"Operation: Gallery Wall Project" Underway

Received multiple pictures in the mail yesterday, just normal random family pictures (a few of the puppies), mostly ones I've taken.  All meant to fill empty frames we've had around for months.  Now that we own a house we’re finally putting up lots of things that have been waiting around for a long time just to be displayed.  The pictures arrived and they happily looked as good as or better in print than they did on the monitor. 

Friday I ordered four pictures to start off “Operation Gallery Wall Project”.  A few random pictures; the gas gauge on D’s bike, a picture of me in D’s rear view mirror on his bike, a really random B&W photo of a blue graduation balloon, and the street sign to my old house in Czech.  Various sizes; an 8x12, 6x6, 8.5x11, and a 7x10, I think these pictures will be a nice start to Operation Gallery Wall Project.  I’m very excited to see how they turn  out and to mount them on the wall.  It’s going to definitely be fun having my office full of prints, canvases, metal plates and more of my work and then this one wall gallery of my pictures. 

Another reason I’m excited and terrified is that I've been asked to do another project.  This one involves real, live people and not just me taking pictures because I want to capture the moment, but because someone asked me to.  It’s actually the third time someone’s asked me to specifically take pictures for an event, but the first was my cousin and the second was my brother and sister in law.  This time it’s my cousin’s fiancée asking me.  She’s seen a lot of my “work” and even been the subject in a few pictures from family gatherings.  I’m not sure why I’m more nervous, in fact, what she’s looking for is what I love doing, candid photos.  Day before, I’ll do what I always do, make sure all my batteries are charged, that my memory cards are all empty and working and my flash also has charged batteries and is working, and of course that my camera works. 

Actually, I forgot about another event I did pictures for, and that was pretty stressful, but not entirely.  I took pictures for work during an event – both candid photos and ran a photo booth.  That, I think was more fun than stressful (although I was nervous because originally I was just going to be the backup photographer for the event, but the main photographer didn't make it) but the expectations were also low.  I was simply trying to make sure everyone had fun getting photographed and get some neat pictures while doing so.  I didn't even shoot RAW for the event or process the pictures at all, so it was all very low stress. 

It just so happens that I really like my cousin and his fiancée so my goal is to get them some pretty amazing pictures (of course, I’m not saying that if I didn't like the people asking that I would want to get them horrible pictures, just that it makes it easier to be motivated in the right direction).

It really feels like I’m going in the right direction with my photography.  I’m not great, I know that, but do I take some pretty solid pictures?  Sometimes, often enough that I want to keep going.  Am I going to keep studying, keep learning and keep moving forward, keep experimenting and keep improving my craft?  Most definitely.  I know I've grown in photography since I picked up my dSLR in April of 2012 and I can’t wait to see how my pictures look next year.

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