nisaa

This is from yesterday's shoot around the former Alameda naval base.

I think I'm about a week into it and I've got 5 images I may use so far. I plopped them into the Booksmart template and will leave them there until I have more photos and decide for sure.

Here's the theme that's sort of emerging: things with cobwebs and crumbled things (not food, but statues and not necessarily ancient ruins either, just things that were whole and now aren't).

So far, I've mostly taken photos in my neighborhood. I've read about the abandoned hospital or dentist office in Alameda that was creepy and potentially haunted but also burned down last year.

If anyone has any suggestions for places near Alameda and Oakland for me to photograph, let me know. And I'll be in New York near New Windsor, Pomona and Nyack for four days in July so if you happen to know any places near there, it might be hard for me to get around but if there's a must-see thing, I'll find a way. I don't remember any abandoned places near Nyack but I grew up near there a very long time ago and I'm sure it's changed a lot.

You can download the complete PDF proof of my SoFoBoMo book here:
http://www.joedecker.net/denise/mychosenfamily.pdf
(Thanks, Joe!)

Whoops! I found my first typo :(

I've posted some photos from my Sofobomo project on my flickr page for you to see here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nisaa/sets/72157619773406561/

I have just over a week to finish my book. I stayed up very late last night working on it and have been doing a bunch of rearranging of the layout today. I took photos of people last Thursday at my art opening and had a photo shoot with one person that morning. I have been bugging my husband to pose for photos with me but that seems to be the wrong tactic since he hates having his photo taken. It's hard to take candid shots of yourself without a tripod though . . .

It's not exactly down to the wire but this coming week I have one photo shoot scheduled on Tuesday, maybe I'll squeeze in one or two more and then all that's left is to take photos of me and Joe together in the redwoods. Piece of cake, right?

yikes!

I've decided to take the advice of my friends and cut myself some slack. After all, this project is really for me. I've decided that this project was on pause for the past week. Real life got in the way of a lot of things.

Tonight I worked on the cover of the book (How exciting!) and the dedication page. I have to figure out what to do about the lines in the photos I took over the webcam (criss cross lines appear on some of the photos, making the subject appear as if he was in jail or something).

Anyway, I have three sets of subjects lined up to photograph this coming weekend. Onward.

Today I took photos of rightkindofme and her daughter and had a lot of fun. I think I'm more excited than hesitant about the project after today.

I'm taking a lot of photos of my friends and family. They're not all great photos from a technical viewpoint but they're fun photos and they convey a lot of happiness. And right now, that's ok by me.
If I think of this as more of a photo album of my loved ones and their loved ones, I can forgive myself for the flaws.

Last night I told more friends at a party about my project and they said they'd love to be in it (3 more people).

I also took some better pictures of my dog.

Today: Nada, zip, zero, zilch. I have three minutes left to today. I'll try to at least download the Blurb software so I can start the layout.

Tomorrow: I'll bring my camera to a Memorial Day get together and maybe take some photos of people.

I took some pictures of my adorable cats tonight, including Spartacus in mid-yawn. I attempted to take pictures of my dog Sofi but she's black and it's night and it's just not happening. Maybe tomorrow I'll get some photos of her when we take her out for a morning walk.

Today was pretty productive in terms of taking photos. I met up with deyo and mactavish to take photos of them and their dogs. When I got home, I took photos of stevefava and harpydisplayed and a few of our pets.

One thing I found difficult today was taking photos of two people at a time, especially if one or both of them are laughing. Ultimately, I'll be happy with slightly blurry photos if the people in them look genuinely happy.

Photographing dogs if they're not napping is an entirely different story. Well, maybe it isn't. It's difficult enough to take photos of dogs because they don't often sit still. On top of that, deyo and mactavish have dogs that are mostly black. My dog is black too. It's a lot more challenging to get a photo of them that's not blurry, if they're awake.

I will have to flaunt the imperfection then, embrace negative clarity and have a few blurry photos. I'm ok with that.

After today's photos, I'm less worried about coming up with 35 photos for the project. I think I've got at least five so far. And, I might have more subjects to shoot soon too!