This is the project I’ve been excited to unveil since I first thought it up about a month ago. “Finally!!”, I can hear several say. In fact, these same people were probably some of my first subjects too.

And they haven’t read so much as two words from that first paragraph… They’re down below checking out their pictures of themselves!

Aaaaaand welcome back guys

Ok, so here’s the idea for this project:

I can’t tell you how often I hear friends, acquaintances, brides, wedding guests, random people to whom I reveal that I’m a photographer, say that they’re not photogenic.

It’s a load of crap.

Nobody is not photogenic.

The trouble actually lies, no offense, with your friends. Your friends aren’t used to being photographers, so they rarely understand light, composition, context, character, editing, even more rarely shoot in any mode besides Auto and then don’t enhance the images once they’re out of the camera. I don’t mean enhancing in Photoshop either, I mean adjusting things like color, exposure; things like that.

So whenever someone would say to me “I’m not photogenic”, my response was always the following:

“You’re wrong. Gimme 5 minutes and I’ll prove it to you.”

Finally, instead of just saying it every time I heard it, I decided it was time to do a few things.

First of all, to provide those who think they’re not photogenic with images of themselves that they can actually be happy with, hopefully breaking the usually deep-rooted belief that they’re no good in front of a camera.

But as I thought this, I realized it would also be deeply interesting, for me at least, to document what my circle of friends looks like. Who are they? What do they do? What are they passionate about? What are their quirks? And why the hell CAN’T they make a face when confronted with a camera?!

Before long I came to the conclusion that… Well… Why limit this to just my friends? I hear the photogenic complaint from everyone! I wanna include them too.

And once the project became about EVERYONE… Well things got complicated for me. I had to figure out how I’d do this without killing myself in the process.

Now, I know this isn’t groundbreaking photography by any stretch of the imagination, but this is something I care about. It’s the only reason for it to exist.

Here’s my start with a few of my friends, followed by the “rules” of my game so you can be part of this too

Dani, showing off her gum:

Bina really resisted this:

No shot of either Dani or Bina would be complete without the other in it. These two are best of friends and are completely inseparable:

Brittany’s hobby is… You guessed it; photography. She’s also a terrific painter:

Lisa is one of my closest friends. She has a false reputation for being short-tempered. She’s just loud sometimes, so I asked her to scream at me:

Strangely, although Lisa and I are very close, Bruce and I always talk the most when I go hang out with them:

Believe it or not, everyone in the pictures above felt they weren’t photogenic… I’d like to think I did SOMETHING to improve how they feel about that. Speaking of which, if there’s an image here of you, please give me your email address so I can send you everything I thought was good. Email me or talk to me on Facebook.

Ok, now for the “rules”, in no particular order:

– You can be anyone. Past/future client, acquaintance, friend; I don’t care. Zero restrictions here. You can even have me take pictures of someone you know.

– The shoot will last no more than about 5 minutes.

– I’ll be posting at least one, but a maximum of two images of my choosing on the blog. One will be a portrait of just you, but in the other I want something that is kind of representative of you. This can be anything, I just wanna see the real you. Make a face, show me your hobby, invite someone that means a lot to you, bring something of great personal value, show off your favorite tattoo, etc. I’m open to anything. I just wanna see the real you somehow.

– I’ll be needing your email address so I can send you the results (especially if I feel that we ended up with more than 2 good ones – already the case above) and you’re welcome to download the images from the blog as well of course. Make sure to click on the images so you can get the larger versions if you take them from the blog.

– The images won’t be Photoshopped at all

– Delivery of the images will be at 640 pixels tall or 640 pixels wide, depending on whether the shot is vertical or horizontal.

– I need you to meet me around the Salt Lake City area UNLESS I happen to be visiting your state or country… Sorry people from Pakistan, I can’t fly half-way across the world for a 5-minute shoot!

– We shoot where we meet. No extensive location scouting. The pictures above were shot in a parking lot and a house, so clearly locations don’t matter much in this project’s case anyway.

– I will ONLY shoot using my Canon 85mm f1.2 L lens, with which I am deeply in love. And I’ll probably always be shooting wide-open too (for those of you who know what that means).

– I haven’t yet determined a time-limit on this project, if any.

– If there are any photographers out there who are able and willing, could you do the same for me?! I hate every recent picture of myself that I have…

That’s it! Email me or add me on Facebook if you’d like to get in closer contact with me so we can more easily arrange a shoot!