I actually finished my long-overdue assignment for my 52 project! This was one of the first times I ever had to gather significant amounts of photographic gear and thematic props for a self-portrait-styled shoot, and I learned a few things about the difficulties involved in taking a good picture without benefit of being behind the viewfinder. Thanks to the fact that I couldn’t be absolutely sure where the camera was facing in relation to my body position I took a truly excessive numbers of shots while varying my pose and expression, and every 20 shots or so I would run back to the camera to chimp and make sure that everything was going all right. With a little massaging in Lightroom and Photoshop I was able to get almost exactly what I had intended.
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I am not normally a fan of either black-and-white or film grain effects since neither really apply in the digital world, but I have to admit there is something to be said for removing the color so that the viewer doesn’t get distracted from the subject matter. I think “grainy B&W” is often used as an excuse for poor photographers to rescue a poor image, but on rare occasion it really does work as an artistic tool.
Now that I finally have “Money” all done I can proceed to catch up with the rest of my overdue 52 images. The next one on the list is “eyes”.
