Sierra Springs Photo Blog

So now I have a half of a month for which to catch you up. You can catch up over a couple of days if you find it’s a bit overwhelming to look at 15 pictures in one sitting.  I should never have let my blog go this long, but life does come up. The above picture was taken of my youngest son while we were waiting for Aly (my daughter) to be commissioned at her church for her mission to Africa. It’s not a very good picture…kinda artsy…but it provides an emotion that we were all feeling.  We were happy for my daughter, but sad that we would not see her for 5 months.

It seems that whenever I run out of good ideas, I return to taking pictures of my husband’s food.  It is always yummy and he always plates it attractively (even if it’s just for the fam.)  This particular recipe had sausage in it and a little kick from something spicy.  It was a winner.

I confess that I stole this idea from one of my contacts on Flickr. I wanted to do a little stop action with water and thought my shower was the best place to try it.

Saw this on a walk with the dog.  I’m not very happy with it, so I won’t make any other comments. Suffice it to say that I was lazy again on day 18.

I took a class from Kevin Focht over a PPSOP.com called “Posing Men”.  It was only a 2 week class and I might have mentioned it in another blog post.  This assignment had to do with getting the right light using strobes or small flashes. This was not one of the photos I turned in.  It was the first one I took and it had the expression I see on Patrick’s face all the time when he looks at me like I’m a little crazy. Anyway, maybe I can sell it on the microstock market.

What did I tell you?  When I run out of ideas, Yes! Chef (my husband) to the rescue.  We have not had steak for a long time and I got a couple of T-bones on sale.  My husband cooked them to perfection and served them with my favorite veggie:  green beans.  I couldn’t eat the whole steak, so I ate it over two days.  But it was quite tasty. That’s Yes! Chef in the background.

I’m sensing a theme here.  I wait until the end of the day and then I have nothing to take a picture of, so I point my camera at either the dog, my husband or my youngest (if he’s around.)  This could turn into a real boring year if this pattern continues.

At last I had some really great subjects because a snowstorm hit the area.  To me it looked like a woman’s hair blowing in the wind as she ran from the storm.  I rather like this photo. (Pats herself on the back)

I joined a photographer’s weekly challenge on Facebook.  For this week, the challenge was “Motion”.  I set these flowers up in front of my window, put my camera on a tripod and zoomed my lens out while using a very slow shutter speed.  As much as I enjoyed making this photo (and believe me I spent about an hour zooming in on all kinds of different subjects), sadly, I didn’t win the Challenge.  I use this same technique at weddings during the dancing at the reception.  It adds a bit of motion to the shot rather than having people frozen in time in some silly dancing pose.

You know it’s beginning to get pretty desperate when the photographer takes a picture of a photographer taking a picture.  I thought the idea was a good one and spent quite a bit of time on this project.  The results were not quite what I had in mind.

This would be a good time to take a break and stretch your legs a bit, even though the rest of the pictures are pretty dang good…

 

Okay.  The next day I joined at 365 Project where the members are sent an email every day with a theme.  I had to wait one day before I got my first theme, so here’s my last lame-o theme-less picture.

My husband was out of town and he mentioned that I shouldn’t throw away the bananas because we could make bread out of them.  So, while he was gone I did just that.

Now that I actually have some direction because I’m receiving a theme every day, I can start taking some meaningful pics.  The idea of this Take-a-photo-a-day-for-a-year Project is to improve my photography and stretch what little creativity I have into something more.  I again turned to my youngest son and because in my photography eyes are where the personality is, I thought I would do a riff on eyes being the window to the soul. He is actually looking into one of my Ipad (Eyepad) apps that simulate a window and window light.  But, it made a really nice catchlight in the shape of a window. Yes! (Pumps her fist in the air.)

The theme that came in my email on Day 27 was: Clouds.  Just my luck!  Not a cloud in the sky.  So, I solicited the help of my oldest son and his girlfriend to set up this shot outside in the blazing cloudless sky. It seemed a lot better in my head.  But, I am learning.

I bet you didn’t think that I actually made banana bread.  How wrong you were.  In this case, I was able to practice my food photography using the bread and my strobes. Banana bread has great texture.

New theme in the email:  Water.  Again, I  used my strobes to try depict the wetness of water.  This theme was very fun.  I think I’m beginning to like this project.

A little tougher theme for me.  I pondered it for quite a while until I spied my grandmother’s Trifle Dish between the slats of my dining room chair.  It’s not the best picture in the world, but it is somewhat creative and demonstrates the theme.

Hmmm…theme for this day was Winter.  We hadn’t had any sort of clouds or winter-like weather since that little snowstorm that blew thru.  In fact, temps were in the high 50’s.  So, a friend of mine suggested that I set up a little scene that would look like winter.  I got out my snow boots and gloves, put them by the furnace and poured a little water on them to make them look like they were all drippy.  Voila:  Winter!

And that was the end of my first month.  My goal is to improve my photography and my creativity.  Hopefully by day 366, I will see improvement in both.

If you stayed until the end, or came back to view the rest of my photos I congratulate you. I will also reward you with  a free 8×10 if you book a mini shoot with me by the end of February.  Code:  ISAWALLTHEPHOTOS.  Contact me at schmautzhaus@sbcglobal.net.