Week 1 – A Self Portrait Without You In It – I set up a lightbox with three lights, set up a few objects that show a bit about me (photographer, climber, writer), and made a few shots.
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Week 2 – Your Front Door – At the time, the front door was ugly, so I took a panorama of the hallway and turned it into a twisted stereographic projection.
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Week 3 – Your Favorite Thing – The original suggestion was to think of something you’d grab if the house was on fire and I concluded that I’d probably just grab the camera bag. HDR.
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Week 4 – Self Portrait – I set up on the third floor of the Waumbec Mill with a tripod and remote shutter and changed clothes between shots to create this composite.
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Week 5 – Favorite Place – This is the only image that I shot prior to the project. Eastern Sierra near Bishop, CA. Processed through Color Efex Pro for finishing touches.
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Week 6 – Song/Movie Title – I was listening to Small World by RCPM and thought it would be fun to create a panorama to show off an actual small world. Taken beneath the Amoskeag Bridge in Manchester, NH.
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Week 7 – Light – The light is real, not something I did in Photoshop, it was just a matter of being creative.
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Week 8 – Laughter – I figured laughter could include something that makes people laugh, so on a whim I set up this shot to take a bath in a washing machine.
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Week 9 – Abstract – It’s actually intertwined plastic tubing, but it kind of looks like the Firefox logo.
Week 10 – Looking Up – Standing outside the SEE Science center in Manchester, NH.
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Week 11 – Luck – I wanted something goofy, so I ran to the store and picked up a Lucky Shirt and some Lucky Charms, then topped it off with a Lucky lottery ticket.
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Week 12 – On a Shelf – My first idea was riding Battlecat from the He-Man cartoons, but I wasn’t completely satisfied with the shot, so I opted instead to use my head as the base of a lamp.
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Week 13 – Spring – One of the more mundane photos of the year and another case where I should have used the alternate photo that I took. As is, this is a flower just outside city hall in Manchester, NH.
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Week 14 – Think Small – A little disturbing maybe, but setting up the ritual sacrifice of gummy bears was a lot of work. It was my first attempt at stacking focus and came out very colorful. I used jelly for gummy bear blood.
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Week 15 – Paper Airplanes – This was the first time I wore the gas mask in public. I set up the shot, stood in for a few frames, and then spent a good chunk of time throwing paper airplanes around. In the end, everything was composited together and processed into one of my favorites of this past year.
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Week 16 – Ways To Get From Point A to Point B – I had wanted to stick myself in a pet carrier on top of a car, or even just strap myself to the top of a car, but with a lack of time, I just made do with a pet carrier. Yes, I get carried around in a pet carrier.
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Week 17 – Coffee – I don’t drink coffee, so I didn’t know what to do. I settled on the idea of a Jedi making a mess while pouring coffee.
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Week 18 – Shadows – Not one of my favorite photos, but it was interesting to make. I cowered in the corner for one shot, then tried to position myself and the flash just right to create an imposing shadow on the wall. A headband with horns on it did the trick.
Week 19 – Shoes – This is about the time that my photos were getting darker and darker, but I was still trying to inject some humor into things. Whatever you do, don’t taste the shoes.
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Week 20 – Jump! – I wanted something colorful, so I put on bright clothes, pointed the fisheye straight up at the blue sky and set the interval timer so that I could jump over the camera. In post, I actually removed an entire house.
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Week 21 – In The Fridge – I saved the chia kombucha for this photo because of the interesting texture. I also upgraded to Photoshop CS6 at this point and started playing with the new oil paint filter.
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Week 22 – Memorial Day – With my new 80-200mm in tow, I took a walk to Arms Park in Manchester, NH to have a look at the Blackhawk helicopter that they flew in for the holiday. As I was walking away, I turned around to catch the National Guard in front of the chopper.
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Week 23 – Blue – Another series of embarrassing photos came out of this week. I found bubble bath that turned the water blue, grabbed a blue Powerade, and climbed in.
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Week 24 – Monster – This was done last minute, so I ran to the store and grabbed two cans of Monster energy drink, took a handful of shots with and without flash and then composited everything together in Photoshop. It was meant to look more like I’m levitating than falling.
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Week 25 – Looking Down – My HDR breakfast scene. I set up the tripod looking straight down at the meal, used window light to keep everything natural, and then tried not to process it much.
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Week 26 – Yellow – I was inspired by the Office Space movie poster and covered myself in Post-It notes. It actually involved a lot of tape because they don’t really stick to anything very well.
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Week 27 – Reflections – My first shot was an infrared reflection in the river and I lost a lot of blood to mosquitoes to get it, however, I found it pretty boring. On a whim, I gave the insane dentist thing a try and used the original shot as texture in the final.
Week 28 – Texture – This is actually the bottom of my shoe. I set it up in a lightbox and blended exposures to capture all of the detail.
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Week 29 – Summer – I had no idea what to shoot for this week, so I took a walk in the heat and came across the sign on Valley Street in Manchester, NH. I shot brackets and processed it to keep it on the natural side.
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Week 30 – Water – I dropped by Pine Grove Cemetery one afternoon and started shooting the little bridge over the water. I liked the wide angle distortion and the extremely saturated colors. The clouds and pond are water after all, so despite being a lot of green, it’s all about water.
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Week 31 – Friendship – Why is it so difficult to find a seesaw? I wanted something a little crazy and envisioned myself alone because sometimes all we have is ourselves as friends, but once at the park, there was a family watching and I couldn’t do anything insane without being self conscious about it.
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Week 32 – Motion – This one was easy. Just set up the tripod in the back of the car and turn on the remote trigger. A long exposure in the dark yielded the light trails. I’m not sure which lights caused which colors though.
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Week 33 – Red – Oil and water as seen in the Playing With Pyrex post.
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Week 34 – Vegetables – I was trying for something very clean and fancy albeit cliche. Each plate was shot separately in a lightbox and then put side by side in post. There was an alternate image involving corn, however, it’s not technically a vegetable.
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Week 35 – Looking Out – The return of the gas mask. I had the idea of looking out from inside the oven, so I set up the camera inside with a wide angle lens and triggered it remotely. Once I found the right composition, I started playing with bursts of flash, then incorporated myself into things.
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Week 36 – Sunset – It was cloudy for most of the week and this was the best sunset I found in the limited amount of time I had. Not terrible, considering.
Week 37 – Football – I don’t play or watch football, but I went out with a ball to a nearby field that I hoped was secluded enough and tried a bunch of things. For this one, I made sure nobody was looking.
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Week 38 – Pink – When I bought the wig and feather boa, I got strange looks from the cashier. I’m sure they’d give me a far stranger look now. A high powered fan would have been more fun, but the hair dryer helped make things a bit more crazy.
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Week 39 – Funny – A bit of my twisted sense of humor, although this image apparently offended someone. I set everything up in the bathroom and wore the tie to hide body parts.
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Week 40 – Round – I’m not sure how this one started, but once I was shooting the round jar full of roundish olives, it just made sense to add the eyeball. This wound up being one of my favorites.
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Week 41 – Fall – This one was more of an inside joke related to a story I wrote years ago. A person was attacked by vicious gourds, so for this, I bought some gourds and set them up outside the door. The leaves and colors help illustrate the fall theme, but I wished the gourds could have had teeth.
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Week 42 – Antique – I didn’t have anything antique, so I took a walk through the mills in Manchester, NH and found a couple of complimentary shots.
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Week 43 – Brown – Brown rug, brown chest, brown stuffed animal. I thought it would be fun to add a splash of color and added in an ominous hand as well.
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Week 44 – Spooky – I was kind of going for the Psycho inspired image, so I just stood behind the shower curtain with a knife. Creepy enough, I guess.
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Week 45 – Black & White Portrait – If it came down to it, I was going to shoot myself yet again, however I went out with some friends and brought the camera. Little did they know that they’d become part of my project.
Week 46 – Symmetry – I’d spent most of the week getting ready for vacation and didn’t have a clue what to shoot, but after sitting at my desk and staring at a motherboard, I figured it was worth a try.
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Week 47 – Feeling Nostalgic – A campfire in front of the tent beneath the stars. It made me think of past trips, old friends, and good times. I got lucky with the long exposure by setting the camera on the ground.
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Week 48 – Winter – I wanted something simple and clean with a hint of color, so I scrapped my original complicated idea as soon as I saw that it had snowed and put a Christmas ornament outside.
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Week 49 – Family – With no family in the area and not enough time to photograph another, I played with an alternate definition by using lead type to show part of a font family.
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Week 50 – Flash – The recliner hadn’t been in a photo before, so I set up the shot with a softbox camera left and played with exposure until I was happy. Then I strapped a flash to my forehead, put on a lampshade, and blinded myself.
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Week 51 – Fire – I had wanted to light my hands on fire, but settled on burning ice cubes. The melt water carried the gas away and caught the bookshelf on fire. Fun times.
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Week 52 – Choose Your Own Adventure – The finale. I scrolled through all 51 other photos and wanted something that fit in and summed it up all at once. Unsure of whether or not it would work, I photographed all of the characters I’d come up with in bed together. The result was this deranged and kind of funny shot.