Week 18

i shot my self portrait on film this week, so this is just a placeholder. This is my cousin, I took her to her horseback lesson this week and it is probably one of my favorite places to shoot. It is also at the perfect time and she is almost always riding during the golden hour. We are all behind now, but I will catch up today!

Ty

Dragon fruit for my final project for a class; from the series "From The Inside Out." Took these in the middle of the night...cramming to the max.

Alison

This is my current housemate, Amanda. She's lovely.

Danièle

16.52

So when i'm ready to be bolder,

And my cuts have healed with time,

Comfort will rest on my shoulder,

And I'll bury my future behind.

inspired by this song. watch the video because it's one of the most beautiful videos i have ever seen

overwhelmed. stressed. frustrated. this week is going to kick my butt. [this is from a current series i am working on for one of my classes.]

-alison

My friends and I raced down to the beach to catch the sunset, and then went back to Bailey's house and ordered pizza and watched Milk and listened to our favorite bands that were going to Coachella and sat on his balcony listening to Lana Del Rey and did some yoga and played with a muscle-shock therapy machine. What a great day.
-Joe

Finally got around to testing my new 50 1.4. I love it.

-Danièle

Water: 14.52

i love this theme so much! i don't think there is anything i love more then being in the water. when i am in the water, it is such a great escape from reality. once you sink into the water, a whole new world opens up and you can just explore. this is a bit of an ode to a photo that chase took of her sister.

ty

into the wilderness, novels, walking in the grass barefoot, walks on the trail, day dreaming, web design, blog posts, fresh flowers, mat kearney || spring break this week. working on blog/web design. stoked!

alison

When I first saw the theme for this week, I was planning on doing a shoot in the rain. Turns out the weather held off for the week so I didn't get the chance to. Instead I opted for a variant of water: fog. We woke up super early and beat the sunrise to the model's house, shooting beside a small lake and catching the beautiful morning fog. You can see the full series on my blog.

- Danièle

13.52

this week was crazy. i shot this in breckenridge at a friends house, the stars were so beautiful! We went to my uncles restaurant in Vail and he served us a TEN COURSE MEAL! As if that wasn't a big enough treat, I got to come back to this view.
Ty

(see full series)

I cannot wait until next week is over and I have my major mid-semester assessments done. I've finally got a job now, so I'm hoping I can start saving up for my next lens. I've had my eye on a 50 1.4 for so long, it'll be the first thing I buy with my first few paychecks.

- Danièle

Went to the city this week for a JH & HS mission trip. They made sandwiches and gave blankets to the homeless and shared the love of Jesus. They are rock stars. In other news, I read the Hunger Games trilogy in six days and read "The Fault in Our Stars" by John Green in six hours. I highly recommend both :)

-Alison

Week Ten

I cant imagine anything more vain than taking a picture of yourself. oh well, here's what i got for this week.

Matt Smith

I got two ski days in at Mary Jane this week and the snow was unreal.

This season has been so icy, so it was great have real snow to ski on.

It was just a pretty perfect weekend, such a blessing!
I actually shot and edited this on my phone, which is why the quality isn't the best.I have been really experimenting a lot with my phone this past week, lots of layering and blending.

-Ty

Nothing special. Went to ISU this weekend for my brothers recital. He's an amazing musician and I am so proud of him. 

-Alison

I'm tired... (read more)

- Danièle

The third and last snow of the season. Spring is coming, I can't believe winter is ending so soon. So much to look forward to. 

Jenn

Week Seven

Yes these are my shoes, but more importantly, they are my culture.

Sincerely,
Matt Smith

this week was uncomfortable, everything about it. i don't know why i felt this way, i think i am just getting restless. i went out with my friend sydney and we shot for a couple of hours. it was great to reinvigorate how much love to take pictures and just to shoot with somebody other then my tripod. i hope this next week picks up a bit. i am a annoyed by how much this looks like my photo from last week, but this was my favorite picture from this week

ty

I decided I'm going to make a pros & cons list of this week instead of evaluating each part:

CONS: Tuesday my dog was diagnosed with cancer and the doctors found a bony mass tumor pressing on her brain, I cried almost everyday this week, 2 guitar strings broken & one bass battery dead

PROS: my mom was home all week, co-leading worship this weekend//love singing all sons & daughters [God was glorified and it was humbling], I ordered a Kelly Moore camera bag

P.S. I also really apologize for my effort in this project. I really haven't given it my all...and I'm really going to start working on that.

I'm back in Canberra. 

I saw La Dispute last night. It was amazing. We had a chat to Chad and Adam and Jordan afterwards and it was unreal.

Things at home are still a bit rough. It's like a bottle of sand and water was shaken until everything was blurry and nothing was certain. The bottle is still now, but the little sand particles are in the process of settling to the bottom, slowly clearing the water so sometime soon everything will be transparent again.

I've been in a weird space lately. Trying to stay grounded while avoiding things getting stagnant. 

I've been shooting more film lately, and this shot is from a roll I just got developed from this week. These carrots are from our winter farm share-- locally and organically grown!  I live in a big warm, musical house with six other people and we all like to cook a lot. 

jenn

This isn't a picture of me so I appologise. I've been extremely busy this past week, consistently getting only 4-5 hours of sleep per night so I couldn't really muster a fantastic picture. I guess this means I'm changing my project to a "mostly self portrait 52." This is my friend Connor.

- Christie

 My friend Natalie at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. It's by far the best art museum I have ever been to.

Joe

Week Five: Night

"Addiction" by Matt Smith

The most congested freeway in the USA is the 405 in Los Angeles. The road seems to always be at a stand still while driving. From the view of an over pass, however, this highway is moving at warpspeed. Skaters are, by nature, adrnaline junkies. I once heard a speech from the pop culture icon Dr. Drew, in which he stated that "extreme" athletes have a much higher chance of developing drug addiction. The desire for danger and risk in this photo proves this statement to me. The image was actually a fluke. The goal was to have my friend stand motionless, but by mistake, he thought I said that the photo was over, thereby liberating him of his rigidity obligations. Even though he was free to do as he pleased, he remained on the ledge, amping on the rush of cars beneath him.




this is my night photo due to the freezing cold weather and my lack of motivation to stand out in it to take my picture. School is killer right now but I am determined to press through and create some better work in the next few weeks. Taking it a day at a time and trying to enjoy this college craziness.

-Chase

When this theme was suggested I knew exactly the kind of photo I'd shoot: Dark, abandoned, desolate. I had the perfect location in mind. It started raining as I headed downstairs to shoot. Although the photos look creepy, I felt so at ease in this park... I spent a part of my childhood living nearby. The sense of familiarity never leaves.

- Danièle

When we decided on the theme night, so many ideas rushed through my head. The one that I really couldn't shake was how much my idea of night has changed over the past year. Almost exactly a year ago I decided to follow my childhood dream and move to California, after about 5 months I developed pretty severe anxiety and began having panic attacks several times a day. After what was probably the most grueling month of my life, I decided it was in my best interest to move home and deal with this. It was one of the hardest decisions I have ever made and upon coming home, though my general anxiety weakened I began to panic almost every night at sunset. The beginning of the night terrified me, but I had, and still have no idea why. For months I had to be in a room with no natural light during the golden hour just to avoid the panic, I felt trapped inside of this illogical nightmare of my own mind. I am happily and slowly returning to life as I previously knew it, but I won't ever forget about the little bubble I lived in for so long.

To get this shot, I took the shot you see and overlaid it with a photo of the stars because they looked incredible last night. I also used a fog machine to create the glow.

-Ty

I'm a sucker for long exposures & experimenting so this theme was really fun for me. I went shooting in a huge warehouse on Monday night and it was so nice to just explore in the quiet and dark of the night in this big, old warehouse. For this photo, I used a shot from the warehouse and another from doing long exposures with sparklers. Obviously, there are no sparklers in this photo because I just used the trees.

This week was ridiculously hard. Every night had me in emotional breakdown. I'm just exhausted. So many responsibilities and things to learn. But it was so nice to end the week with my mom coming home, water color painting, developing film and spending a bit of time on learning some new chords. Even though it was a rough week, I am abundantly blessed with so many people that pray for me, love me, encourage me. I made it through this week!

Can't believe next week is week 6...

-Alison

Wow, sorry for this.

The theme for this week was night and I had a really cool photo planned but the weather didn't fully cooperate. Maybe I'll try again in the summer when the nights are warmer and less cloudy. I took this last minute on saturday night before going to an 80's themed roller skate night (which was awesome just in case you were wondering). I don't really like this photo as a whole but I do really like the shadows.

Saturday was the first day all week that I got to sleep in past 8:30am...

Hope you all had a more restful week than mine :)

- Christie

I know I'm posting this a bit late. I took this photo after work last Sunday. Standing under a streetlight in our driveway. Our neighborhood looks so sleepy and homey at night. January in Massachusetts and no snow. I love the nighttime and this photo was a challenge for me because I'm so used to shooting with natural light.

This week was my first full week of classes and I also worked five nights. Still rocking my waitressing uniform in this picture-- black pants, shoes, hair up.
Jenn

Week Four

This is my home wave at its best. I dream of mornings like this. Waking up at 7, grabbing coffee, and seeing this when i get to the beach is my favorite thing ever. This was Sunday morning and i had a sprained wrist. No surfing. Looking at this picture makes me smile at how perfect the wave is and cringe that i wasn't out there. I know, i put the wave in the dead center of the frame which generally is a no no in terms of composition but i really don't care. Its a perfect wave and why should I?

-Matt Smith

-Chase

it's been a really long week. breakfast dates, class, materialism, birthday, surprises, snow storms, remote, worship, serving, weekend services, leading. i turned 19 on friday and it's about time. i'm starting to pick up my guitar again. & i got my remote! so this is my first self-portrait with my remote and i plan on doing a lot more. i guess i just chose this one because of all the bokeh. i love my 50 f/1.4!

till next week...
Alison

This wasn't the photo that I intended to use for this week...
I was still at home in Washington during the first half of the week and we had a huge snowstorm so I took advantage of that and took a selfie in the snow. It didn't turn out how I wanted it to so I decided to reshoot for this week, maybe I'll revisit it later. On tuesday, I flew down to California for my spring semester of university. Classes haven't started yet but I've been super busy catching up with people and getting ready for my sorority's recruitment. All of that on top of the crazy rain we've been getting lately is why you get this less than stellar photo today.

- Christie

I took a lot of pictures this week, not too many of myself though. I returned a christmas present and bought myself some studio lighting. It has been so fun to be able to play with and mess around with lighting in the comfort of my home. I am also getting excited about the rest of my life for some reason this week. This project has really reinvigorated my passion for photography. anyways, i hope everyone has a good week!

-ty

I have not been giving this project the effort it deserves, and I am making a promise to myself to change that. It snowed this week, I worked four nights (as usual), and my semester starts tomorrow. Everything is so transient. Tonight I drove home from the grocery store in thick fog and slushy rain. It was beautiful.

jenn

It rained today.

As much as I like this, I don't really think I'm challenging myself enough or going outside the box with my photographs lately. I want this project to consist a lot of my sister so I can practice, but I think I might try to actually get back into self portraits because those tend to test my abilities more. I don't know, I don't know... But it's 2012 I may as well make some significant effort.

-Joe

Ever get that feeling when you just know that you met somebody for a reason?

- Danièle

Week Two

Tomorrow I start college back up again, and I'm nervous and excited all at once. Hoping this semester opens doors and challenges me and teaches me a lot. I am finally taking classes that pertain to my major and I cannot wait to dive into it all. This was the last picture I took in Texas before I came home this week to Nebraska. I love Texas sunsets.

-Chase

We had a good sized swell this week with waves approaching 20 feet in some areas. This photo was shot just as the waves were starting to fill in. I love the Venice Pier and spend a large portion of my free time on this structure. There are no stores, bathrooms, or restaurants; just fisherman, lovebirds, and locals. Its simplicity makes it beautiful. I cant remember the settings exactly but the shutter was set somewhere around 1/6 of a second to capture the waves.

Matthew Smith

This first week of the new year has been a strange one for me. When my family and I returned from vacation, most of my friends had already gone back to colleges while I still have a couple more weeks off. It feels very weird to be in my home town without all of my friends from high school here with me. It's basically just me and one of my best friends here so we plan on spending a boatload of time together this coming week. Hopefully we'll get to do a photoshoot together :)

- Christie

What is this picture of, you ask? It's a hand of worship, helping, healing, & justice. 45,000 students gathered for the cause of Christ to bring freedom to the 27 million trapped in slavery. We raised 3.6 million for human trafficking, Obama declared January anti-human trafficking month, & Goggle recently donated $11.6 million. CNN did a story on this. Go watch the video here. So unfortunately, The Georgia Dome was not allowing DSLR's for the Passion conference. So this instagram photo will have to suffice. To see more photos from my trip & keep updated, you can follow me on instagram here. Among several other things, God revealed to me that if I was going to travel the earth for my own enjoyment, I might as well spread the Gospel while doing that. So, I'm just following after Him and right now I am going to finish up my certificate, go to Moody and get a biblical certificate and start doing missions. God knows if I'll do it all my life or just for awhile. Maybe I will use my photography to bring light into the darkness. Travel the world and bring all this darkness out into the light: show people how ugly this world really is. I'll be going to Haiti in May [God willing], maybe Dominican Republic in June...I don't really know where He's going to place me.

I'll be doing some longer blogging every week. If you'd like to check that out with every photo, go to my Flickr.

-Alison

Alright, so I've decided that my 52 week project isn't going to be self portraits but rather mostly of my sister. I never take enough photos of her and she's actually fantastic to take photos of so that's my plan. Hope everyone's New Year is going well so far.

-Joe

This morning my brother left for 6 months in Spain, knowing he was leaving I went out early this week to shoot. I was on a walk with a friend when we stumbled across this lake and she said she was going to try walking on it. I am generally a pretty cautious person, to the extent of one of my new years resolutions being "be more reckless", so it took me about five minutes of her walking around before I went on the ice with her. After running onto the ice with her, we spent all of golden hour on the ice and my camera never really my hand. 

If you want to see more pictures from the ice click here. 

Not quite sure what to say here. Bunny is named Nuvula and she is really sweet. She belongs to someone I live with and this morning before work I was shooting these and some of my housemates filtered through the dining room (literally the only wall in the house that gets good sun!) and we were all laughing about me posing topless with the bunny. I also took some selfies with a cat we've been house sitting named Pizza (maybe some of those will end up on my Flickr or Tumblr over the next week or so). Full moon tonight! 

jenn

I was apprehensive about posting this photo, partly because I'm not wearing much and partly because it was only the first shot of the 40 or so that I took that day. I guess sometimes when a shot feels right there's no point looking elsewhere. 

- Danièle

Week One

It feels wonderful taking this picture in Texas where I'm visiting my family for the holidays. Not looking forward to returning to snow and ice for next week's picture in Nebraska. I was actually kicked off this guy's property in the middle of my shoot (I had no idea anyone even lived there!). Excited for what is to come in the next year! Happy 2012 everyone!

<3 Chase Barrington

Let me start off by saying I am so excited to be starting this project!

I went out today to take this picture and it didn't start off great, I was cold and uninspired about 300 pictures later I had some pictures that I really liked. So excited for a new year and for this project to force me to explore every week!

Ty Ferg

I am so excited to be starting my year with this project & doing it with eight other amazing photographers! I was feeling extremely uninspired (and exhausted) all day so this is the best I could do. 2012 has a lot in store. In 6 hours, I will be driving to Georgia for Passion 2012. John Piper, Hillsong United, Chris Tomlin, Francis Chan-I am so thankful for God's provision and faithfulness. I am ready for more adventures, lessons, and discoveries this year. I am looking forward to documenting my year of adventures & exploring through photographs.

-Alison

I had a beautiful experience exploring the woods around my house today. One of my many goals of this project is that I hope it brings me into the forest more often, closer to nature and to the pure, unrefined beauty and inspiration it has to offer.
It is entirely unclear to me how 2012 is going to pan out. Right now I am being pulled in so many directions and consumed by so many dreams and passions and temptations. I suppose I know roughly where I'll be for the next few months or so, but after that, I have absolutely no idea what adventures I will fall into and where my wanderlust will carry me. I am hoping that this project will help to ground me in a way, and also serve as inspiration and motivation throughout the year, to stick with me and continue to teach me more about myself and about the universe as a whole.

jenn

Rider: Kody Noble, Trick: 360 flip into California Ave. in Santa Monica, CA.

I must confess I did not take this today. I did take it on Christmas Eve though. I'm super stoked on this project and am honored to get to post with all the other photographers (they're really good and in my opinion have an amazing aesthetic appeal).

Sincerely,

Matthew Smith

Now that it's 2012, and I'll be applying to colleges in a little more than half a year, I really need to start taking my art and my photography seriously. This project, whether I choose to have it all self portraits or not, will push me to continue growing as a photographer. I recently got photoshop cs5 (previously I was only using lightroom) so I'm hoping I can explore different types of editing this year. I've also been saving up for a DSLR that records video because I really want to get into filmmaking. I'm hoping 2012 will be a year for me to grow and explore and establish myself as an artist. I can't wait to get this project going and update every week. Happy new year everyone!

- Joe Curtin

After completing Project 365 last year I'd had a taste of the effort and commitment involved in such a long-term project. Deciding to take on Project 52 instead alongside 8 other amazing photographers is exactly what I've needed to start the new year. I miss shooting everyday (and will probably shoot more than once a week) so I'm expecting to push myself artistically much further than I'd attempted in the last project. I can't wait to see what everyone else comes up with. I can't wait to be inspired.

- Danièle Martinie

In the months following the completion of my 365 project last February, I've noticed that I've slowly let photography slip out of my life. In an effort to change that and push myself creatively, I decided to start a 52 weeks project. I had originally planned on going it alone but I am so excited to be collaborating with such great photographers on this project instead. I can't wait to see how 2012 pans out for us and our photography. Happy New Year!

p.s. That's a natural lens flare :P

- Christie