HEY HEY HEY!!!
Today is an important day.
I’ve been uploading these photos of myself for 13 years!
That’s a long time.
Let’s look back at the first photo.
BOOM!
There it is.
I started off strong.
A lot of other people’s profile pictures were simple and boring.
I wanted something different.
SO THAT’S WHAT I DID!
I wasn’t going to be a part of the crowd.
I was doing to do my own thing.
And now, here we are.
13 years later.
Still doing my own thing.
It’s crazy to see how much I’ve changed over the years.
I’m not shooting simple little photos anymore.
They have to be interesting and complex.
So that’s what these next few photos will be about.
I started putting in some effort into my photography during high school.
But back then, the only good camera I had was a film camera.
The rest of my cameras were simple point and shoots.
They didn’t have any controls I could adjust.
No manual mode.
So, I used that film camera for my first few projects.
They all involved multiple exposures and light painting.
I got one roll of film developed and I used some of the photos back in the day.
But the thing is, there was more than one roll of film.
There were 3!
I shoot two in 2013 and got one devolved.
Then I shot two more in 2016.
While thinking of this project I’m about to start, it made me dig out the old film camera.
That’s when I saw the 3 rolls of film, not developed.
I forgot about them.
I decided it was time to see what was on them.
I have videos from 2013 of my shooting one of the rolls.
I did something interesting for that roll.
I have this award-winning photo.
The Award-Winning Leaf.
While watching the videos, I noticed that I also shot the same photo ON FILM.
I was testing to see if I knew what I was doing and could manually control a camera.
Well after all this time, I can finally see how I did.
Yeah..... it wasn’t much of a payoff after waiting 8 years.
But that shows that I didn’t know what I was doing.
BUT NOW!!
NOW I AM A “PROFESSIONAL”!!
I thought it would be cool to go back to how I started.
I wanted to do multiple and long exposure photography again.
But this time digitally.
No film.
It’s too risky.
A lot of my old photos didn’t try out well because I couldn’t see what I was doing.
If I want to do this right, I’m doing it the easiest way.
Cameras have two modes, time and bulb.
Bulb will keep the shutter open as long as you press the shutter button.
Time will open the shutter with one button press and keep it open until you press the button again.
No button holding.
Which is better.
So, the setup was simple.
A dark basement and a camera set to the Time setting.
I used many different things.
I had my camera flash for work.
It has a test button to do a test fire.
And then I had a really bright portable floodlight.
The floodlight would be for long exposures to get some nice light streaks and ghosting.
And then the flash would be for multiple exposures of me.
I wanted different colors as well, so I bought some LED light strips.
But they didn’t turn out that great in my testing.
So, I ended up using my colored undershirts.
I’d put one over the flash and BOOM, the flash would be a different color.
The sad part is the only color that really worked was red.
I don’t mind, red is my favorite color after all.
All the pieces were in place.
It was time to make something happen.
I was down in that basement for 3 ½ hours.
I shot over 100 photos.
Then a few nights later, I spent another hour shooting 60 more.
All in an attempt to get the perfect one.
And I think I did it.
So, here’s the first one of the series.
IT’S BLUE.
It’s spooky.
There’s a certain vibe to it.
CAN YOU FEEL IT?!?!
I wanted something.... haunting?
I don’t know.
Something strange.
All this was done in-camera.
No photoshop.
Well... almost.
I did add some spooky atmospheric fog later on in the editing process.
I downloaded some effects and brushes to spice up my photos.
So, it was about time I used them!
The editing wasn’t too difficult.
Everything was already done for me.
All I did was balance the lighting and made everything blue!
COMPARE!
Hover your mouse (the computer one) over the original picture to see the changes I did.
If you're on a touchscreen device, just tap on the picture. You may have to tap more than once.
Isn’t that lovely?
Now compare a version with the fog and without the fog.
Did the fog add to the photo?
WAS I CRAZY FOR ADDING IT!?!??!
MAYBE!
That’s all I have this time.
With a project, I normally take the video and split it up into parts.
Like with the last project.
Well, I don’t have time for that this time.
The video was at 10 hours unedited at the start.
But now I’ve shot a bunch more video including the 5 hours of shooting the photos and the 3 hours of editing.
There’s a lot to go through and nothing is done.
So, I’ll just upload one big video at the end instead of little parts.
Alright, it’s time for me to head out.
I have a job.
These houses aren’t going to shoot their own photos.
I’LL SEE YOU NEXT WEEK!
Comments