Faceless Self Portrait

It seems as of lately, I only take the camera out when we're on vacation, or there's some event going on.  I decided now that I have a somewhat working studio I needed to give myself assignments as an excuse to play with my camera more.   But left to my own devices, the ideas just don't flow freely.  Last year a photography friend found the Dogwood Challenge, and I tried to follow along but life got in the way.  The 2019 Dogwood Challenge is starting up soon, and since I'm not working right now; to keep myself from going crazy I'm going to push myself out of my comfort zone and follow along until I go back to work this spring.

Week 1 Story Telling: Self Portrait
Take a picture that tells us who you are without actually showing your face

Sounds like a simple concept, but I'm finding it difficult to execute.  First of all I'm not sure how to tell a story with a photo.  I looked it up, and a photo should create intrigue and make the viewer question what is happening behind the image.  I'm not really sure how to acomplish that.

Secondly, how do I tell you who I am, when I'm not really sure myself?  I'm a mom, a wife, a daughter, a sister, a friend, a worry wort, a protectionist, a wannabe photographer.  Other than that I really don't know.  It's not like I have any interesting hobbies that help define who I am.  How do I explain these things in a photo?

After a quick selfie session this afternoon, I did manage to take one portrait, but I'm not convinced this is the one I'm going with.  Luckily I have the whole week to work on it.

Top 10 Photos of 2016

A photography group I belong to is doing a year in review, where we go through all of our photos from the past year and pick our top ten.  It's more difficult that I thought.  At first I thought I'd go to my Viewbug page and see what others thought were my top 10, but then I remembered it's my top 10.  The ones that I'm exceptionally proud of, or the ones that may not be technically perfect but have have a special meaning attached to them.  Most of these were chosen because there was a certain technique or skill I was trying to master and I think they best represent that particular technique/skill and some were chosen just because they make me happy when I look at them.

Here's my top 10 of 2016

Working on depth of field

Long exposure with a small aperture

This is from our Florida vacation last winter

Working on HDR

Working on HDR with long exposure

Working on post processing to make colors pop

This one just makes me happy remembering our Valentines Day cruise

Experimenting with lightpainting

Another just makes me happy.  My puppy

If you'd like to see more of my photography you can find me on Viewbug or Google+

I'm a speedlite dummy

Ok call me stupid, but it's taken me 3 months to figure out why my speedlite (flash) wasn't working with my camera and it was really one dumb little mistake the whole time. 

Shortly after I bought my new camera I realized I wanted a remote shutter release so I could take photos without touching the camera.  The opportunity to photograph my own family photo seemed like a good enough reason to buy a wireless shutter release.   After a little research I settled on the Yongnuo RC603C II because they could do double duty as a flash trigger also and they were only $30.  They were fairly easy to figure out and set up and worked pretty well. 

Next I decided to buy a speedlite and went with the Yongnuo YN560 III because it was compatible with the shutter remotes I already had.  When it came I didn't have time to play with it, so it sat in the closet for about a month.  When I finally got around to trying to set it up I found it was a little over my head and the manual was less than helpful.  I tried googling it to no avail.  I posted on various photography forums asking for help, but becasue I wasn't sure what was wrong I wasn't sure how to ask for help and was getting answers that were way over my head.  I considered sending it back and getting a different model, but the amount of time I had to return it had expired, so I was stuck with it.

I would drag it out from time to time and fiddle with it until I got it to flash; take a few photos thinking I had it figured out and put it away only to have it not work the next time I wanted to use it.  I was very frustrated because it never worked consistently.  Then in the middle of a practice shoot the batteries died and I thought just maybe that was the issue.  Still  it wouldn't work.  It seemed to be communicating with the one trigger because it would flash when I pressed the button on the one trigger but not on the other.  So I changed the batteries in the one trigger, but still it wouldn't flash when I pressed the camera shutter button.  I was about ready to take the speedlite and chuck it across the room, but realized that probably wouldn't solve the problem.  So I packed it up and put it away.

Camera with flash trigger in the hotshoe

I woke up this morning determined to figure it out, and if I couldn't do it on my own I was going to take it to the camera store.  I sat down and watched a video on you-tube that I had viewed I don't know how many times before, that explained how to set it up, when I finally had that "Ah ha" moment.  It was something so simple that I feel kind of dumb admitting it.

This whole time I had been setting my triggers up as an off camera shutter release.  But for the speedlite to receive the signal from the camera, the trigger needs to be in the camera's hotshoe.  How I over looked this one little thing and it's taken me 3 months to figure out,  I don't know.  I thought I was fairly tech savvy, but I guess somethings you just have to learn the hard way.

A-Z Photography Project

I bought myself a dslr camera this fall and decided to do an A-Z Photo project, to give myself a reason to go out and shoot and as a way to learn to use my camera.  I wrote up a list of subject ideas for some letters, but have gotten stuck on others.  After searching the web, I've found a few idea lists.  These lists should help inspire some creative ideas. 
 
An A-Z List of Photography Subject Ideas
151 + Things to Photograph, A-Z
An A-Z of 365 Project Ideas

Here's what I have so far.  I have a few more ideas, but haven't had time or the set up to shoot them yet.

A-Abandoned

 

 

F-Family

 

 

H-Hobby

 

S-Select Color

W-Work

Y-Yellow

Prom 2014

My daughter and her boyfriend went to prom a few weeks ago.  I guess you could say I was living

vicariously though her since I never when to prom.  I was just as excited about everything as she was, from finding the dress, to dreaming about how romantic it was going to be.  Yes, I guess you could say I still have some Disney princess fantasies about how things are suppose to be.  

I didn't get to go to the reception hall to take pictures of the actual prom, but I did get to play photographer before hand.  There was a real photographer there to take pictures of each couple, but my daughter decided his prices were outside of their budget, and she wanted more than just the standard prom pose.  I don't think I did to bad.

The Leprechaun Tree

I was going through some old photos looking for something and I ran across this photo of what we call The Leprechaun Tree.

The Leprechaun Tree on my parents farm

My parents have this tree in the woods behind their house. 

They went for a walk in the woods with my kids when they were little and my dad convinced them that a leprechaun lived in the hole at the base of the tree.  There was even a little fire pit, table made of stone, a bed,  and some treasures inside the hole of the tree. 

Every time the kids went to Grandma's they would ask to go out to the leprechaun tree and see what treasures he had for them.  Sometimes it was little trinkets, sometimes it was chocolate coins.  This went on for a few years until they were old enough to realize it was Grandma & Grandpa who were leaving the leprechaun's gifts for them to find. 

My kids are teenagers now, and don't go out to the leprechaun tree any more, but he's still there.

Playing with a lightbox

I've been avoiding taking and posting pictures of my recent FO's because  like most people I don't the room to set up a regular photo area.  Usually I take pictures in my dining room which is not only the place where we eat, but also were the kids do homework, where my husband works on his computer, where things get put when nobody knows what to do with them...well you get the idea.  So it can be very time consuming to set up the make-shift studio (an old sheet and some desk lamps) in my dining room to take a few pictures.

I've been looking for a solution for a while and I think I found the answer (for small projects anyway) in the form of a homemade light box.  It's nothing fancy, but what can you expect for something that cost me less than $5 to make and the best part is it really seems to work.  

I had been thinking about a getting a light box since I first heard of them a couple years ago and even found instructions on how to make one, but never got around to doing it.  It wasn't until recently when I tried to take some quick pictures in the dining room and they turned out awful that I finally got the ambition I needed to try making one.  I won't bore you with the details, because the web is full of how to's, just google search homemade light box and you'll find all kinds.

I was surprised how nice my photos turned out with the box and I hardly have to do any editing. 

Light box shot with direct light & no flash.  To yellow

Dinning room shot, ceiling lighting & no background 

Light box shot, with flash.  To washed out

Final light box shot, no flash, diffused side lights.  Truer colors.

I really like white background photos, but have a hard time producing them myself.  I usually end up with something like these.

Invisible mannequin

Washed out mannequin

 After playing around with the white balance I was able to achieve the effect I was looking for without a vanishing or washing out the mannequin head.

 

Most of the blogs I read, suggest you use daylight bulbs for lighting, I bought daylight bulbs, but all the photos above were taken with regular soft white 65watt bulbs. I'm waiting to use the new bulbs until I can buy myself some lamps, so I don't have to steal the kid's desk lamps and change all the bulbs every time I want to take some pictures.  Now if I could just figure out how to light larger objects to get the same results, I could take the kid's portraits.