WE35 Field Report: Layla’s First Month

This article has two pieces of news to share with the community.  The first is that I have been taking part of a fun project with a group of friends, called WE35.  It’s a sort of photography research project where we are gathering thoughts and photos all made at the same focal point, 35mm.  My first report was my Faces in 35 project.

The second bit of news is that my daughter, Layla, was born on January 13th.  She’s tiny, beautiful and has brought so much happiness to my family’s lives.

The reason I am mentioning both news items together is because of February’s field report for WE35.  The theme for the month was to capture 36 frames as if we were photographing on film, rather than digital.

I had to cheat a little on this month’s project because Layla is not supposed to leave the house for 8 weeks (doctor’s orders) unless she is going for a walk around the block or to the doctor.

So the 36 frames I made are from the day she was born through her first month. They are all processed in black and white using Mastin Lab’s HP5 Lightroom preset.  I then tweaked each photograph individually for that dynamic fine art vibe.

For the most part, each of the photographs was also made at 1600 ISO, except for the outdoors photos because of the super bright snow.  (I did say I cheated a little)

February’s WE35 submissions were to be sent as a contact sheet, which is what you see above. Because that makes the photographs sideways in some cases, and tiny in all cases, I decided to share some of my favorites as well.