March 31 - Waning Gibbous

I figured I'd come full circle and end this first month the way it began - with a shot of the moon. I can't believe I've only been doing this for a month. It seems much longer than that. 31 days down. Only 275 to go!

March 30 - Sangria Castañeda

I should play around with my lighting gear more often. It's the area in which I have the least experience and could improve the most. This is just a cheap $6 bottle of sangria I found at Cost Plus World Market. It's good enough for six bucks.

March 29 - Licensed To Recreate

I am finally nearing the one month mark of this project. It started off as completely fun and exciting. Unfortunately, it's degraded into almost a chore to find that next photo. The problem is that I put too much pressure on myself to strike gold every time I press that shutter. I'm slowly realizing that I just need to capture whatever catches my eye. If it doesn't work out, no big deal. That's the only way I'm going to make it to the end of the year.

In light of that, I decided to take a simple photo of something that has personal significance. REI has recently become one of my favorite stores. Yes, their merchandise is overpriced, but you really do get what you pay for. I'm not trying to be a commercial for them, but I absolutely LOVE my REI Half Dome tent. I've become a lot more "outdoorsy" lately and REI is the first place I think of whenever I need something.

March 28 - Peephole Portrait

For today's photo, I decided to use something I pretty much never use - my front door. I actually kind of like this idea as a self-portrait. I won't have too many of those during this project.

March 27 - Earth Hour

The Las Vegas Strip doesn't really go dark during Earth Hour, it just gets less bright.

March 26 - Penny Tally

The Penny Wars thing ended on Friday, so it was time to determine the winner. Turns out, our team was the most sabotaged. We ended up with over $200 in non-penny contributions. Although we didn't win the actual Penny War, our jars raised the most amount of money. And since it all goes to the Red Cross anyway, it's all good.

March 25 - Flame On

Honestly, at this point, I feel like I'm just throwing stuff on the wall to see what sticks. I'm really running out of ideas. Then again, the real purpose of this project is to keep the camera active and stimulate my photographic mind. In that sense, things are going swell.

March 24 - More Car Bell

When you start taking photos of stuff in your car, you know you're running low on ideas. And I'm not even a month into this thing. I tried to make this shot as interesting as possible. But it's a bell. It dings every time I hit a bump.

March 23 - Tilt-Shift Trickery

Oh how I wish I had an actual tilt-shift lens. That would be a lot of fun to play around with. Not quite as fun (but much cheaper) is mimicking the effect in Photoshop.

March 22 - Poppy's FroYo

I had this brilliant idea to try and capture the pinkness that is Poppy's Frozen Yogurt. I wanted to contrast the bright pink with a dark and mysterious exterior. Now that you know the concept, you can see the failure. Oh well, Momma told me there would be days like this.

Full disclosure: I cloned out some details from the right side of the image. Fortunately, this isn't photojournalism. This is my personal art project.

March 21 - Giardino Gigante

The Bellagio's current conservatory display is a giant garden full of ants, gardening tools, and trippy purple mushrooms. This is my attempt at capturing that trippiness. And then we went outside to watch the fountains.

March 20 - White Rock Remix

We hiked the White Rock loop again. This time we went in the opposite direction (clockwise around White Rock). That way is much easier. You start downhill and end downhill. The uphill back stretch doesn't seem as bad and that is the beautiful scenic part anyway.

March 19 - Yamaha Clavinova

I don't really play piano, but that doesn't stop me from trying to get an interesting photo. One thing I love about my 70-200 - it has supremely creamy bokeh.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bokeh

March 18 - Shattered Hope

As we very well know, the Rebels lost in the first round of the NCAA tourney on a late game three-pointer by UNI from well behind the arc. It's obviously a bummer, but I'm not disappointed with the season overall. We haven't had an at-large bid in a decade. It was a game of evenly matched teams that could have gone either way. Most of all, it's what the madness is all about. Good season Rebels. I can't wait for next year!

March 17 - Green Beer

Went down to Fremont Street to check out the St. Patrick's Day goings on. After I bought my first ever green beer, I got the idea for this photo. Props to my cousin, Camila, for taking this handheld at 1/2 second shutter speed. You can't tell at this size, but I'm a little blurry. I think that's more because I couldn't stand still.

March 16 - OKC Ya Later

Rebels left for Oklahoma City today to face the Panthers of Northern Iowa in the NCAA First Round (Thursday 4:10pm Pacific time). The send-off crowd was nowhere near as big as 2007, but it was a good opportunity to get my POTD (or several).

March 15 - Penny Wars

Third day in a row I've used my 50mm prime. They're running a Penny Wars thing at work, so I figured I'd try to get something interesting from our team's jar. Eh.

March 14 - Daylight Saved

Despite the loss of an hour of sleep, we got up early to hike the White Rock trail loop at Red Rock Canyon. I again chose to only use my 50mm f/1.8, both as a challenge and because it's lighter and more compact. With a prime lens, you have to zoom in and out the old-fashioned way (with your feet). When we got to the trailhead, the parking area was closed off due to some climbers getting stuck in a cave and needing rescuing (we didn't know what was going on at the time). I chose this photo because it more or less contains the entire group (myself excluded).

March 13 - Lady Rebs

Took my cousin Christine to watch her first ever UNLV tennis action. My buddy Kristina, our top player, was sitting out with an abdominal strain, but we still handled Hawai'i 6-1. This was my second shot of the day. I was satisfied with it, so I didn't take much more. I again forced myself to use my 50mm f/1.8.

March 12 - Crane Technique

I call this "documentation of my 7-11 flyer turned origami crane that sits on top of my work monitor" (aka today's lazy photo). I was supposed to hike Ice Box, but since that wasn't certain, I decided to save my day off for future use. I tried a few artsy shots. In the end, I figured the beauty of the 7-11 crane speaks for itself.

March 11 - Stomp Clap Whoosh!

Today's entry is purely fun pic. Just because we aren't at the game, doesn't mean we can't do the free throw routine. It does seem to hinder us from doing it consistently, however. The important thing is that we have our Rebelicious revenge. On to the next one.

March 10 - Titanium Balls

I bought these tennis balls thinking, "Titanium. They must be good." They're not. That's why they were on sale. At least they gave me a good title for this blog post.

This ball photoshoot was what I had in mind last week before my Dad called. I think it turned out pretty not bad.

March 9 - Exploration's Edge

Another so-so photo day. I just happened to be up at about 5am, so I decided to hike up my local mini-mountain. Since I almost never use my cheap 50mm f/1.8, I challenged myself to only use that lens. The result is above - a slightly too tight shot on the houses behind the sign. I could should have backed up and recomposed, but it was insanely windy up there.

March 8 - Absolutely Fabulous

Not the most inspired photo today, but it keeps this thing alive. The idea is to just keep shooting anyway. I decided to visit the Las Vegas welcome sign during lunch. I will probably return at dusk one day to get what I really have in mind for this Vegas icon.

March 7 - Asian Weather

My cousins sang at the Asian Festival today at Town Square. The wind kicked up a little and I got some cool hair shots. During their third song, the rain decided to come down hard. Then Lani Misalucha came out and made it go away.

March 6 - Juicy Hotness

After the Rebel game, Josh and Anthony wanted to go to Hot N Juicy Crawfish. I am always down for that. Until crawfish are back in season, I stick with the shrimp and corn. The aftermath below...

March 5 - Gym Roam

On my way home from the gym, I set up my camera on my tripod in the back seat and secured it with a couple of ball bungees. I then took the long way home so I could get some smooth road. I used my remote (as pictured in my right hand) to snap three shots (-2EV, 0EV, and +2EV). The resulting HDR was processed using Photomatix Pro 3.2.

March 4 - Game Night

Bunch won Dominion. Jia won Settlers. I'm going with... I was too busy trying to get a good photo. I did achieve what will henceforth be known as the Dean Curtis Trifecta: I rolled a 2, I rolled a 12, and I built a road coast to coast.

March 3 - Crema De Corolla

I had an entirely different idea for my photo today, but then life called. Actually, my Dad called to tell me he just got into an accident. Fortunately, he's fine. The car doesn't look bad, but is probably totaled.

On the up side, I got to eat some Dinuguan that he just bought from Pinoy Pinay, followed up by some delicious Crema De Fruta.

March 2 - Dinosaur Bound

Walked into the front lobby at work this morning and saw this strange, antiquated contraption. Apparently, it's an old spiral binding machine. Betty at the front desk says, "It looks like a dinosaur!"

March 1 - Moonlight Haze

It's late on day one of Project 306, so I didn't go far to take my first shot. In fact, this was taken right outside my door. Nothing spectacular to kick off this blog, but I'm OK with that.

Just keep shooting.