Tuesday, January 10, 2006

And so the story continues...

IcyHotLoRes
"The Icy Hot Situation" by Wes Aldridge

Well, as you may have noticed, there hasn't been a new post on Mind of the Photographer since December 31, 2005. That was one calendar year of posting a photo a day. It was a little something I had challenged myself to do, and I'll be damned if I didn't accomplish that little goal. Now that the craziness and stress over posting a photo-a-day is gone, I am going to actually keep this blog going but on new terms.

There will no longer be a shot up each day, nope, no way in Hell. But I didn't want to kill it off all together. I have decided I should keep posting because it is almost a record of my life in a way. As lame as it sounds, I guess it’s like my diary... that everyone who so chooses can read. It is sort of therapeutic in a way, and I was missing it. So here is my first one for the year, and its pretty funny, well, to me anyway.

I went to the office today all pumped up about this shot I needed to do for one of the magazines. It was for the Almanac section of the magazine, and we usually don't do too elaborate of a studio set up for those. That section of the magazine is more or less blurbs of information with a simple illustration with a few of them. I knew I wouldn't be getting a photo credit for the shot, but I wanted to do it in a cool way anyhow.

I had thought about this shot of IcyHot for a while last night and was anticipating it when I was on the way to the office today. I had planned to fire this red gel from behind and make the "hot" feeling in the shot, I think that was accomplished. Next, I meticulously crushed ice with a hammer and some paper towels into desirable-sized chunks to give that "icy" feeling around the canister. After I got it all set up the way I wanted it, I made a spotlight that would project light onto the small 3-inch by 2-inch bottle with one of my studio strobes and a black paper cone. I spent about an hour prepping for this shot and it turned out pretty much exactly like I had hoped for. Victory was mine.

One small catch.

After all this, I looked over my shot list for the magazine and my stomach dropped. Yeah, well, that IcyHot shot was definitely supposed to be damn Vicks VaporRub. When I realized this it pretty much crushed me. So, this shot was worthless for the magazine. Then the light in my brain kicked on... it was a perfect shot and story for the blog.

My German friend Susanne said it best. She liked the way I put photos and words together. I think that might have been what kept bringing other folks back each day too... all 15,000+ hits it got last year. The blog was a story of my life, and everybody likes to read an interesting story. I will make a semi-promise: I will post when it is interesting or inspired, and we'll not throw garbage up for the sake of posting everyday. I think that's fair. Its good to post again.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

makes you almost wish you had an aching pain so you could run out and get some of that icy-hot. You made it look so inviting!!!! glad you are back--missed you!!!--fa

susanne said...

Hey, what a big suprise!!!

I was just surfing and thought: "I'd check in Wes' site for another frustrating look at his definitely finished blog... and if his blog does exist anymore at all?"
- and right now I discover your new entry:

Phew!!! I am so glad that you decided coming back and continuing your blog - that's the best suprise today!
You know that I missed you too of course - and thanks too for noting my statement in your text.

I am looking forward to your entries in 2006...

miss terri said...

welcome back! i'm glad that you're still posting. my First photo assignment last year, i took the best pictures ever, but developed them wrong, meaning i had to take 30 pictures by the end of the day and have them developed ready for effects. i pretty much failed that class for the first two weeks.

Anonymous said...

wes....glad to see you back even if it is on a temporary basis.I miss going to the blog and being so pleasantly surprised each day with your photos.Please continue whenever possible.

Anonymous said...

I know now why you cry!