100

I am still thinking about the book idea that I want to do on people over 100 years old. I want to do some other projects as well, but I know that I'll get a little criticism. I think that it would be interesting to do a series on downtown, but I don't know if the people who are there are what I want to focus on, or the architecture, or the graffiti or what. When I talk about my ideas (to my family members, at least) I get reactions that I am sure a lot of people get from the people closest to them. My mom, for example, likes stuff that I shoot that is very straightforward, in focus, and not too odd. She likes pictures of trees and traditional portraits and things that are very easy to understand visually. Most of the time when I show her something that is out of the ordinary for what I have done traditionally in the past, her words are "It just doesn't do anything for me." It is frustrating to get the same reaction when trying to make photographs that I want to make. Another recent let-down was a Valentines Banquet that I shot at our church. It was just the usual of couples posed together, but I didn't have any connection with them and therefore the pictures just seem static and uninteresting. Which they are. Plus that, the place where I had them printed really messed up the contrast. That's what you get for going to Sam's Club in a pinch, I guess. So, I have ideas that I want to work on, but I can't really hash them out with members of my family and a lot of my friends don't really understand what I have in mind either. I suppose I just need to find other photographers who can lend unbiased objective and provide useful critique while understanding the technical side of things as well.