Night is a fashion series focused on anonymity. The goal for the lighting was to attempt to replicate a night time feeling while inside the studio.

If you liked the series, don’t forget to check out all of the Project V previews.

Here it is, the first real look at Project V. The whole series is coming out Thursday, May 5th.

I’m finally done with Project V, shooting and editing. Time to sit back and relax. I’m taking the rest of May off from any series shooting. Ahhh yes vacation time!

After changing my concept for Project V twice, and ultimately settling on a simple fashion shoot, I thought I should at least take the time to explain some of the problems I ran into while shooting it.

Project V was supposed to be a long term photo series taking up about 1-2 months of time to do. Based on that time frame, I initially planned a series of pretty complex shoots to be done throughout those weeks. Slight problem though. The shooting schedule for Project V was running side by side with my Project IV shooting schedule. I ended up shooting Project IV, and tossing V aside to do at a later time.

When the time came that I could actually devote some attention to Project V, I fucked up… hard.

I then postponed the Project V shoot date to another week with the intention of completing the entire shoot (minus the editing) within a single day. This was my second attempt at trying to do this shoot and I was working with my friends this time. I figured the only way I could realistically finish the shoot within a day would be if I was working with familiar people who were already used to my shooting style and work flow.

That didn’t happen. The shoot date finally came and I realized in the middle of the shoot that my concepts were still in their infancy and weren’t ready to be done. It was unplanned and rushed. As a last minute resort, with three friends and shit ton of clothes, I decided to trash the project and turn the entire series into a fashion shoot while still clinging on to some of the very basic ideas I had planned to use for the original series. Those ideas were:

1. Keep the models anonymous
2. Dark setting, strong shadows
3. Unusual and attention grabbing clothes

Am I disappointed in the project? Absolutely not. I love how the photos came out and personally think it’s some of my strongest portraits to date. But I have to admit, the whole experience was a pretty clear lesson for me on how I manage my time and attempting to take on more than I can handle.

Now about the previews. The the preview photo below as well as the one from my previous blog entry are both pre-shoot shots taken while me and my friends were messing around trying to figure out what the hell I was going to do. I thought they were pretty cool, but they are actually completely unrelated to the series. I’m still considering whether or not to post a real preview picture up soon, but I’m on the fence on it because I don’t want to give too much away before the series comes out.

In any case, you can expect the final series to drop next week on Thursday, May 5th.

Due to a combination of ill planning and lack of time, my entire Project V concept was blown away… again. I’m finally done shooting. I mentioned earlier about planning to shoot a conceptual series in studio. Yeah, that whole plan went to hell. Project V will be a fashion series. Still keeping with the dark, melancholic feel, but any and all theme or story behind the photos has been completely scrapped.

I started shooting my fifth project last Wednesday, and to call the shoot a failure would be grossly sugar coating what happened. To make matters worse, the due date for my project was pushed to May 5th (that’s right, about a week and a half from now). In light of all these troubles, I’ve altered my Project V concept just a tiny bit and I think I finally have enough written down on paper that I can start and finish it next week, just in time for my critique.

The project will be a conceptual series shot entirely in studio. It’s going to be very dark and melancholic, similar to my first series, Lifted and my fourth series Secrets.

Getting these projects together has been a huge stress on me these past four months and I’m just really excited to finally get this over with. This will be my last school project since I have no intention of taking another photo class after this. Unfortunately, after spending four months doing this, I sadly have to report that I haven’t really learned anything from taking a photo class. I got some great ideas and some great photos for my portfolio throughout the course of this, but overall I didn’t do much in the class itself and spent most of my time working at home since I can’t stand the equipment the school provides me with. Granted, I did re-learn how to develop film, but knowing myself I’m just going to forget it all over again. *sigh*… well, at least I managed to have some fun.