Announcing the start of my latest project: 52 weekly photo shoots before our son’s second birthday.

Still carrying the momentum of close to 20 photos shoots with our son in the past six months, and looking for a follow-up to my recently completed Daily Baby Project, it’s time to announce the latest project that will be keeping me behind the camera and regular intervals for the next twelve months.

52 Weeks

With the Daily Baby Project capturing the our son’s first year, this new project will be capturing his second trip around the sun. The main project focus here is – documenting my growth as portrait photographer as our son continues to grow up right before our eyes.

So, by his second birthday, we can once again look back and all the memories and keepsake images of time going by way too fast, and I’ll have a set of 52 images that help quantify just how far along I’ve come behind the camera in one year’s time.

Project Details

I’ve recently added the official project page for the 52 to Two project in the Projects section of the website, so you can click over there to learn even more about my plans for this.

For now – seeing that the first 3 weeks of the project are already finished – you can follow along with the project images in the 52 to Two gallery.

As the year progresses and the photo shoots start to add up, I will likely find a better way to feature all the photos, but for now, this is the place to check for updates each week. I’ll also be sharing a photo from each weekly shoot here at the blog, so be sure to check the “Stay Updated” options at the top of the right sidebar here to make sure you don’t miss out.

And like everything else, if you have feedback or suggestions for this project or as ideas as the weeks go by, please share them in the comments section, on my Facebook Page, or anywhere else you find me.

Thanks,
– Kris

And just like that, the year was over.

The recent celebration of our son’s first birthday was not only a glorious occasion for so many obvious reasons, it also marked the end of the year-long, Daily Baby Project.

And while this particular version of a 365 project was less about photography and more about documenting so many moments in our son’s first year, the result of this particular daily ritual left our family with a collection of photos that we’ll always have to look back on and remember when…

These photos tell so many memorable stories for us – from early family road trips to all those unforgettable firsts in a young child’s life. They were captured, shared, and enjoyed by all of our loved ones.

Were they snapshots? Maybe. Are they treasured? Definitely!

Reflection

I knew early on when I started this project last year that having this collection of images would be special. Looking back after the fact – comparing the world today to what it was when I was born – I can’t help but reflect back on how fortunate we all are to be able to do something like this.

If you stop and think about it, what would it have taken 30 years ago to do something like this? Polaroids, I assume (hey, I was only 1yr old, how would I know?) would be a first option. Fast forward 30 years, how would that shoebox of polaroids be holding up now?

Aside: Okay, so there’s at least one guy who did it. [ News Story ]

A disposable camera? Maybe not back far enough (Wikipedia says about 1986). But say it was, a trip to the photo lab every 3 weeks or so? Or maybe you had your own camera gear and a wet darkroom. Late nights in between feedings and diaper changes, perhaps?

So here we are today. These pictures were all captured with a smartphone. Pause for a second – a phone. 30 years ago, our prized phone in the Nelson household was one with Snoopy standing up holding the receiver, and the phone on the wall in our kitchen was still the rotary kind.

A phone – in my pocket nearly at all times. And many were shared…instantly. No photo lab, no shoebox – real-time, online, and with near instant feedback from friends and family. Some of them across town, others hundreds of miles away, and even more 4,200 miles further still. I already said instantly, right?

While none of these photos are going to be printed on canvas or gracing the cover of a magazine, they were all effortless. Well, aside from getting him to sit still long enough on some days. Yet they’re still “real photos.” Not only did we make 4×6 prints for ourselves every month, my wife and I also made prints for our mothers as well. So there are 3 full albums out there documenting our son’s first year, day-by-day.

Shoebox? These photos are saved on Flickr, on our blog, some on Facebook, on iPods, my iPad, numerous backup drives, a First Birthday video slideshow, you name it. They’re always there, available at almost every whim. And probably not possible – certainly not as easy – no more than 8-10 years ago.

As a geek, the technologies involved and their rapid growth fascinate me. As a parent of 12 months now, the tech itself fades away and empowers me to share memories both now and in the future when they become special to him, and even his own children some day. What more could you possibly ask for?

Now What?

With the end of one chapter comes a fresh, blank page.

In this past year – aside from the daily project – we did close to 2 dozen photo shoots with our son starting with one at six months. Those are the photos that go up on the wall. And those are the times behind the camera that drive my love for photography and my passion to push my limits and learn more every time I take the lens cap off.

So that’s what’s next. A focus on the photography, not just the moment.

I’ll post more details soon, but I’m going with a weekly effort this year, still capturing the growth and maturation of our handsome little guy. As one fellow photographer told me earlier in the year, I’m so lucky to have my own in-home models. Yes, I am.

Although our son will still be the star of this project, I am raising the stakes for myself. It’s a conscious effort to set a different stage every week, looking for new places and ideas for shoots. Trying out different techniques, using different gear (that’s the geek in me talking right there), you get the idea.

A year from now, when this next project ends, it will be more than just seeing how quickly our son has grown – it will be about how far I’ve come as a photographer.

It will be about the further evolution of my style for portraiture. It will be about how much closer I may be to making a living off of this someday. It will be about way too many tough decisions on the best shots to keep in my portfolio. It will also be about those weeks where things didn’t go well, or challenges that were faced and overcome.

So be sure to stay tuned for those details soon. If you’ve made it this far through my post here, odds are you’ll want to keep tabs on this new project as well, so expect frequent updates here as the ball gets rolling.

More Info

If you wanted to read up more about the Daily Baby Project and how it came about, check out the project page for more details. And if you had any thoughts or comments about the project, the photos, this recap, or have done something like this before and wanted to share – hit the comments box below. I’d really love to hear from you.

Mahalo, and here’s to another exciting year behind the camera!
– Kris

The Project: Take a snapshot of our son Christian every day for the first year of his life.

That sounds simple enough. It’s like those popular 365-day projects that many photographers do to improve their craft, but only with a lot less pressure and an even bigger reward of amassing an enormous collection of images to cherish of our little boy.

Just Snapshots, No Pressure

One of the aspects of this project that I came up with when I started it (at the last minute) was that these would just be snapshots, and not the full fledged, post-production quality images that other 365 projects suggest. There are times when I can afford enough spare time during the busy life of a new parent to really shoot for great images, but even when there’s not, there’s always time for a quick snapshot.

Which brings in the next aspect that makes this nice and easy – these are all taken with my camera phone. That means, wherever we are when I want to capture my daily photo, the camera on my phone is right there and I don’t have to breakout the full DSLR each time. Very convenient in my little world.

How It Started

That’s really how it started. Just a few days before my wife gave birth (which was 6 days early, by the way), we were at our local Sprint store upgrading my phone to the new-at-the-time HTC Evo. It was a big upgrade from the smartphone I had at the time, and knowing that it had 8 MP and could shoot HD quality videos meant that micro-SD card was going to fill up fast.

And this was only 3 weeks after I finally broke down, took an advance on the next 10 years of Xmas presents, and invested in the Canon 5D Mark II. I know, spending $3,200 on a new camera and lens less than one month before you bring a new life into the world seemed a little crazy, but it was well worth it.

So there I am in the delivery room, with my wife and our newborn son, and a smartphone in my pocket and the 5DMKII on my shoulder. In addition to shooting in full-frame glory, you really can’t help but whip out the cellphone and take a quick snapshot to immediately share with your friends and family.

From there, it continued. Snapping photos and sending updates to the growing list of fans our new son had. By the 3rd day, it dawned on me to keep this going for an entire year. And now, 200+ photos later, we’re showing family members (and his future girlfriends, I might add) slideshows an our big screen television of how fast our boy has grown in just 7 months.

Halfway Home

When I say this announcement was long overdue, I really meant it. This started in December and now it’s the beginning of July already. Well, the good news is we’re more than halfway to the end of our first year.

And while seven months doesn’t seem like a long time for someone that bought their first DSLR five years ago, I have to say we’ve gone through a lot in such a short period already, and our son has had his share of firsts as well. There are the expected firsts, like his first doctor’s visit or his first Xmas tree. But then we have our own twists, like his first trip to the hockey rink.

When you stop and think about how something like this is now possible, compared to when I was born *cough cough* years ago, it really puts things in perspective just a little. Then, fast forward passed those teenage years where he won’t admit these photos exist to when he’s even older and starting his own family. Having something like this for him to reflect on when he himself is experiencing parenthood for the first time? That’s sounds pretty special.

One also can only imagine what sites like Facebook and Flickr will be like in another 25 years to when those potential “grandpa” years might arrive. Hmmm. Let’s make it through potty training first.

Where to Find The Photos

The last part of this project that was equally as important as taking these snapshots was making it easy to share them. Although these are all hosted on Flickr in the Daily Baby photoset, I wasn’t about to attempt to teach my grandmother 2,000 miles away how to find me on Flickr. So instead, I added the Daily Baby page right to our family’s blog itself. That’s easy enough to find.

In addition to living the digital life, we also came up with the idea of printing these photos and throwing them in an album as a keepsake of our son’s first year. Not only did we start our own running album, we also make prints for my mother and ship another set to my mother-in-law in Iowa. How cool is that, an automatic baby book of your grandson, day-by-day for the first year.

So there you have it. As becoming a father has motivated me to expand from shooting landscapes to practicing portraits and deciphering all new studio lighting gear, I can at least partake in the simple, less stressful joy of snapping an image of our own bundle of joy and knowing that what I’m capturing is something special, and way more important than how I’m capturing it or how well I’m capturing it.

Poster – Golden Hour.

The image is one of the posters featured in the new eBook, Maui by Poster.

You can read more about this photo and poster on my Maui blog, and the original version of this photo here.

– Kris

Poster – Must See Maui.

The image is one of the posters featured in the new eBook, Maui by Poster, which I launched earlier this month.

The photo itself was taken from my doors-off helicopter tour over Maui during the ’09 Maui Photo Festival and may very well be my favorite image in the eBook. I’m featuring this and a few other posters from the book over at my original Maui blog, Ka’anapali Dreamin’, so I thought I’d drop a few here, too.

If you’d like to see all 24 posters that I created using an iPad, visit the download page over at Daily Maui Photo and grab a copy for yourself. And if you know someone that might enjoy these images, too, please help spread the Aloha and send the link their way, too.

Put Some Aloha on Your Wall

In addition to the free eBook download, a good number of these images are also available as prints over at ImageKind. I was very happy with test prints I ordered, and have heard good things from others that have seen them as well. If you’d like to take a look for yourself, head over to the Maui eBook Posters gallery and check out the options there.

Mahalo, and I hope you enjoy these as much as I did creating them.

– Kris

My latest such inspiration that was lucky enough to find a few late, late night hours to play around with came from this post from the very stunning photo blog, The Windy Pixel.

Here are a few of my early, not-as-stunning-as-theirs, creations.

As with anything in photography that involves good composition and exposures with strong skills in post-production, the sky is the limit, and for me it will be something I will only get better at as my skills in both areas improve.

Here are the source images that were used for the my creative works above.

Nicolet Beach in Peninsula State Park, WI

Stars over Ka’anapali Beach

Haleakala Sunrise Fans

Be sure to look for more of these from me in the coming months as I continue to practice with HDR and Topaz Adjust, too.

A little time lapse I just recently put together from 3 different photo sequences I took back in February. The time span covered is from about 5:30am to 7:15am, and was taken from the lanai of an ocean from room at the Sheraton Maui Resort.

All told, there are 290 photos, and it’s rendered at 10 fps.

Had this not been a western facing room, there’d be a sunrise in there, too.

Well, ever since I first shot the Milky Way over Maui, I have grown rather fond of shooting long exposures at night. Many of them initially have been of the heavens, such as this one of Venus, but I’ve recently started to look for things more down to Earth to shoot as well. Back here on Maui for a week, there’s been great night skies and no shortage of things around me to shoot after dark. Not to mention the help of some of the new gear I picked up for this trip, too.

Here’s a quick sampling, with more being uploaded soon.

And of course, the primary reason I love shooting at night in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

See more at my Stars Over Maui photoset on Flickr, and if you happen to have starry photos from Hawaii to share, I invite you to join us at the Stars Over Hawaii group on Flickr as well.

Thanks.

In addition to the fireworks last week at the Taste of Chicago, I decided to have a little fun and setup this time lapse shot at Buckingham Fountain. Good thing I was using my remote shutter so people notice I was snapping these shots every second, otherwise they would have been stopping and waiting for me to take the photo.

What a beautiful day it was, if only a little late in the afternoon to wash out some of the colors. Still fun to watch, though.

Enjoy.