My 30 day photography challenge

I am currently in the midst of a 30 day photography challenge.  It’s something I found on Pinterest a few weeks ago and something that I hope will challenge me to think outside of the box a bit when it comes to my pictures.  Initially I hesitated to start the challenge because I’m not really a photo theme sort of girl.  I don’t like to be confined by the boundaries of having to take a picture of a predetermined something.  But this sounded like the type of thing that might get me out of my comfort zone while also giving me the opportunity to try some new things and learn new skills along the way.

Day 1 – Self portrait … Okay, I admit, I pretty much still stayed in my comfort zone for this one.  I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what kind of self portrait I wanted to do, but because I wasn’t coming up with any creative ideas, I settled on the old taking a picture of myself in the bathroom mirror shot.  I know that I’ll have several more opportunities for self portraits before the end of the challenge, I promise to be more creative next time.  On the positive side is the fact that I really like the composition and processing on this one.  And my hair looks good! *wink-wink*

Day 2 – What I wore today … We do not have a full length mirror in our house which made it hard to figure out how I was going to photograph my clothing.  But since I was wearing cute shoes, I decided to focus on them rather than the whole outfit.  My Mary Jane Keens are some of the cutest and most comfortable shoes I own.  Fall is the perfect time to break them out!

Day 3 – Clouds … It was about this time in the challenge where I decided that I needed to commit my daily photo hunt to the Lord.  So I started praying, “Lord, please give me opportunities to find …  Open my eyes to what you would want me to see today.”  I hope to take that approach everyday from this point on with my photography.  Sounds simple, but it was a stepping stone in my journey.  On this particular day, God gave me the most amazing sky to photograph.  I had to take Matthew to school early for chess club and the light and sky was just perfect.  It often is during that magical hour between eight and nine o’clock in the morning.  Unfortunately there aren’t a lot of places for me to pull off the road between our house and the school so I captured this shot while waiting for a red light.  Initially I thought I’d just stand in my yard, point my camera upwards and simply capture the sky.  But that felt too safe.  Too much of what I always do.  So I decided I needed to find some way to capture the sky in a more interesting way.  I think the telephone pole and wires accomplish that.  The other interesting thing about this photo is that had I waited for later in the day to capture clouds, I would’ve been out of luck.  The only time, that day, that there were clouds in the sky was first thing in the morning.  By the time the kids were all in school, the sky was completely clear.  Thank you, Lord, for giving me clouds!

Day 4 – Something green … I spent a good portion of this day looking for something green.  I knew I could always fall back on taking pictures of the grass, trees and bushes in my yard, but that, again, felt too comfortable.  So I looked for something a little more “out of the box.”  In the end, I guess I still ended up taking pictures of trees, but I love that I was able to capture them from a different perspective – through a window.  When I sit at my computer, to the right of me is a wall of windows.  This week, in particular, I have been treated to some pretty spectacular displays of color on the trees.  In fact, looking out those windows has brought me a lot of joy this week as I watched the trees go from green, to light green to yellow and bright orange.

Day 5 – From a high angle … This prompt was actually pretty easy so I took a lot of pictures, but in the end I decided that I liked this picture of my sweet daughter best.  Plus, it was time for a “people picture.”  I like the fact that the focus is on her eyes and more specifically her gorgeous eyelashes.

Day 6 – From a low angle … This prompt was begging me to take pictures of the gorgeous fall colors.  I suppose I could’ve approached the low angle prompt from the aspect of actually getting really low and close to a particular subject (my kids thought it was funny when one night I went out and laid in the driveway to get pictures of all the leaves that have fallen), but I decided instead to interpret the prompt as capturing something above me.  For this shot, I simply stood directly underneath the branches and leaves so I could capture the colors, the sunlight shining through them and the blue sky above.  Love on all accounts!

There’s some tough prompts coming up … a bad habit, childhood memory, yourself with 13 things … but it should be fun to see what I can come up (or rather what God directs me to).  We’re also going to attempt family pictures this weekend.  Should be fun!

Hope you all have a delightful weekend and are able to enjoy all the beautiful things around you!