Today was my first day back to work after a weeks vacation. It was also the first day that I had to work while also thinking about doing my pic-of-the-day project. I felt the stress of trying to work it in all day long. I think I might need to plan some time for lunch field trips to local parks or other photograph friendly locations so I don't have to sweat it at night. In the meantime, I was watching my son Cameron as he was struggling to journal what has been going on in his life over the past few days and thought maybe I could shoot a few pictures of him for today's assignment. Well, first of all he is at that age where he only does what he wants to do. Me shooting pictures of him was not his idea of fun at first. Of course he was kinda grumping about having to write in his journal so he was not in the best of moods and I'm sure that didn't help matters. I really wanted a natural picture, not something posed or forced. I think we went through a few stages before I could capture what I really wanted.
Stage 1 - grumpy stage - Cameron held his hand or journal in front of his face.
Stage 2 - warming up - Cameron started getting playful and wanted me to do some funny shots of him (making a muscle, funny grins, tongue sticking out).
Stage 3 - blending in - Cameron finally got tired of fighting me and went back to his task of journaling. In the future I'll have to remember to let him get his silly stuff out before I try to get something serious. Of course he'll probably just switch it all up to keep me guessing.
Shot spex: RAW Image, Pentax K10D, ISO 800, 40mm, f4.5, 1/10 sec., flash aimed at ceiling with LumiQuest Softbox attached.
PhotoShop spex: I'm really loving RAW - I was able to really tweak the White Balance to what I felt was a very close rendition of what I saw with my eyes. Smart Sharpened, Adjusted all the usual stuff, Cropped a little differently to rid the picture of unwanted details (I need to pay more attention to the background in the future).
Haha great story to go along with your picture today. I run into the same stuff with my son. I have learned the same thing as you. Just let them be silly, it's digital and it doesn't hurt anything to take a few frames like that. Regarding stressing over the project; my advice would be don't let it get to you. For me I have been doing it for 150+ days now and if I don't have anything good I just post something. It is, at least for me, more about the exercise of using the camera and posting something every day. Not every day is going to be a masterpiece or even that good. But in doing the project you really do start to see things you don't normally see. Sometimes I post stuff I think is terrible but I always post to keep things running along and I find that I like more of what I post than I don't like. Of course, for you, the project could have completely different goals but I thought I would share how I manage the 'stress' of it. Keep shooting :-)
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