100 Strangers

I'm embarking on a new project. The 100 Strangers project sounds like a very interesting project for me. The basic premise is to take 100 photographs of people one has never met before. The expectation is one will develop new and better portrait skills. And become more outgoing (which is not something I would have thought I'd need to develop, but ... )

I have been thinking of starting this project for a few weeks. But I have found it difficult to actually approach anyone to ask them permission to take their picture (and as I hinted above, friends will think this odd ;).

I met these two women, Jennifer & Ty, walking their dogs at the beach today. I started talking to them when one asked about some other pictures I was taking. This seemed like a good opening to ask them for their picture. They seemed quite happy to oblige. Though I should have made more effort to include their dogs. And I should have noted that silly little sign beside the one woman's head.

But I think it is a great start to a new project.

So here it is, stranger #1 out of 100.

Thank you Jennifer and Ty.

You can check out a couple of other images I took on my Flickr account (listed on my Contact page).

Maternity & Post

I recently had the privilege of photographing a close friend and her new baby daughter. This was an unexpected opportunity. And an unexpected delight for me.

I found the experience moving and full of joy. It is something I would love to do again. There are many things I would have liked to have done but it was my first time working with a mom and her baby. And while the baby was wonderful to work with and very well behaved, still she had only limited tolerance for what was going on.

Examples of other things I’d have liked to try; the 3 year old sister would have been a wonderful third person in many of these images, the (very handsome) father should have been included, a variety of outdoor settings - just to name a few (though, not in November!). These are things I will explore in future sessions.

I hope to show a few of these images on the website soon. Please stay tuned.

If you like the sound of this style of photo shoot and either are a new mom or know a new mom, please feel free to contact me.

Opening

I’ve not really thought this website would take much work, or be of much interest to many people. To a large extent, I’m thinking of it more as a place holder - a way of sticking my foot in the door of showing my photography publicly without trying to make a commercial go of it. 

It is also a learning curve on how to use the website building tools I have easy access too. 

I feel that at this point in time, late November 2010, I have put together a website that shows my photography in a good light. There are so many images that I would have loved to include. But it is just not sensible to include hundreds or thousands of images here. This is for highlights. Other images can be found on my other websites (most notably Flickr and my other blogspot account).