Schmootography Photography- powered by SmugMug

365 self portraits. Can I actually do it? Inspired by many others, I decided to give my creativity a kick in the pants with a Daily Photo project. With life happening too fast, quite often I lose the spark that drives me to pick up the camera. Hopefully I can maintain not only this project, but the ability to develop more as a photographer. Ideally, the majority of these will be self-portraits to help me get over my image complex and to document the most important, memorable moments of each day.

My rules:
1. At least part of myself in each shot. Every 24 hours.
2. EXIF data pulls rank. I travel and can't always upload on a timely matter, but the timestamp is as the timestamp does...
3. Try to document the dominant activity/event of the day. This is a journal-type project for me, too.
4. Having help is OK. While I always set up the shot myself, occasionally the location requires having someone else hit the shutter for me.

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schmoo > August 19, 2008

Uninspired, wanting to be inspired, wanting to satisfy that creative itch and getting nowhere. (know where?) I ended up playing around and coming up with pretty much nothing. I thought about an earlier SP I did although the similarity in result wasn't really intentional. I have so many ideas and they all go into some black void. That hurts.

At the very least I had a nice evening shooting the city. I didn't really get anything good, but I tried.

Really.

I think that I need to start hitting up different parts of the city. But do you have any idea how tired I am of people asking me:

"What are you taking photos of?"

"Why?"

Just leave me in peace, please.

schmoo > August 17, 2008

Procrastination is my name, so I'm doing my Daily. I'm so close to finishing the summer semester but this is the most difficult hurdle for me. So why not process photos?

Today we had some festivities with family, which was very stressful to me who doesn't deal well with social situations. To take a break we took a walk in the surrounding woods. I love dappled sunlight, but I just couldn't seem to get any compositions right until I looked at our shadow.

Although it's late summer this photo reminds me of autumn. I love autumn and I miss it each and every year because all my life I have been starting a new semester when the leaves change. Stress, stress, stress. I have one more year of missing fall before I can enjoy it again. I graduate this December (if I don't mess anything up) and I will surely be celebrating that fact. Somehow....

... and then I will be bored with the jolt of realizing how I can't deal with all of that "free time!"

schmoo > August 16, 2008

I am now a redhead.

Nothing really went according to plan today. I've been grumpy so I'll keep this short.

I thought this shot from this afternoon looked like some promo for a band.

schmoo > August 15, 2008

Just another toy that I have put off getting for too long. Camdapter makes these uber-comfortable hand straps which come very handy when you just don't feel like messing with your tripod... which is me 90% of the time. I love my tripod and my (new!) big knob but I really only break out the big guns when I'm going for the long haul. Most of the time I just cannot slow my brain down enough to set up a tripod.

I gotta say that I'm not too keen on having both the handstrap and the neck strap on this thing, but I'm not ready to give up on SmugBranding just yet. If I ever get a chance to go shooting in the next couple of weeks I'll decide then. It's not hard to take the strap off but it'll be a pain to put it back on if I change my mind. To do so I have to find an allen wrench and remove the RRS body plate...

Anyway, Camdapter has great customer service and like I said, the strap is so comfortable. Thumbs up all-around and I know this will be very useful for the wedding I'm shooting later this year.

schmoo > August 14, 2008

Ran quickly up the to Apple store after work. I realize these days how much I enjoy reflections and this one was a lot more impressive in real life than it looks in this point-and-shoot shot. Since this image is a bit like Hidden Pictures I've included the answer key to where I am.

schmoo > August 13, 2008

True to form, I'm taking a daily SP while out at an establishment that sells food and drinks. I have noticed that most of my shots for this project revolve around one of these two things and it must seem like this is all I ever do. It's totally not the case -- I just don't think my sitting on my bumme at my desk working/studying/writing 12+ hours a day is worth documenting.

This evening we met Keith at a favorite pub in Fells Point. I got to see - and play with, FINALLY - the SmugShot app on his iPhone. Kind of ironic, no?

In any case this week has been very interesting so far. Most of all was my mobile office at the Daily Grind yesterday after an appointment I had at Hopkins. It was jarring to go back to a place that still feels like home, and realizing that it wasn't my home anymore. Don't get me wrong: I would never trade my work, my company, or my coworkers/friends for what I do now but it's difficult to reconcile this change when all I've ever known in my life was science, science, science.

I'm less than one week away from the conclusion of my summer semester, and after this I will have only one more class to take before I graduate with my Masters. So exciting! Because it's a part-time program I've been doing this for 5 years now, and I'm ready to be done. When I was accepted into the program I was 24 and I knew I would be 30 (30!!!) before I was finished. I appreciate all of my great professors and the startling things I've learned about biotech in this time, but it's so strange to have the contrast of SmugMug and bioscience packed into each and every day.

What did this train of thought have to do with Keith? Nothing, really. I just need to talk, I guess.

schmoo > August 10, 2008

The weekend was one of many nice ones spent with my parents at their main HQ. My parents have come a long way, in many ways, and I'm always happy to go spend time with them wherever they are. There's so much that I appreciate now because I am older.

It was humid that day even after a spell of rain. I caught this reflection of the clouds in a puddle on the driveway, and of course Zach had to dive in because he and I are virtually inseparable.

schmoo > July 22, 2008

Backdating a little, I was surprised to find this shot on my point-and-shoot from the end of July. It was like Christmas, unearthing a long-lost treasure. Only now do I recall the moist heat of the night, walking into the scotch bar looking for a release at the end of a stressful day. I wanted to just talk and relax and not worry for a spell.

I barely remember walking to the end of the pier afterwards, but as I scrolled through the photos from that night I see that this was why. Alicia, the proprietor, is not stingy with her wares.

schmoo > August 9, 2008

Just a hypocritical reminder to myself to take 15 minutes each morning and evening to ease the stressbomb (tm) that I am. Who am I kidding? I haven't meditated regularly for weeks now... :(

I've been doing a lot of sitting cross-legged lately, even though it's not very becoming.

I still feel like I have bugs crawling on me from this 2-shot "shoot" in the woods. Not much of an wilderness/camping kind of person, me. But asbestos and bat poop? Any day!

schmoo > August 6, 2008

I am so glad that I got the email from Derin that he was in the state/town/country this week. It's always a surprise to me that after a 14+ flight he always lets me know only the day that he's actually present, but I don't mind. I'm never so socially booked that I can't stop to see an old friend for dinner one day this week, particularly when they're camped the next town over.

It was a fabulous surprise that Ixia was so good. The place has been there forever and I've never remembered to try it. My shot today is something like the three musketeers, but hey that's what we were. And we had something to celebrate.

I have few people in my life who stick around for as long as Paula and Derin have. Longer than I've been sane, longer than I could ever ask them to. In fact, I have less than one hand's worth of fingers of people who I am both unrelated to and who fit this bill. In a way it is a little sad. The average friendspan is 2 years, whether or not I want it to be. I've always thought about this, over and over and over and it never changes. Misunderstandings notwithstanding, something inevitably happens to those I care about. When I lie awake at night sometimes I think about this and what it is in me that causes me to skip across people the way someone hops from rock to rock. Maybe it's even considered normal? I don't know, but it's frightening.

I am who I am and not one whit more.

Less.

Whatever!

schmoo > August 3, 2008

A very full day. Brain unplugged. Everything pushed aside. The weather was beautiful although I opted to stay asleep until after 9 instead of going for a much-needed morning ride.

The clarity of the sky is amazing here on a rare day like today when the humidity is low. My car is also squeaky clean and I'm having fun playing with this lens.

I love the people in my life because they bring so many different, interesting things into my own. But while I am almost never "alone" these days, especially when I work, I have been feeling very isolated.

It's a day of reflection, with reflections.

schmoo > August 2, 2008

Today is Tired Day (tm). But I got a new lens and so far it's great. I do love the bokeh on this, and the speed.

Trying that blueish processing that I see from portrait photogs. Not sure if it's working for me but I gotta run so it'll do....

schmoo > August 1, 2008

Today I had less than 6 hours notice on a friend flying into town.

This is more or less how things work with Paula. We have a long history of great occasions, scandalous social gatherings and yet I cannot remember a single incident of us being together when the sun was in the sky. This is, to me, a sure sign of good times.

We knew each other a long time ago, probably the most tumultuous and impressionable years of our lives, but those months were cumulatively quite short. All the same, Paula is a force in my life that has always come and gone, and no doubt I have been the same in hers. But every time we do catch up it's like picking up exactly where we left off. Months, years, or days, it never makes a difference when we talk again.

The last time I saw Paula she was floating off into the night in that Paula-ish way, melting into the swirling river of light and color of bright Shibuya. We had just completed an exhausting but excruciatingly entertaining evening at the Pink Cow, and a round of peculiar appetizers and drinks (and five! unordered! glasses! of green tea) at a 3rd floor izakaya. Under the pouring rain and those cheap clear Japanese umbrellas we said our goodbyes. We followed Tatsuji into the subway as Paula drifted peacefully into the neverending crowd. If the city never sleeps, Tokyo is the Insomniac and she was always ready for the next lesson.

It had been 6 years since I'd seen Paula but I was certain we'd meet again. However, looking back on that night in Tokyo I was a little uncertain as to where things stood. People change, friendships change, and although we always joke about how none of that really matters, you can never quite be sure. 30 might be the new 20 but maybe they just say that to make up for all the late nights, bad boyfriends, and scene stress that you actually miss with a teeny little part of your heart. Are they right? Am I right?

I think they're right.

Anyway it's truly wonderful catching up with a friend who was just a student like you when you met, but now uses the words "submarine," "Russian," and "nuclear warhead" to describe her line of work.

schmoo > July 31, 2008
A friend passed this on to me today:

"Work hard, believe in yourself, enable your dreams, seek out creative people. Hang on. Tenaciously. Always be a force for good. "

I thought pretty hard about that and how I try to live my life.

schmoo > July 29, 2008

This evening was spent running errands in Annapolis and getting a bite at Joss's Cafe. It was lovely: classic pink haze and golden sunset, exactly what I envision when I think of a Maryland summer. It's very beautiful if you can stand the heat and humidity.

I always whip the camera out whenever I get a chance, but this time I thought the reflection in the LCD was more interesting than anything I was shooting through the thing.

August 19, 2008

Uninspired, wanting to be inspired, wanting to satisfy that creative itch and getting nowhere. (know where?) I ended up playing around and coming up with pretty much nothing. I thought about an earlier SP I did although the similarity in result wasn't really intentional. I have so many ideas and they all go into some black void. That hurts.

At the very least I had a nice evening shooting the city. I didn't really get anything good, but I tried.

Really.

I think that I need to start hitting up different parts of the city. But do you have any idea how tired I am of people asking me:

"What are you taking photos of?"

"Why?"

Just leave me in peace, please.

Camera: Canon (Canon Eos 30d) |

more details: exif |

original size: 2336px x 3504px |

Current: 300px x 450px |

Other sizes: S · Medium · L |

Gallery pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 > >>

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