Thursday, February 2, 2012

Project 366 -- Heavy Birds

Day 32


Today's photo is kind of odd. An uncooked chicken surrounded by carrots and crowned with a plastic bag is rarely the subject of a photographic study.

However, the photo does capture real life in our household of 13. The unusual photo op came about in this way: I told Tuesday's cooking team, Jaynie (18) and Mark (16) to put the two whole chickens I'd thawed in a turkey-sized cooking bag. I also told them to put every carrot they could find in the house in the bag with the chickens. Little did I know, we had so many bags of carrots that even a turkey-sized bag couldn't hold the bulk! Jaynie and Mark picked up their bagged chickens to put them in the roaster, and BOOM -- the bottom of the bag fell out!

Cooking massive amounts of food for our extra-large family often lead to massive messes which offer us the opportunity for a good laugh. Jaynie, Mark and I shared a chuckle over this debacle, and then cleaned up the chicken and carrots so we'd still have dinner.

3 comments:

  1. It's not every day that you can take a photographic masterpiece. The important thing is to keep taking them and stretching yourself that way. I know it's a definite challenge for me some days to get a good enough shot to post.

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    1. Jason, I love your work, so I appreciate your taking the time to comment. Even just a handful of days into this picture-a-day project and I can already sense myself being stretched, as you mentioned, in new ways. Hopefully a year from now I'll be that much more prepared to show the world the plight of orphans (if I get the chance to photograph them--my dream!)

      Do you have any favorite books or websites that have helped you learn photography? And are you using Lightroom or Elements or some other editing program? If Lightroom or Elements, how did you start the process of learning? Mr. R. bought me Photoshop Elements 10, but I don't know where to begin.

      God bless you and keep you, Jason!
      Mrs. R.

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  2. Hey Mrs R...good thing I checked back on this, I wouldn't have realized you commented back. Sorry for the delay.

    I love the idea of using photography/videography to tell the world the story of orphans and to just present the needs. One of my CP guys recently used his videography skills to produce a film called Rescued about adoption, that you might be interested in seeing: http://rescuedthemovie.com

    As far as photography goes, most of my learning has come from doing and just seeing other people's great work, which always challenges me to do better. I'm afraid I don't have a lot of book/website suggestions. One website, for sure, you might check out: http://www.digital-photography-school.com/ This is the one I look at the most (which really isn't all that much...) I've developed a lot of contacts with some amazing photographers on Flickr, so I can easily find a lot to inspire me: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jasonmanion/favorites/ Here's one Flickr photographer, in particular, who always has amazing shots and a strong gospel presentation: http://www.flickr.com/photos/brandonpeters/

    As far as editing, I use Lightroom primarily. I also use Photoshop CS5 (full version) for a few things, and Photomatix (in conjunction with Lightroom) for HDR photos. My learning process was easier, since I've messed with different levels of photo programs since I was just a little guy. If you're looking for a good way to learn, you might check out Lynda.com (http://www.lynda.com/). These are software tutorials which you and all your photographically minded children could probably really benefit from. They cover all major software programs, including Photoshop Elements and Lightroom.

    Hope this helps! If you have more questions, you can get my email from one of your children and that'll ensure a quicker response. :)

    -Jason

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