Finding My Eye: Letting Go

The Journey of Fascination, the second of Kat Sloma's Find Your Eye classes for this year has started. We had a week off between classes and I can't tell you how much I missed her showing up in my inbox on Sunday and Wednesday. This series is the creative nourishment I need to feed my writing and photographic journey.

Today's exercise was to write about a few mistakes or missed opportunities I have had in my photographic life. We have all made the mistake of not switching the ISO from the last photography adventure or not having the camera on auto focus when you wanted to quick catch a shot. I am notorious for not changing out of the self timer/remote mode. I can't say that these mistakes really bother me. I learn from them and try to do better next time.

Now missed opportunities are a whole different can of worms...

The first happened six years ago when Mallory and I were in Europe on an Educational Tour with some other kids from her school. We were at the American Cemetery in Normandy. We were told we would only have a short hour there before we had to move on to the Caen World War II Museum because they were expecting us for a tour. An hour doesn't even begin to do that place justice. First you just stand there in awe, trying to take in all those white crosses. Finally you gather your wits enough to start taking some pictures. I am happy with what I took, I just felt short changed for what more could have been.

The second missed opportunity was HUGE! I missed seeing my one and only child walk across the stage to receive her high school diploma. I was trying to capture the moment on a totally inadequate for the situation, point and shoot camera. I ended up with a completely blurry photo and no visual memory to cherish. This missed opportunity is hard to let go of. This is my only child. There was only one high school graduation and now I have nothing to remember it by. Lesson learned - sometimes being present in the moment is way more important than the picture.

In order to let this mistake go I may need to follow Kat's advice and write it on a piece of paper and physically burn it to symbolize the process of letting go.

Beyond, Beyond Layers - Week 2 - Aperture

I love shallow depth of field. I love to see parts of things as opposed to the whole. I love the soft blur around the edges.

I also love smooth 'n melty nonpareil mints. Back in my Diet Coke drinking days, I would eat these and  drink Diet Coke at the same time. It was a wonderful flavor explosion in my mouth.

Week Two's assignment in Kim Klassen's 2B class was to set up a still life shot and play with f/stops. I shot in Manual Mode as opposed to Aperture Priority. For all the technical stuff I don't get about photography, I for some reason do get Manual Mode.

I started with the lowest f/stop my macro lens would do and slowly worked up. Keep an eye on the texture definition that comes to the blue felt piece, especially in front of the candy as I increase the f/stop. It is a subtle but pleasant change.

f/stop 2.8

f/stop 4.5

f/stop 5.6

f/stop 6.3

I thought for sure I would love the f/stop 2.8 the most, but my favorite is actually the last one, the f/stop 6.3.  I love the defined texture in the felt piece.

Such a fun assignment, and the smooth 'n melty mints are still delicious, even without the Diet Coke.

Winter at the Beach

Monday was a good day to go to the beach to capture some winter shots. The slowly falling, oversized snowflakes had stopped, the sun had made a few weak appearances, but most important there was no gale force winds at the moment.

I went to Tunnel Park, a County Park/Beach about a mile from my house. You will see the reason for the name of the park shortly.

I couldn't drive into the park itself, the gates were locked, so I parked in the turn around of the driveway and trudged in through the walk-in gate.

Once I got to the playground area I started looking for interesting things to shoot. I tried a few playground pieces but I just wasn't feeling it. Not feeling inspired I moved on to the tunnel...

I couldn't find an exact age of this tunnel through the dune to the beach. I know that this park has been here since the 1930's. Walking through the tunnel to the beach I realized I haven't been through this tunnel in quite a few years.

Once through the tunnel I was looking out at Lake Michigan and the ice build up near the shore. I saw a vantage point I wanted to shoot from but I had to climb up a mound of wind blown sand and snow, then down into a little valley to get up to the top of another dune. I was a little apprehensive about climbing the dune, afraid I would fall. I kept thinking of my friend Cathy Sly, who fell on one of her recent adventures. Of course I did fall, but it was more like a graceful slide, down into the little valley area.

I made it to the top of the dune area I wanted to shoot from. I took some shots, but then I noticed the sand on my mitten that was getting on my camera, and my lens. I started freaking out about that , and that was it, the adventure was over. I did make it back to the tunnel without falling again.

Once back through the tunnel, I started to relax. I wiped the sand off and felt much better.

I visited one more area where the picnic tables were stored and where some stairs were from the cottage association above the park area. I would like to shoot these stairs and tunnel through the seasons. A fun new project with intention to work on.

*Joining Lissa for Walk and Click Wednesday.

Photo-Heart Connection ~ January

This is my first contribution to Photo-Heart Connection. I just finished Kat's Find Your Eye: Starting the Journey class and eagerly await The Journey of Fascination. I am in the photo exploration mode right now so this is the perfect filler between the two classes.

The Photo:

My Observations: I love the contrast between her skirt, leggings and the dune grass. I love the lines in the bench and the path leading through the background of the photo. I love the composition. I love how the wind is billowing out her skirt.

The Story Behind the Picture: This was taken on New Year's Day. I was going to my favorite park to take some self-portraits for the New Year. Have to start the year with new pictures. I asked Mallory if she wanted to go along, she said sure (happy momma face :). She would take some new pictures for her blog. Once there we went our separate ways for a while, until she got chilly and returned to my side. She asked if I would take some pictures of her so she could change her blog header. Well of course I would. We played around for a while with different poses, saw some keepers on the screen, so we packed up to go home and warm up.

My Heart Connection: I will state the obvious, this is my daughter and my only child, who I love with all my heart. I am flattered that at 19 she still wants to hang out with her mom. I was also flattered that she asked me to take some photos of her (a rare treat for a parent). I loved having her home for that month at Christmas, since she goes to school 8 hours away, I don't see her very often. That month was such a gift to be cherished and thanks to this photo I have a lovely reminder of a wonderful afternoon spent together.

Finding My Eye: Inspiration File

Earlier this week Kat asked us in the class to create an Inspiration File of our favorite photos that we have taken. I only had to go back 3-4 months and find 10-15 photos that are my favorites without really thinking about it. No over analyzing just click on the photo and drop it in the folder.

Then Wednesday's lesson came...review my photos in my Inspiration File and find the similarities in them. So here is what I saw:

• Outdoors - All but one were taken out doors.
• Composition - I am very pleased with the composition in each of them.
• Parts - Many were parts of a subject, only a few included the whole subject.
• Color - reds, blues, and browns were the predominant colors.
• Lines - Many had horizontal or vertical lines
• Texture - half of them had texture as the focus.

Beyond that I was stumped about the connection between them all. Then it hit me yesterday afternoon  as I was out walking the dogs in the swirling winter snow. The connection between them all is that they are all very tranquil. Each one gives me a peaceful feeling inside when I look at them.

This all made perfect sense to the introverted person that I am. I like to go out shooting by myself, to a place where I know there won't be a lot of people. I love to go hiking with my husband and/or daughter and take my camera along, but I know I do my best work when I am alone. I can be totally in the moment with no worries.

The World of Knowledge

I LOVE books...

...but I don't like rain.

And that is all it has been doing this week, seriously limiting where I could go for Walk and Click Wednesday.

Fortunately I had to go to the Library today to pick up a book that had come in for me.

I decided to do a little exploring with my iPhone while I was there. I couldn't believe all the CD's the Library has, do people still listen to CD's?

Now Audio Books I understand (if your car still has a CD player or a tape player). Fortunately my car has both so we might be picking up some of these before our two week road trip to Montana this summer.

As I wandered down the aisles filled with beautiful books...

I turned a corner and found this book on an end cap display shelf...

Now I might not be particularly interested in Stevensville (but I might be, you never know) I WAS interested in the label on the spine that said Michigan History indicating there might be a whole section on Michigan History. Off I went in search of that section.

Rounding the corner to the last aisle at the far end of the library (an area I have never been to before) I found these...

Old card catalogues. Remember those? From the days before computers. Now the drawers are filled with Genealogy information.

At last I came to the Michigan History section, three full sections of it. I was in Heaven. New things to read about, new places to explore.

 I came home with my original book that I needed to pick up and a few others...

There are never enough hours in the day to read.

Happy Wednesday!

Beyond, Beyond - Week 1

Beyond, Beyond is the new Kim Klassen class I am taking. You all know that I love Kim! This is a year long class with assignments once a week, easily done right?

Except that Kim and the teacher of the other class that I taking right now are ganging up on me this week. Both are making me photograph with intention.

The challenge from Kim this week was to set up a scene to shoot, take 10 different shots; close up, further back, change the angle, the focal point, experiment with negative space (more or less). Really "see" what I was capturing. Do not move the subject. Move my body, move the camera and move my focal point.

Deciding what to shoot was hard, I am not much of a still life shooter, only when I have a PURPOSE for it do I do it. I needed to find something interesting enough to take 50+ shots of...then I saw it. The wood cornice that I found at a flea market last year. I love all the different nooks and crannies, the layers and texture of the paint. I could do this!

I added a dried hydrangea blossom that I had found on one of my morning walks.

I used my 50mm 1.8 lens for some shots, but a lot of them were with my 60mm 2.8 Macro lens. I took 90 photos and I kept 40 of them. More than I ever expected to keep. 

I really enjoyed exploring different angles, and using my macro lens. I was surprised how fast an hour passed while I was doing my assignment.