1/365 A new year

Yes, it's the middle of March (wow, time is flying, but that's another subject altogether), but it's a new year for this project.

Year 2 of my Project 365 begins now! It felt strange to label this post 1/365, starting over in the single digits. But there you have it.

I've got some rough goals for this round:

• More portraits, including both self-portraits (which prove to be handy for experimenting with a patient, willing model) and portraits of others. I'd like to improve my working knowledge of both foundation poses and portraits that are looser and more creative.
• Continue to improve my lighting techniques and exposures, concerning both natural light and that I construct manually. I'm getting better about reading my histogram to get a better exposure at the scene of the crime, instead of having to adjust it later in Photoshop. And I'm all for needing less Photoshop!
• But speaking of Photoshop, I want to improve there as well.
• And of course, I want to continue to push myself outside of what the "rules" say a good photo should be. I want to play with longer exposures (like the photo in this post), different focal points, intentional blur... and just exercise my creative juices.

It should be a challenging, but fun, year!

I set up this shot by placing my camera on a tripod, using my remote trigger, and walking slowly while hanging over the front of the treadmill with trigger in hand. I played with exposures as long as five seconds, but I liked this 1/2-second exposure the best because it still shows some detail in my shoes.

Camera: Canon 40D 1/2s, f/5.6 at ISO 800