downtown photo shoot

every few months i come up with a new idea for how we can make a living doing things our way. erin and i value our time more than our money... which is why we're always broke. recently though some things have been coming together. it's funny because the direction we are headed seems to be photography. erin has dreamed of it for years but i would have never thought i'd end up doing it. recently, i was encouraged to persue some marketing style photography (architecture, social settings etc). i had to build a portfolio fast before i could meet with folks to try and get the jobs. so i went downtown one afternoon with my wife's 30D and my newly aquired although limited knowledge of the super camera. here are some shots i came up with, which actually did help us get some gigs.

recent photography

i have been learning photography the past few months. not so much just taking photographs but really trying to understand the camera. i have a great mentor. erin spent months & months learning how to use our 300D. after many shoots and a handful of classes she really knows what she's talking about. she got a 30D last fall and so now i get the 300D. transitioning from point and shoot-automatic cameras to manual SLR's is a big step. here's some stuff i've been learning. most interesting pictures have a low depth of field meaning there is a limited amount of objects or parts of an object that are sharp. the rest is then blurry. i always thought those kind of pictures were done by using a manual focus and focusing in on the thing you wanted to stand out. that does give some effect but to really pull out that contrast you have to have a large aperture. here's some shots from around the house today practising with low light, low depth of field.

this one's my favorite from today.

and here's some low depth of field shot's with the focus in different places.
attie's always a good sport.

i've got to get good fast. we are doing several important shoots here in the next few months and i've got a long way to go. i've already made erin get off work for 2 days to do shoots that i've scheduled... soon she will run out of vacation days and i'll be on my own.

The Blog formerly known as Ethereal

I used to author another blog that no one read about a band that no one listens to. Once every month or 2 I would post a entry that was angry and bitter and I'm sure really inspired people to want to come back and read more. I decided to can it and start my own. My life is really made up of a lot more than a disappointing musical career and it would do me good tell a few people about it.