so yesterday i was reading an article on dailymail.co.uk about a lady who took a picture of everything she ate everyday to loose weight. aaron and i are inner heath nuts who like to eat bad food, but as of last week we decided that we need to be healthy together (especially as we’re moving into our apartment soon) so we decided to cut out dairy as aaron says “the healthiest people i know don’t eat dairy” plus dairy includes alot of fattening stuff such as ice cream and cheese. Aaron’s dad is illergic to dairy, so we already have lots of soy alternatives in the house.

Anyway, we have also decided to take pics of everything we eat and post them up here. This will hopefully give us the added incentive to eat better because it’d pretty embarrassing to post up pictures of a ton of cake.

so here’s my food for today (taken on my phone please don’t judge me)

breakfast:

1 homemade cranberry muffin (looks huge in this picture, but actually not that big) made with soy milk and margarine

lunch:

homemade pizza made on 1slice of pitta thingy bread, halved. “turkey pepperoni” instead of pork, no cheese. a few green peppers and spinach.

anniversary dinner (yay us!):

homemade barbeque chicken crock pot (1/3 each) and jasmin rice with cilantro and lime

dessert:

homemade sorbet (made with peaches, pear, lime and 1/2 cup of blueberries, 1/2 cup sugar) served with 1/4 banana = 109 calories (i calculated whilst i was making it… it takes alot for me to not eat ice cream, but this is actually a ridiculously healthy alternative. without fruit to serve with, its only 38 calories a scoop!! and super easy to make)

so there you have it! i spent all day making it, the sorbet takes about 20mins to make and like 12hrs to freeze so we did most of it last night. the chicken takes 4hrs on high in the crock pot but is DELICIOUS, and the pizza takes like 2mins to make, 15mins to cook. usually i make the crust from scratch too, but because it was just lunch there was no point.

come over to ours for dinner!!!

I went on big shoot on Wednesday with John Ryan and Chris Cooke. We shot a couple models, here is Ashley in an awesome old VW bus provided by friend Ben. It was an awesome shoot, more images to come!

Had an awesome 4th of July, cooking out, fireworks, swimming at the quarry, and best of all, no more work!

Nude figure

i like nudes, but not of me!

In other news… I finished my tutorial blurb book last night!

http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/750523

My personal tips, tricks and methods in both photo manipulation and photography, accompanied by full tutorials and step by step guides. Includes advice on shooting in public, handling clients and making the most of the internet as a photographer. Many full page prints of my most popular images, according to flickr.com. Let me know what you think!!!

we had such a good time! here are some of the outtakes

a nice lady we talked to on the top of the hill:

and if you haven’t seen Kane’s final shot from today… you should definetly check it out

here!

Lots of you know about Nick’s porsche, here are some of the shots from the shoot:

If anyone could give me any ideas for tutorials to put in my photography/editing “how to” book, please let me know!

This picture was made out of 3images:

http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1071157

http://www.sxc.hu/pic/m/e/el/elrhan/1201108_wooden_pier_1.jpg

and one of Nick’s dog, Killer:

put them all together into this:

and edited the colours and tones into what you see at the top of the page!

Thanks for all your comments regarding what kind of blurb book i should make, im getting started on a tutorial book tonight. I’ll include how-tos on things like this, too.

This was a big production shoot, which required quite a bit to come together, thanks everyone involved. The shoot was organized by my friends John Ryan, Chris, and Me.
We had a pro stunt bike rider, a several bikes, some tricked out cars, models, plenty of glass, and a lot of burning rubber.

The plan was for 3 shoots, and I think we got what we came for. we shot at about 4PM, which was a little early for my taste, as it gets dark after 8 in NC during the summers. I couldn’t shoot faster than 1/320 b/c we were syncing with monolights, at least I can shoot at ISO 50. even with the new FlexTT5 PW, 1/500 is asking too much, here is where ND filter help out.

Things went really smoothly, Chris and John took care of all the behind the scenes footage, and during breaks, we got some great head shots of the talent.

All of the final shots are comps. It gets a little dangerous around all the burning rubber. Especially with 20k in photo equipment lying around.

In all it was a great shoot, and I think everyone involved had a lot of fun. We will be doing another shoot together soon.

as you can see a lot of post processing went into this shot - i tried standing on a mini cliff near my house but it wasn’t quite what i was looking for. so instead i found a stock image of a cliff (links on my flickr) which had strong, noon-light from above which matched my pic. I cut myself out using the negative fuzzy select tool and just pasted myself on, leaving some of the original stone around my feet on to blend in so i looked like i was actually stood there. i adjusted the “me” selection colours to fit the pic of the cliff, a bit more reddy yellow. i flipped the pic because it looked more dramatic for whatever reason,and then selected just me and the cliff, again using the fuzzy select tool.i took a pic of a long exposure sky i took, pasted the cliff and me onto it and then added a weirdass texture i found (i’ll have a look for the link). i destaurated it, adjusted the value curve and hey presto!

thanks for all your comments and ideas from my last post. a couple of you mentioned the bills/food budget being way low - me and aaron are going halves on it which i forgot to put, so all together its about $400 each (abit more realistic). i’m very happy to have an old banger for a car, i love that kind of stuff. i looked into public transport (which i use all the time in the Uk) but from what i’ve seen in NC it’s nothing like the UK. I have no idea how far i am from a bus stop and whether they would, for instance, drive past aaron’s parents’ house which i have never seen them do. with my shooting schedule and whatnot, having to time my day aorund getting buses would be a big stress. i’d definetly be open to it, and its something i’ll look into.

visa wise, some of you asked what the situation there is. i am going on a tourist visa - giving me 90days to be there and i return every 3months for a two week break in the UK. i cannot get a work visa as i would not be sponsored by a company. Therefore it would be illegal for me to work in the USA, which makes things extra hard. I totally guessed at tution,but it looks as though that will be too expensive. I basically have £1000 a month to live off, which makes stuff arkward. Our apt is 2 bedroom(one bedroom will be an office,one will be a bedroom) which explains the rent.

I have until July 15th to work my socks off - i am going to join model mayhem (thanks for the tip!) and try and get a couple of weddings too. I’ll be shooting some hotels hopefully and things like that, just nice regular stuff. Would anyone be interested in a blurb book if i made one? I can fill it up with unseen pics i havent posted to flickr along with lots of my 365s and outtakes and all that jazz.Or would a tutorial book be a good idea?let me know what you guys think would work… the real world is so bad!! who came up with this!?!?

My exams finish on June 15th and then I have to go into major saving/working mode for America. I didn’t realize how expensive it would be, and apart from the occasional shoot I don’t have a job so I really need to find a way to get some money together.

Here are the things I have to save for:

Rent - $950 p/month (paid for by me, as aaron is furnishing the apt)

Computer - $600 max

Car - $2000

Car Insurance - $150/month (is this about right all you american 18yr olds? how much do you pay?)

bills - $200/month

food - $200/month

classes at a community college - $200 p/semester (ish)

and eventually

5D- $3000

eugh so much to save for. and none of these i can really get out of! so im pretty worried because im very broke. so if anyone out there wants to hire me for a shoot PLEASE DO! if anyone has any ideas or ways for me to make some money, let me know! i think i am going to call up some local hotels and try and get some work there photographing the rooms, bands i can keep doing when they come up and anything else like that… eep! help me!!!