I’ve done a photo shoot and two live shows with Elementary (the band!).  I gotta say, live music photography is fun. The above was my favorite shot from the Velvet Lounge show. I’d like to revamp my blog to cater more to being a photo-blog. Don’t hold your breath though…since all I do all day is build web sites, I’m kind of slow to actually update my own. It will happen at some point, but it could be a couple years.

Since your hero last blogged I had some visitors, traveled to a destination wedding in Bermuda, moved to a different state, and I’m sure some other blog-worthy things…none of which will be discussed today! No, first I have something much more exciting… a short word on color profiles!

Super high level overview: Color profiles basically tell your computer how to output images for a certain device – be it your monitor, you printer, etc. Beyond that, they are also software dependent – most browsers only support the sRGB color profile.

Now you may be wondering why I’m talking about all this. I might even say this is embarassing considering the thousands of hours I’ve probably spent using Photoshop… I realized a couple months ago that I’ve been saving and uploading all of my photos to the web with the Adobe RGB color profile and I’ve been doing it for more than two years (approximately 700 photos). Why did I do this? Well Adobe RGB was set as the default color profile in the Photoshop “Camera Raw” plug-in that I used when processing my photos.

What happens when you view an Adobe RGB image with software that only does sRGB? Basically it sucks the life out of your image. Colors are dulled and people are turned into zombies. On some photos it’s not that noticable…on others it’s definitely noticable.

Here are two screen shots from a browser that only supports sRGB. The left photo is sRGB, the right is Adobe RGB. Can you see a difference? I think it looks like my skin is going to fall off in the right photo (both due to the jowling and the grayish hue).

After a few marathon sessions spanning a couple months, I’ve finally finished replacing all of my flickr photos with sRGB versions! Huzzah! Lesson learned. I imagine in a couple years that this won’t be a big deal – some browsers already support multiple profiles, and hopefully that trend spreads.

The 366 project is complete! I completed every theme that was suggested and can only think of a few days that I had to bend the rules a bit… Two days where I forgot to take a photo so I used a photo from the previous day taken less than an hour before midnight. One other mistake when the only photo I took was with my phone’s camera.

For my final photo of the project I wanted to go out with a bang. My plan was a sunset over the Philadelphia skyline and the Delaware River from the Ben Franklin Bridge. The bridge has a raised pedestrian walking path on either side so I assumed I could walk on the south side of the bridge and get an unobstructed view of the river and skyline… Turns out the south side was closed because they are painting it… and seeing as it’s now winter they have stopped work until it gets warm again. I even asked the police officer on duty if he could let me on the other side, which of course he could not. He also told me I wasn’t allowed to take photos of the bridge itself…

It was freezing (25 degree before the sun went down) and there was a wind advisory with up to 55mph gusts. Twice I actually crouched down because the wind was blowing so hard that my footing was a little unstable. Wind + cold + standing on a bridge = really cold. I did get a couple good shots out of it including my final 366 photo below.

In Killiam News: After taking it easy up until midnight I departed to meet with the man himself as he was in town for a new year’s eve celebration! I’m happy to report he does not wear a beret and he even somehow got me free drinks. I’ve decided he should use a fake french accent to try to pick up the ladies…though last night he didn’t need it because the bartender clearly wanted him!

Lastly, today I got to see the famed Mummers Parade! If you ever find yourself in Philadelphia one New Year’s Day, I suggest you check it out.

Happy new year and all that stuff.

This was a fun, I’m glad I left the self-portrait theme for the last full week. I was in New Jersey with the in-laws mid-week and in Philly for the rest. Maybe this says something about me, but I just realized my face is only visible, clear, and in focus in two of the seven shots.

A note about the photos below. The glowing laptop photo was inspired by this David Hobby photo and the Rocky photo, was also an ode to Running from Camera, a photo blog which I have been following for a while that I always found interesting.

Today is new year’s eve which means it is my final day of the 366 project. I have an idea so I can hopefully go out with a bang, stay tuned for that. I also am planning on making a blurb photo book to chronicle the photos from this year.

The above Long Exposure was taken fairly late at night in Rittenhouse Square in the freezing cold. The park is actually just a couple feet behind the camera and it faces down Chancellor Street…which is really more of an alley.

While setting up this shot, I noticed a Stikman on a sign that was about two feet from me (or what was left of the stikman). If you’ve never heard of stikman, check out this Washington Post article. I have been seeing stickmen all over Philly but I’m pretty sure the first one I saw was in DC somewhere before we moved. I’ve had a bit of a fascination with random street artists since I saw a Banksy piece in London on my honeymoon. At that  point I hadn’t heard of him but later saw some of his stuff on flickr.

On December 28th I will be complete with my final theme. I will have three days remaining in my photo project and I need to come up with an idea for my final days.  Any ideas?

I am almost done with all of the themes on my theme list for the 366 project. I’ve been trying my best to finish up the themes even if my whole week doesn’t fit with the theme so well. A couple photos (namely the self-portraits) don’t quite fit the week’s ‘beautiful’ theme…unless you guys think I’m beautiful. Speaking of self portraits, theme 52 is just that, self portraits.

Above was my favorite photo from the Silhouettes theme and was taken just below the Walnut Street bridge in Philly. I tried to get the river in a few shots but this one came out the best.

One day during this week I was on my way to meet Katie so we could get our passport photos done (we are going to not one, but TWO weddings in Bermuda next year). Well we also realized a couple blocks away the National Governors Association was meeting at Independence Hall. I saw Biden on his way out of town as he sat at a red light and gave him a wave (he reciprocated). Then Katie and I hung out at near the press area and watched a few Governor interviews a few yards away. Just a normal day in Philly.

This was a perfect photo for the theme I’ve Never Done This Before. I still haven’t done it, and probably never will, but I bet it’s pretty fun…the first time. I can’t imagine actually doing this for a living – it seems pretty dangerous. I wonder what a high-rise window washer gets paid?

I saw these guy out my apartment window during lunch and quickly grabbed the camera!

But my two favorite photos of the week which didn’t fit the theme as well are below:

The theme was Blur, just like this project has been. I tried the above photo three or four times before getting one that I liked…also I was feeling a little queezy.

One day of the week I completely forgot to take a photo…kinda. I did take a photo with my phone, but it was a photograph of test pattern on my monitor. I was consumed with a project all day and was luck to take a photo of any kind.

The leaves are down and the weather is getting nasty. Cold and Wet seemed like an appropriate theme for the week. A pretty rag-tag group of photos.