As I’m sure many photographers can attest to, there are times when you peer through your viewfinder and think, Am I making this f-ing shot AGAIN?  I’m boring myself.  Same use of light, same composition, same brain.  And so I’d like to announce the perfect (and laziest) way to surprise your creative brain and remember that, thankfully, there are a limitless number of ways to see the world.  The test shot.

You didn’t look through your viewfinder.  You guessed at the metering.  And you didn’t bother to focus because you were using your focusing hand to stuff your face with the last bite of the chicken burrito you splurged $4.50 on at the local mexi-wagon.

Art works in mysterious ways.

And, come to think of it, I want to see what your test shots look like.  Send me links.  Maybe we’ll have a test shoot off.

Salmon Street Springs. Fountain in Waterfront park.

Pendleton Round-Up.

Lukas did the art on the helmet and Brandon was game to throw it on.

It was such a sunny day that I was worried about heading out without any lighting gear but that is part of the fun of newspaper photography, being creative with what you have.  I hopped on my bike on Thursday afternoon, my tripod awkwardly strapped on my camera bag and sticking out into traffic, and headed down to the industrial area of Southeast Portland.  Brandon and Lukas were about to get some seriously awesome PR with an article in the Times about their publisher Skybound (launched by comic book guru Robert Kirkman).  They created Witch Doctor, a kick-ass comic.

Portland being a small town, I had previously met Brandon on one of my more memorable shoots.  He was writing a story about Portland’s annual naked bike ride for the Willamette Week and I was photographing it.  We laughed about re-creating our last encounter for this shoot.  Mostly an awkward laugh.

And so as usual, I tend to like not just the image that the Times editors choose to publish…and so here are a couple.

I like the splat at their feet. Seemed fitting for a medical horror comic.

The juicy light driving through Idaho made for this bucolic scene. I like the light reflecting off the wet road.

Ara and Willa watching me shoot the farm scene.

Somewhere in Eastern Washington

The same somewhere, different light.

Working for NEEA has been my best gig in the last month.  I photographed in an enormous potato processing plant in Idaho where they asked me if I was bringing in any glass (I answered by looking down at my lenses); I stopped by the roadside near Whitefish, Montana and employed Willa and Ara to model (yes, they made it into the annual report); and they gave me free reign to interpret the themes of the shoot, which is every photographer’s dream.  I can’t post the final images from the project quite yet, but I’ll put them up after I get the green light from NEEA.