My new lens came in the mail earlier than expected! Check out the shots below from the Canon 35mm f/1.4L. There’s also a short (and pretty poorly filmed) video I threw below of a violin performance by NYU’s Molly Fletcher that me and my friends found while walking around aimlessly.

My assignment for Project II was to recreate an old memory or memories to serve as an autobiography. I decided not to do a specific memory for my series, but rather a generalization of my past relationships. You’ll notice that Bo’s entire face is never clearly visible in a single frame and she is often partially hidden by light. My decision for this revolves around the concept that we can never really trust our memories to be completely accurate as time goes on. Also, despite the level of closeness and intimacy that eventually develops towards the end of the series, I never got the opportunity to really know the person. At the end of it all, she’s just a body and an empty face.

I tried my best to replicate a nostalgic, almost dreamy feel for the series without the use of Photoshop. In fact, Blur is almost completely unedited. My Project I series, Lifted relied heavily on Photoshop and so I wanted to handle Project II a little differently. The soft focus throughout the series and dreamy lighting was created using a small pink tutu (not a typo, we’re working with a legit tutu here) that I picked up from a dollar store. The tutu was covered in rhinestones and I cut up the fabric to create a “veil” for my camera lens. The rhinestone veil served several purposes. It softened and desaturated my photographs, added a purple tint that was more or less visible depending on the strength of my light, and reflected light into white rays that I could use to hide Bo’s face.

And in case you haven’t been keeping up with them, click here to view the Project II previews.

Here’s another raw sample from Project II, just for Valentine’s Day.

I’m exhausted. I can honestly say that carrying my camera every day for an entire year was probably the most annoying commitment I’ve ever made. But hey, 2010 is finally over and my 365 Project is officially complete. I’ve been posting weekly updates on the photo series on this blog, but now you can check it out from start to finish in a single gallery, which I posted right above (BTW it’s a big gallery so it might take a while to load, just give it some time).

For the people out there who are unfamiliar with the project, it entails a picture a day, for the entire year. All photos were shot from a standard 50mm field of view using natural lighting only.

Now here’s my 2010 confession, 12 photos broke the rules.

* 4 photos were shot with a wide angle lens (of those four, two were shot with flash)
* 5 photos were shot by 5 different friends
* 3 photos were shot with an iPhone

I may do an update in the near future detailing which 12 photos broke my rules. But in the mean time, check out the gallery here!