Continual State of Becoming

28mm, ISO 1250, f/6.3, 1/125ss Week 9: White flower no. 1 I think I've decided to try for a personal project of photographing different white flowers this year. Here's my first. I'm hoping to learn about lighting, composition, foreground and background, all that good stuff.

50mm, ISO 100, f/16, 10 sec ss. Week 8: Candy Cane I took this a few days before Christmas.  My brother had just given me a nice piece of black velvet to use for a backdrop and I wanted to test it out.  It is so much easier than the not-quite- black and too textured towel I had been using, which then needed a lot of help in photoshop to make actually black.  The candy cane was a tough subject because I kept getting blown highlights where ever the light hit it so I tried to make a tent with the velvet and let in as little and as diffused day light as possible (hence the long exposure).  And then I used photoshop to convert this to b&w with an infrared filter to get the reds nice and dark.  Overall it was a fun experiment, but for now I'm going to stay away from shiny, reflective objects.

28m, ISO 400, f.4.5, 1/160 Week 7:  Hot chocolate break at Shoes, Cup and Cork in downtown Leesburg. For some reason I still feel really really self conscious when I take my camera out on the street or in public in general. Even though it wasn't very crowded and I was only taking a picture of my son, I tried to be as quick as possible before anyone noticed me. One of my 2015 goals: Be a bold artist.

The beginning of a new photography project.  I know I never finished my 365 last year, but I still learned a lot from it, and I think I came out of it with some images I love, that would have never happened if I hadn't been forced to take those pictures.  So I want to try again.  However, I realize that I just dont have the time it takes to do a 365, so instead I'm going to attempt a 52 project... one photo a week for a year.  I'm hoping to come up with one really great photo a week, though I'm sure some of them will be less that wonderful.  But I think having something to force me to take pictures on a regular basis is good for me in many ways.  Plus I will start using my blog again!  yay! And the truth is that I started my Project 52 several weeks ago.  I wanted to get a little ways in before I really made any kind of official declaration, and now that I'm ready, here we go. 66mm, ISO 800, f/2.8, 1/80. Week 1: Playing in the Autumn...