Seriously… it’s getting ridiculous how easy the process for photography is getting.

Back in February my friend Lindsay and I did a photo shoot in the mall parking garage. She’s a photographer herself but she’s also an aspiring model. This works out well because I consider myself a designer who is an aspiring photographer. So anyway she’s looking to build a modeling portfolio and I’m looking to build a photo one of my own. I also recently acquired a copy of Apple’s Aperture professional photography software and was itching to try it out.

Overall while we had a great time, but when I looked at the shots I was disapointed. We were limited by the cold weather much of the lighting was awkward, and most of the poses left a lot to be desired. (due both the the weather and Lindsay and I’s comfort levels I’m sure). I ended up letting the photos sit for months after the initial shoot.

It was shortly after that time that I discovered my Flickr addiction. And the other day I decided to take another crack at the photos because I wanted to put something up, just for the sake of it. (I paid for a Pro account, I should use it no?) When I really dove in, I was blown away. I can’t say enough how impressed I am, both by the ease of use of the program and the results I achieved. Aperture made it easy to color correct and retouch a lot of what I viewed were unusable photos.

The more I think about it though the more it’s unbelievable to me. Anyone who has even worked with real professional color photography can tell you how much of a pain in the ass the whole process can be. While it’s a lot of fun, you can spend weeks on single images at times. Not only that but it’s expensive. Retouching can be a nightmare and color correction can have you walking back and forth turning nobs trying to get something just right. Don’t even get me started on the cost / hassle of promoting and sharing your work.

Now-a-days you can get a Digital SLR for under a grand that take images at resolutions higher than film grain, print to a high end printer that does too. Using a program like Aperture or Photoshop, and a Flickr account and you can have a whole ‘roll’ edited and corrected in a matter of minutes. From there it’s easy to share share it on the web for everyone to see or subscribe to, so you know people are checking it out.
As a side note; I remember during my senior year at Pratt i did some of my work digitally for my color photo class. I would print my work on my Epson 2200 and hang it next to my other work. The really amazing part is that people in class were unable to tell. That to me sealed the deal, my film camera sits and collects dust these days. Stuff like iPhoto and Flickr’s are the icing on the cake. I can hardly remember what life was like before digital.

Anyway, I present to you without further ado: Lindsay O’Connor

Out of fairness to my lovely modeling friend I will spare you the before and after comparisons. I’d like to assure you though that the quality was not nearly this nice until I took them into Aperture. That’s not a criticism on her, but on my own skills as a photographer. Luckily… I’m still a designer.
Check out the rest of the shots here.

I think Warren Ellis might be a genius. Seriously.

So I’m getting back into this whole blogging thing. And I totally forgot how much of a whore one needs to make themselves to get anywhere at it. The other day I was listening to 24 Cast and they mentioned that they had gotten themselves listed on PodcastAlley.com and it made me think of what I’ve been doing.. reminding me of Technorati, Bloglines and such. I haven’t spent any time signing up for those things with this site yet. I’ll eventually get around to it. If I want this to take off it seems that stuff is key.

I read a lot of sites daily, everything from web comics to tech blogs to politics. It’s not rare to find something interesting on any of these sites but it is rare to find something truely inspiring. Two weeks ago, I was inspired, Apple enthusiast / writer John Grubner of DaringFireball.net took a daring leap into the unknown to do something one can only dream about. He quit his job to make an attempt at bloging for a living. His justification? In short… You should love what you do for a living and do what you love for a living. I can’t express how much I admire that, regardless of if he suceeds or fails.

Maybe some day I’ll have time to be able to blog once a week regularly, after that I’ll start working on full time.