January Wrap Up :: Chicago Photographer Personal Project

You can catch up on the photographs I haven't posted to the blog in my 365 gallery over at the main Amy Beth Photography website. You'll find the 52 week gallery there, as well.

I also created a little slide show this evening that will quickly catch you up on my January personal projects. If you are on a feed reader, click through for the embedded slide show. Or click this link for the HD version (recommended).

Catch up Time! :: Chicago Photographer Personal Project

I have been hard at work behind the scenes getting my intimate portraiture site up and running, as well as starting to attack the redesign of the main website. I have made time to capture an image each day, but I've fallen behind in the sharing. So here's your quick update on the 365 project. A self-portrait update will come later this week.

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1/16/2010

Peggy Notebaert Nature Center in Lincoln Park

I could spend hours and hours in the butterfly room. And I often do.

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1/17/2010

From a trip to the World of Coke on one of my Atlanta trips

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1/18/2010
Still life arranged by my niece and captured by me (check out her version in my 365 gallery on my main site!)

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1/19/2010
My sandalwood mala beads

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1/20/2010
Happy hair cut to me!

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1/21/2010
My niece curled up with a book

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1/22/2010
Knickknack

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1/23/2010
Hula in the snow - there will be a full blog post on this on Wednesday, so be sure to stop back to view more!

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1/24/2010
One of my favorite finds from the Container Store, enhanced with a texture I photographed and modified

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1/25/2010
One of my sweet kitties

All That Glitters :: Chicago Photographer Personal Project

Time to drop off a few more photographs from my 2010 project:

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1/13/2010
I need to keep this thought at the front of my mind

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1/14/365
Playing around with some off camera flash and soon to be taken down Christmas lights and my niece

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1/15/365
I stacked my extension tubes on my new 100mm f/2.8 macro lens and played with some craft glitter. Somehow, the out of focus blur of this image was my favorite of them all. Because technically perfect isn't always best.

Week Two Check In :: Chicago Photographer Personal Project

It's time for images 5-12, along with my second self portrait in my 52 week project.

5/365 - A view of part of my desktop at work. I've been cutting back on coffee and drinking a lot more tea this year.

6/365 - Playing with my new macro lens

7/365 - I also picked up a Lensbaby Muse (plastic optic)

8/365 - More Lensbaby fun. There's a bit of a learning curve to this lens.

9/365 - Finally, a Lensbaby image that I love! Taken at the Chicago Botanic Garden. No more Lensbaby shots for at least a week.

10/365 - Kitty time!

11/365 - Home sick, and stayed in my sock monkey PJs all day

12/365 - Kitty time again!

and 2/52, taken on the bridge to the Japanese Islands at the Chicago Botanic Garden

Week One Check In :: Chicago Photographer Personal Project

I can't tell you how happy I am to have shared my 2009 recap video in my previous post. Part of the reason I fell away from blogging was feeling like I needed to catch up with everything that had happened since my last post. And as it grew further and further away, it became a more daunting task. Now that we're all caught up, I'm also excited to have my daily photograph project to give me the perfect excuse to update a few times a week, too!

This week has been challenging, due mostly to Mother Nature. I draw so much inspiration from nature and wildlife, and when it is -1 F, nature and I don't get along so well. So I've turned to things like low light and playing with lenses I don't usually use. It's been so much fun!

Without further ado, images 2-4:

2/365
1/2/2010 (palindrome day!)
Playing with low light and a kitty who thinks he can tuck himself under a little rug and become invisible.

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1/3/2010
More low light play. This time I got out a flash light and some cat toys.

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1/4/2010
Bacon and chocolate. It might sound scary, but it is oh, so delicious!!

Also adding to my 2010 excitement: an email notification from B&H informing me that my shiny new macro lens and Lensbaby are on their way to me!

2009 Recap

If you are reading this in a feed reader, you'll likely have to click through to the entry to see the video below (don't forget to check out the entry from yesterday for more videos, as well!)

Since I wasn't the best blogger this year, I thought it would be fun to select 100 or so of my favorite images from the year to include in a slide show. Hope you enjoy it!

While I watermarked the images I captured while working with other photographers, some of the watermarks got cut off in the final product. So another special thanks to Imaginative Studios, Melissa Lin Ellis and Edyta Szyszlo for letting me share my summer with them!

You can also check out the HD version here.

Zen Photography Workshop :: Oak Park, Illinois

In my post about photographing the Shuso Hossen for the Zen Community of Chicago, I made mention of a photography workshop I attended back in May. It really reaffirmed for me that my style of and approach to photography is not only valid, but something that others might actually strive to achieve. It was a very rewarding and enlightening weekend. On Saturday, we began by spending time with one another and taking each others' portraits. We then went on a photo walk throughout the Oak Park neighborhood housing the Zen center, and continued on to a community cultural event. The next day, we were honored to photograph a Zen ceremony.

Throughout the weekend, we continued photographing both one another and our surroundings. We even continued to document and capture our experiences as we went to our respective homes for the evening, and the during the next morning, before we gathered once again, as well. Once all the images were collected, they were combined and all the meta data was stripped from them. Suddenly, we were not individuals, but a group presenting one final art piece to represent our weekend. The images were sorted by date, and the juxtaposition of our portraits of one another, combined with the images captured by the photographer in the portrait, creates an even larger portrait of sorts.

Our final goal was to create our own presentation for this larger group of images. Unfortunately, due to the amount of images captured (after we pared down our selections quite a bit!), I had to break up my version of our final project into 3 separate videos, found below.

Personal Photography Projects

Let's just pretend that I haven't been absent from my blog since June, shall we?  Deep, cleansing breaths.  Phew!  It's like those 6 months never happened!  New year, new beginning!  And new projects!

I've decided to do another daily photograph project this year.  I have several friends joining in this time, and I'm hoping that we can all support one another and have a wonderful visual journal of memories to look back on at the end of the year.  Those joining in are the always inspiring Kate Monroe and my niece, who I'm hoping will allow me to share some of her captures with you.

For some reason, when I was out today in the frigid cold, I decided I wanted to attempt a self portrait project this year, as well.  I'm aiming for weekly self portraits, and while that project is mainly for me, I may share a few from time to time here on the blog.

Both of the images below were taken at the Baha'i House of Worship in Wilmette, Illinois. The first is the image I chose to represent today in my daily project, and the second, of course, is my self portrait. I hope you enjoy following along with my projects. Let me know if you have any personal projects of your own. I'd love to follow along! And if you don't, what better excuse than a new year to jump in with a new project?

1 of 365

1/1/2010 - Wilmette, IL

1 of 52

1/1/2010 - Wilmette, IL