This is a test. Well, kinda. I’m in the process of re-vamping my site, my portfolio and, well… my career. I’m debuting my new look here. It’s still not quite right on my main portfolio site (specifically the still images gallery) but it will officially up and running soon.

Until then, poke around here and there and let me know if you come across anything that’s broken.

And I promise, there’s a TON of backlog coming. So many good things to share, so little time.

Seattle! Sounders!

It’s a neat camera, and I seem to have figured out how to expose and compose the same way I would a still camera. Or at least vaguely close.

(Thanks to my coworker and teacher-of-things Danny Gawlowski for the lower thirds. I don’t really live with a Scary Man, I live with two very awesome girls.)

This is why I’m so far behind on posting my project365 photos.* And all the other photos I’ve taken lately. I have very bad habits about memory cards. I seem to think of them like film – if I clear them, I’m worried the photos will disappear forever. (Yes, I back them up on both my computer and our RAID system. I still get nervous.)

* There really are a number of reasons, but this is definitely one of the more frequent offenders.

In the meantime, enjoy a few photos from my Project 365. The theme is obvious.

“Of House and Home” won 3rd place in Multimedia.

Amazing. Really, really amazing.

And thank you to the judges, too. It’s nice to read / hear some of the reasoning why a particular photo or story won in a category. I’m pleased to see that my love for this story and connection with my awesome subject was visible to them, too. Here’s the [edited] comment about my story.

Judges’ comments for the category

We were very impressed with several of the entries, although two stood out above the others. After the first two places were decided, we had a difficult choice for third place. [...] Third place was a tougher call, but it won based on the depth of connection to the subject and the intimacy achieved in both the visuals and the audio. This is a tough story to cover, and the photographer found an excellent subject and stayed with her.

Peter Southwick, Associate Professor of Journalism and director of the photojournalism program, Boston University
Joe Lippincott, adjunct professor of journalism, Boston University
Dominick Reuter, freelance photographer and director of technology for photojournalism, Boston University

Thank you.

Every day, I ride the metro. And every day, I sit with my camera in my hands thinking, “Another day on the metro. Nothing interesting happening here.” But still I sit there, camera in hand.

Just in case the lights turn out for thirty seconds.

Project365 was meant to be a one-time deal.
One photo a day for one year.

Before I started my own attempt, I saw so many people fail. In fact, I hadn’t seen anyone successfully complete the project until I was already about halfway through. (Whereas anyone = other participants in the Flickr group Project365.) Since that time, I’ve completed four full years and have started on the fifth.

I’ve recently started a much-needed project archiving all the captions on these photos, starting with Year One. I was naïve about the internet and photo asset management back then, and I only entered the captions on Flickr. With the recent closing of an old blog site (vox.com, run by SixApart) and the [allowed] loss of all my content [that I chose not to back up for personal reasons], I realized that I could potentially lose all context for the photos on my project if Flickr decided to shut down and I didn’t back up the captions manually.

In backing up these captions, I essentially re-lived every day of 2007. My brain hurt. And my heart hurt. It reminded me how long a year really is, no matter how fast or slow it feels when in the present. But most of all, I saw something in myself that I didn’t know existed. Buried among the weeks and months of technically low-quality photographs (compared to my standards now), there were gems of brilliance. I saw what I see in myself now – a photojournalist, trying to make sense of the world one picture at a time. One who wants to help the public remember that life is beautiful, even among the hardships we, as humans, endure.

I’ve always considered myself a photographer. It’s nice to know that my gut was right.

Check out Project365 :: Best of on Flickr. Right now it’s only selects from Year One. It will eventually grow to contain the best of all years.

http://www.voxmagazine.com/stories/2011/02/10/house-and-home/

It may not have been a large part of the feature, but it got out there. And if even just one person sees this issue and realizes they can save their home before it’s too late, then our objective has been fulfilled.

It’s not just a house. It’s a home.