From ice fishermen in his backyard to power outages at midnight… fellow tasra365 photographer Brian Palmer is our first featured photographer of 2012. He made it through the first challenge, so you’ll want to read on to find out his secret to success. It’s never too late to join the challenge with over 500 photographers. It’ll change your life forever!
It has been a little over a year since I completed my last 365, and the last thing I remember was my wife saying:
“Thank God that is over! No more late nights of you scrambling for a picture when the power is out.”
Project 365 Image © Brian Palmer
Advice to all the first time 365′ers…
- Stay focused and take it one day at a time.
- You will grow by leaps and bounds if you take the time to challenge yourself to think outside the box.
- Back up all of your original files, you never know when you may need the large version for a publication.
Project 365 Image © Brian Palmer
The process of looking for your ‘shot of the day’ really makes you slow down and take stock of your surroundings.
Project 365 Image © Brian Palmer
This time around, I want to shoot more photo series, which is an aspect of the new challenge that intrigues me. A year ago, I took on a few series like vegetables, fruits, smoke and water drops. I would love to revisit the water drops on a larger scale and capture a few drop collisions. Also my daughter, Sara, stole the spot light on several daily photo occasions, but I fear this year the bribe will have to be doubled to get her on board. With that said, I am hoping to photograph more people during the project, as I have plans for the resulting captures this go round.
Project 365 Image © Brian Palmer
365 challenges are a good chance to push forward creatively, but additionally a great opportunity learns all the aspects of your gear, new and old. For instance, I am planning on doing a light test with my new lighting setup. These tests are tedious and time consuming, but necessary as a tool to learn how your lights look and act at different distances, apertures, lens, and angles. The same goes for new camera bodies [I am hoping a Medium Format body joins the group], lenses, and light modifiers.
Project 365 Image © Brian Palmer
From the outside, this project can seems to be a daunting task, but the days go fast and shooting daily becomes routine.
So much so, that once you have completed the last day it feels odd to not use your camera every day or update your blog on a regular basis. Not to mention the friends you make through the regular Tweets, Facebook post, and Flickr updates. I actually still talk to photographers from the first challenge, which is commonly referred to as the ‘year of little sleep’. The best advice was from someone not involved in the challenge that said:
“Do not look for inspiration but to make something that inspires.”
Project 365 Image © Brian Palmer
For me, this changed the way I looked at my subjects and concepts, as well as made it easier to quiet my mind before shooting.
This year I plan to build a body of work with the help of the 365. I have longed to do a self-portrait series that is 100% unconventional, a few styled shoot that are inspired from my favorite musicals, and a black and white film portrait series. In addition to doing more people shoots, I also want to bring on board stylists, makeup artist, hair, and models. I would love to turn resulting work into a gallery showing or book, allowing the journey to live on past the realms of the Internet.
Happy shooting!
Project 365 Image © Brian Palmer
