So I have a bit of a conundrum. Over on my Flickr stream, I occasional check to see which image is the most popular based on Flickr's magic formula for interestingness, which has the most favorites or comments. But the one stat that surprises me the most is the image with the most views. Now I expect it to be a picture of an attractive lady. Not my best images but this is the internet and let's face it, that's it's primary use.

But no! Actually, my most viewed picture, by a whopping 5507 views is the image below called Purple Smoke. Second has only 1655 views although the ease your worry it is of an attractive woman. Nearly had a Twilight Zone moment.

Purple smoke? It's from a series of images I made using incense and then changed the colors in Photoshop. The most interesting thing to me is that the traffic is coming from people searching for "Purple Smoke" in either Flickr, Google or Bing. People are actively searching for the term purple smoke. Daily, I get about 10 or so views.

Am I missing something? Is Purple Smoke the name of some new street drug? Some celebrities nickname? What!

On the whole, I don't do much model work simple because, despite what you might think, Fredericksburg is not the hub of fashion and design in Virginia. I know, your world has been shattered. I apologize.

That being said, Allison contacted me through my website asking if I could take some headshots/model looks for her to submit to the Modelogic Agency in Richmond. We met at Hyperion to discuss what she needed and what I could accomplish for her. Modelogic wanted five different looks for it's prospective models. They also recommended that Allison go through their photography and inferred that getting these looks from them would guarantee acceptance (of the pictures, not necessarily being signed) while going through a third party might not work out. I can understand Modelogic's reasoning but as Allison surmised, she could find a talented photographer just as well as the one employed by the agency. I hoped I was up to the task.

Allison is (should say was, she graduated in May) a student of the University of Mary Washington, my alma mater. I was surprised when she contacted me and asked if someone at the school had referred her to me. No, she had found me through sheer luck, through Google. Serendipity I guess.

I've had a lot of fun taking pictures of Allison and I really hope Modelogic signs her, she's a terrific model and someone I hope to see more of.

I am excited to shoot Rachel and Craige's wedding this fall and based on their engagement photos, it's going to be great. Rachel told me that a friend had already done an engagement session with them as a present but they still would like some clean studio pictures to use for their save the date cards. Certainly, I said, your included engagement session can be used for that as well. So we agreed to meet at a studio here in Fredericksburg.

While the weather was beautiful outside and I would have loved to get out there and take some great environmental shots, shooting high key photos of Rachel and Craige was a blast. We did the standard portraits as well as getting a little goofy with Rachel jumping on Craige's back. In all, it was an enjoyable hour with Rachel and Craige being very happy with the results. Can't wait for the ceremony.

I, as most people should be, am wary of Craigslist. For what it is, it does a decent job of connecting buyers and sellers as well as undercutting the newspaper industry. However, the uptick in scams and ads asking for services well below a respectable fee leaves one viewing the Craigslist as an amusing diversion, not a real market. So nine times out of ten, I'll read a request for a photographer, chuckle or shake my head and move on with my day. But occasionally I see an ad that perhaps, just perhaps is an honest offer to which I'll respond. Alexandria happened to be just such an occurrence.

Alexandria was interested in getting headshots taken of her to use as profile pictures for many of the social networking sites. I offered to do this for her and we met on one windy afternoon in Fredericksburg. We chatted as we walked around. Alexandria was finishing up her grad school in Richmond and was looking to the future, figuring out how to find that perfect job. Being the savvy person she is, she knew having a good picture for your profile goes a long way to how your perceived by others and more to the point potential employers. Alexandria had a bright attitude and a gorgeous smile yet despite this, she insisted she took terrible pictures.

I took it on myself to prove her wrong.

I've been busy with my Project 365 50 and while there have been a few days which haven't produced the greatest images, I am particularly proud of some of the shots I've taken recently. Not as many portraits as I would like but I definitely think I'm shooting at a different level than my previous 365.

Here is a roundup of some I really liked: