Don't call it a comeback.

Hello, my name is Ryan and I'll be your blogger for the next few minutes.
I hail from the region known as the Western 'burbs and if you need more details than that, my "About Me" section, which will inevitably be renamed by the time you read this, will almost certainly inform you. At the end of high school, I was entirely convinced that I was going to be an electrical engineer, but then I discovered I actually had to "know things" (or so they told me) and decided to enter the mystical, magical world of photography. Seriously though, I don't regret the decision at all and I would absolutely do it again. Since then, I've been "doing stuff with the camera", as they say in a certain studio class, with varying degrees of success.

So what do I do with the camera, you might be thinking to yourself? Well, the current trends are as follows:
1. Square format. Let's face it, guys, all the cool kids are doing it.
2. Vivid blues and greens. This is starting to phase out the flat, 1960's sitcom coloration that dominated many of my now older projects.
3. Longer depth of field. I do still love taking pictures at f/1.4 and short depth of field is certainly something I still experiment with, but I think it's time to let f/4 and f/8 have their time to shine. After all, fair is fair.
4. Better lighting. With the acquisition of sturdier light stands and a few boom stands, my on location lighting has improved. I'm no lighting master, I'll admit, but as I gather some more goodies, changes will be made accordingly.
5. More post-production. A little bit can go a long way.

So now that you've got all these neato trends, what are you going to do with them? I've got some ideas pinballing around.
1. Bus drivers.
2. Document how the church is making efforts to rebuild in post-Katrina New Orleans.
3. Continuing the mutuality idea, pictured below. I realize it's a pretty naff photo, but I like it as a proof of concept. I'd very much like to have a very similar sort of set up with other willing couples. The mutual nature of relationships really intrigues me and I don't think I'll be able to settle it by simply waiting for the idea to float away.

4. Environmental pictures, such as the one below. I think I could certainly get better at them if I did more of them on a fairly regular basis.

5. Conduct more interviews while taking pictures. I've always wanted to go to New Orleans with some means of recording interviews and then putting them up here for readers to listen to. I definitely still want to do that, but I'm not sure how feasible it is.

This concludes the list-making portion of this particular blog post. On my other blog that I've been maintaing for nearly four years now, I always end with a transcription of the lyrics to a song that I've recently enjoyed. The formatting of this blog doesn't necessarily allow for that, so I'll have have to come up with some sort of fitting conclusion to each one of these blog postings. Suggestions?