One of those friends is Anita, who is Week 2′s Portrait Project volunteer! We went out into the very brisk January weather to shoot. I had taken a few serious ones, but I really love it when I can capture a genuine laugh on camera instead. I don’t even remember what I said, but Anita laughed, and I took the shot, and here’s the wonderous result!

Caitlin is my first volunteer for the project, and she actually inspired me to do it. She had asked earlier in the year if I would take a few photos of her, and I realized that I really do love take photos of people. I decided she’d be the one to help me kick off the project! I know she was a bit nervous about it, but I think this photo of her is totally adorable.

The truth is, as much as I enjoy photographing items and such, I love take photos of people. I started getting back into photography as a result of taking photos of people at conventions, and some of my favorite photos from my 365 Project were of people.

So, I’ve decided to take a photo of a different person a week for a year. I know I’m a touch late in getting started for 2012, but no matter.

Here’s the deal: I would love to feature as many of my friends and family as possible, and I would love to get some volunteers right off the bat. If you want to take part, let me know, and I’ll start scheduling sessions. These portrait sessions will be quick, probably no more than 10 minutes or so, except in some extreme cases where I have an idea I want to plan a real and full photoshoot around (if you have an idea for something more elaborate, speak up). All of these sessions will be done totally free, and you’ll get at least one fully edited portrait out of it.

Interested? Send me an e-mail: dreadpiraterose [at] gmail [dot] com or message me on Facebook.

It was a nice trip, albeit a brief one. My mom, littlest sister, and grandma didn’t know I was coming down, and surprising them was an unbelievable amount of fun. I also got to see my dad, and engage in our long-standing Christmas tradition of getting a Cinnabon and watching all the poor husbands/boyfriends shopping at the mall on Christmas Eve. Another highlight was getting to see one of my oldest and truest friends, Curt, who I’ve known since the second grade. It had been a solid year and a half since we’d hung out, so I was really glad for the opportunity to spend time with him again.

While I was visiting the family, I took photos (of course) whenever I could. I must say, my niece and kid sister make this photographer’s job pretty damn easy. My sister is absurdly photogenic, and my niece is just the cutest little baby ever (with hilarious facial expressions). I’ve posted plenty of baby pictures in the past, so here are some of the ones I took of my littlest sister. (Don’t worry, I’ll be posting more baby photos later.)

Happy holidays!

Feeling disappointed, but not fully deterred, my sister took us to Walmart. It was pandemonium inside. People were like hyenas. They were ripping off the plastic wrap off the pallets of items before the 10pm sale started, and were piling items in their carts like the world was gonna end. My sister and mom did get some good deals, I’ll admit, but I was also glad when we finally got out of there.

Today, on Black Friday proper, I hit the mall with a friend of mine to do some window shopping. Both of us mostly just wanted to get out of our respective houses for a nice distraction. I did end up getting a pretty scarf and a few earrings at nice prices, but nothing to write home about. Target was even less impressive. Guess you had to do the door busters there to get any real discounts.

The real excitement was when I got home. We have a volunteer fire department here, so this air raid siren goes off when there’s a fire. The alarm went off three times, which is unusual (normally it is just twice). I heard the sirens afterward, and they sounded awfully close. That’s when I looked out my balcony sliding doors, and saw no less than six fire department vehicles outside the laundromat. Yep. Definitely a dryer on fire.

How was your Black Friday?

What I am trying to decide is whether or not to strictly follow one or the other, pick the one I like from among the two each week, or just solicit themes from my followers each week and let YOU all decide what theme I use.

My concern about going with one particular site and only using their themes, is that both feature some that are so oddly specific that I worry I wouldn’t be able to fulfill the challenge (i.e., weekly themes like wedding, party, beach, deep space, etc.).

So fans, what do you all think?

As the end of the project drew near, I knew I wanted to come back and do some kind of review or retrospective. I wanted to share some of my favorite photos from the year. Click “Read More” to read it and see the photos.

If you’ve followed my project, you know I took quite a few photos of my kitty, Shadow. In fact, there were officially 19 photos of her throughout the project. Two of my favorites were taken more towards the end. I love this one because of the angle, and the way kitty’s eye is so bright, compared to how dark the rest of her body is:

But my absolutely favorite is this one, where kitty was hiding behind my new rain boots, and all you can see are her eyes and tail:

In addition to taking a lot of photos of my cat and my friends’ pets, I took several photos of people’s kids. I couldn’t very well pick just one to showcase as “the best” or “the cutest” because you just can’t make that kind of comparison. However, I do want to share what I think it just a great overall photo. It’s the first one I took of Noah, and considering he’s always been kind of camera shy, I feel lucky I got this one at all:

Changing gears… I was lucky to get to attend and shoot several fashion shows this year, thanks to Dorian’s Parlor. It is so hard picking a favorite from among this bunch! In the end, I had to pick the very first show I did, and this picture of model April Mayi. The lighting was just killer and she is stunning.

I did a slew of portraits this year. Talk about another group of photos where picking a favorite is hard. In terms of individual portraits, I am just in love with this one I took of my friend and amazing photographer Amanda. This laugh I photographed is just her in a nutshell, and I love that:

As for couples, I have always adored this photo of Heather and Tony from the summer:

I got to attend a lot of fandom conventions this year, and took a ton of photos of people’s incredible costumes. This photo remains my favorite, because those red contacts this gal is wearing are so eerie and just make the photo that much more awesome:

I want to share a few more random favorites…

Of course, my darling and wonderful boyfriend, Dan, was often my guinea pig for photos. He was a damned good sport this year, especially when I was testing new equipment or techniques. I couldn’t have done this project without his support and good-natured assistance.

So, you may be wondering: what next? Well, I intend to give myself a good two months off, and look and plan for a new photography project for 2012. I will of course, be sure to let you all know!

So, here we are, the last photo. A small statue from this year’s Dias de los Muertos display, shot in manual, on a 50mm lens on manual focus. And with that, it’s done. Look for a ‘retrospective’ post to be posted tomorrow.