warmhotchocolate

Photo Class Update: Week 3

Here are the recent pics from my A to Z photo class. I think I made a little bit of progress in my attempt to break out of my comfort zone.

L is for Light Pink

This is one of my favorite pics so far. I almost didn’t submit a photo for this day (we’re allowed 4 days off over the course of 30 days) but late at night I decided to take a few pictures. Our teacher had taken a gorgeous image of some flowers looking down into the vase, and I loved the perspective so I thought I’d try something similar. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any fresh flowers on hand, so I used some of the fake flowers that I got Jenna for Christmas.

M is for Maroon

I took this picture of our crepe myrtle tree outside of our house at sunset and then decided to play around with some different textures, mostly in an effort to try something new. I wasn’t that thrilled with this one, but was surprised by the positive comments from my classmates. Maybe I misjudged this one, or maybe my classmates are trying to encourage me to continue down my path of ‘newness.’

D is for Dark Purple

I worked quite a bit on a totally different image this day and even ended up submitting it despite my hesitation. Later in the afternoon, I stopped at the grocery store where I found an entire cart filled with $1 orchid boutonnieres. I couldn’t scream ‘do-over’ fast enough.

K is for Kelly Green

During our visit to the museum this weekend, we happened upon this great backdrop/chair setting. Jenna was willing to sit in the chair, but was much less willing to be photographed. I snapped this one pic before she turned away from the camera completely.

Q is for Quartz

I tried really hard on this day to do something new. I drove around my neighborhood looking for interesting patterns, views, buildings, etc. I live in a mostly suburban but still somewhat rural area outside of DFW, so ‘interesting’ was no small challenge. I managed to take a few pictures I liked, but then realized I couldn’t match the images to a letter/color combo (which is part of the assignment). So I ended up right back in my comfort zone, shooting a close-up of some beads.

A is for Aqua

We had been discussing the use of masking in class, so I thought I would experiment a bit with a part color/part black and white image. I don’t like the perfect symmetry of this picture and would have like to get a closer shot of the entrance, since I think it frames the background landscape really well, but the barn is fenced off and you can’t get any closer.

Photo Class Update: Week 2

When I signed up for a photography class, I had hoped the class would push me out of my comfort zone a bit. But two weeks into the class, I’ve realized just how hard that is. One obvious factor is context. I shoot what’s around me, and, most days, that means kids, food and home. But a less obvious factor is my own desire for consistency. I like the idea of having a cohesive set of images at the end of this 30-day class, and breaking out of my comfort zone would result in images that no longer ‘fit in.’

I didn’t exactly push beyond my typical subject matter this week, but I did start to make an effort to stop doing what comes easiest to me – close up/still life shots. And I’m hoping to do a bit more of that in the remaining two weeks.

In the meantime, here are my daily shots from the past week:

O is for Orange

I took this shot at a park just outside a Thai restaurant where I had eaten lunch. I had a pretty spicy meal, so the fiery orange was the perfect color to represent my day.

C is for Chocolate Brown

Similar to the radishes last week, this set up was pretty irresistible to J+J, and I ended up having to promise them each a square of chocolate if they didn’t touch the chocolate until I finished taking pictures. I’m always surprised by how much they like dark chocolate – they love ALL chocolate equally!

N is for Navy Blue

I took this shot early in the morning before work. There was no where near as much light as it seems, and my husband did an awesome job jumping around the kitchen with a piece of foam board to make sure my Speedlight flash bounced just so.

F is for Fuschia

After over a week of shooting close-ups of food and flowers, I finally forced myself to do something a bit different. I made a heart bokeh to fit over my camera lens and then shot nearly a hundred images before I got to one I liked. Since you probably can’t tell what you’re looking at, I’ll describe the set up: 2 pieces of white foam board, a bright pink scarf and a strand of tiny lights, shot on a stainless steel table (creating a reflection of the lights).

Also, I’ve donated this image to Picture a Healthier World‘s “Share Your Hearts” project. 100% of the sales will go toward UNICEF’s effort to bring clean water to Haiti. Find out more here.

E is for Eggshell

There are a couple of letters in the alphabet for which I don’t easily have a corresponding color. E was one such letter. I also considered “Electric Lime” which is a Crayola crayon color, but I decided eggs inside my Anthropologie egg dish would make for a prettier picture. Jenna and I dyed the eggs in coffee to get the brownish hues, which prompted her to ask if it was Easter.

I is for Ivory

This was an easy one. We made cookies for Valentine’s Day over the weekend so this was definitely a case of killing two birds with one stone.

S is for Spectrum

I set up this row of candle holders with the idea of shooting a picture of silver, since the holders are silver on the outside. As soon as I put them on the windowsill, Jenna immediately started moving them around, changing the order of the colors and shifting them from the left side of the window to the right. In the end, the pictures of her fascination with the colorful containers where much more interesting than any of my silver shots.

Here is my flickr stream and here are all of the class submissions if you’d like to follow along. Souvenir Foto School is offered by Besotted Brand.