some of my work on display!  Now, the tough part…I have NO idea what to show, and I have to get everything matted and framed.  I’m considering doing a show from the work I’ve been doing on this project, but I’m still undecided.  I have so many photos, I could come up with all kind of different shows.  The only problem with showing images from this project is that I would really like to show at least one or two of my black and white photos taken before I started this whole thing.  I don’t know if it would be less cohesive to throw those images in, but the show he has up right now is a combination of color and black and white (granted the subject matter is somewhat related, whereas the subject matter of my work is all over the place).  Any suggestions or advice are more than welcome.