last

Today I'm posting the latest and last photos for the workshop over at C & C... I'm sad it's over! I've thoroughly enjoyed the ideas Carolyn & Camilla came up with, and especially loved what happened in my head after reading them. A little like putting popcorn into the microwave - without the paper bag! Too cool!

So what do I walk away with? Well... First of all, I've seen so many beautiful settings, objects, angles in the work of others! There are as many ways to do right by an assignment as there are photographers taking it on - it was fascinating to see what everyone came up with. There are amazing photographers out there!
What I've picked up for sure is: if it doesn't quite work - I haven't stretched, leaned in closer, or hung back far enough just yet! The fun, for me, is in the puzzle - I can't always tell why I think something looks good or why exactly it doesn't, but the process from trial through error to the final photo is what I like best!
I've also found out that colour plays a much bigger part in my life - and my photography! - than I had thought. And I like that - a lot! It means, on a personal level, that I'm actually opening up. And that really is long overdue! Even if that means... embracing hazardous pink... I can do that, I think. Eventually. It seems like I'm seriously going to have to, though, seeing what I've got on my hands. Whether I like it or not.

I've learned that what I suspected is true - I'm not one for landscape photography. It's hard to reduce what you see with a swivel of your head to a single photograph with meaning. My eye wanders to details. Wants to capture that one stone, flowering tree, little spring flower...

I've come to appreciate how hard it is to set up a still life, to get it to work - but also, that it is my favourite challenge - especially when it eventually falls into place!

But perhaps the most valuable lesson I learned - again taking it personally - is the fact that apparently, these days, I can take an egg & put it down wherever its fancy takes it - me in tow. I can lay myself down in front of it if needs be, in a public place or two (a reasonably quiet road in one particular case), and not even consider how weird I must look to innocent passers-by! It wasn't until I started editing the photos I took that day, that I realised this hadn't bothered me one little bit the whole time I was out there! That really is huge! Between that and the pink-thing, it feels like some things are shifting in my life. These were possibly the last things I expected to take away from a photography workshop - but there you have it. Life moves in mysterious ways, and it would be ungrateful not to notice!

So now, without further ado - there's been enough of that already! - my photos for this week:

A close-up with play of light, of something natural. The moss is a tiny slice of nature. So are the snails it grows on. As a species, I mean. The poured concrete (or cement, or something) they are made of - debatable. But I'm claiming there is enough of it to call it nature-ish, at least :)

This is my attempt at making the same look abstract.

And another angle.

Here is reflection. I think on hindsight I might have been supposed to photograph the reflection of my moss on snail - in a puddle or a tea cup... When I took the photos, I had taken the assignment as a reflection, more generally, in water. There was too much wind for good reflection in bodies of water of any sort, and I just didn't have the inspiration for a still life-like setup, so this is what I came up with, in stead.

And here is my landscape photo. Windy water on a very sunny spring morning. No rainy season here - and yay to that!

Now for the next and very last mosaic - a warning to the faint of eyes: just go to comments. Skip this last image. I'm not accepting responsibility for damage. I'm just too darn happy :D

Colour, pretty much. That's what excited me the most - the assignment that took me furthest from my comfortzone and had me happy-happy for the whole week & beyond!
I'm not claiming this is my best photographic work, but it does come straight from the heart!

Thanks so much, Camilla & Carolyn, it has been an absolute blast!!

more

Okay, so like I said, there is more!

It was easier to start telling my colour story from black and grey to my safe colours. The colours I gravitate to, sort of naturally.

But ever since being pregnant with Squirt, I've been falling in love with something a lot more dangerous... RED! I've no idea how that happened. I just woke up one morning, and found out that - apparently - I had a colour theme on my hands! And as it goes with colour themes: once you start, it's hard to stop. Red has become the colour of contrast in this house. As simple, or complicated, as that.

So the first grid I photographed - before deciding that my colour story as such passed through green and blue first and foremost - was red in nature. Food, more accurately.

Then, I looked around & found - way more red than is necessary for any one life time. After some serious editing, I could claim it's only accentuating the edges - but the truth is, this mosaic is me, showing a lot of restraint... But it gets worse. The goth deep, deep down inside of me could claim red as a colour of passion and be done with it - albeit grudgingly. If there wasn't evidence - and now proof - that there is more to it than just that. There is something fishy going on here. In my head, and even - in a curious single incident - in my closet (the clogs are for gardening purposes only, and the socks came in a batch with blues and greys. That's my story & I'm sticking to it!). I've struck... PINK!Pink! What's happening here?! Is it some sort of reaction to the fact that I'm the female minority in this house these days? Some form of defiance - resistance? Proof that I'm here? Has becoming a mamma made me aware of the fact that I'm a girl or something?! This really snuck up on me!

I have no idea where this is coming from! What I do know is, finding pink really shocked me out of my photographing frenzy of colour. I needed to sit and brood. Reclaim my inner goth for a bit. Listen to some Type O Negative & Nick Cave. Come to terms with the idea that my new-found interest in colour goes past gel pens, watercolour paint, crayons and pastels & what they can do on paper - straight to the heart of things: a PINK iPod and beyond!

I'll be back when I'm ready to embrace my inner girl...

colours

A challenge - & then some, C & C's latest assignment! Colour, pick a colour, any colour! Oh my... How a challenge can lead to mayhem!

You see, in a previous chunk of life, longer gone than I care to remember, I was an alternative gothic type of dresser - we're talking high school days, here. And fast forward, bird's eye perspective, I've avoided colour for the longest time! I still feel most mousy comfortable in my black & grey ensembles...

That said, I've been introducing colour back into my life over the past few years. Starting with old favourites; from lightest egg shell blue to darkest deepest mossy green. I love it in nature; blue skies, spring green and the serious green of ivy...
... and I'm learning to love it again as a colour to wear - which is huge, for two-toned me! And of course, I love it in my baby's eyes!
So far, so good. No mayhem as such. Yet.
Obliviously, I set out to document complementing colours. Funnily enough, I actually knew that blue goes with orange. There is a television ad running here at the moment - I don't remember what they're trying to sell again (so much for advertising bucks well spent), but they're pouring light blue and orange paint over someone's back, and when I first saw that, I was in awe! I thought it was so beautiful! Now to find that combination in nature... Another challenge! Till I thought of carrots. And it only got better when I accidentally stumbled on an orange stain on a sidewalk nearby! I have no idea how it got there - I'm considering it a serendipitous coincidence! All I had to do was get a smurf & grab my camera!
*If you're graced with a vivid imagination, and a little wicked, you might think that the baby smurf ate a few too many carrots. That's not what happened. I promise. But I can see where you're coming from ;)*
Anyway! Here it is - my complementing diptych:
And that's when it happened. The bright orange... It made me look around. I knew I had become more sensitive to colour lately, all because of Shannon and her inspiring e-course. But what I hadn't realised - was how much of a colour junky I had actually become... I have not one, not two, but three more serious colour mosaics to share. I've been so absorbed in noticing colour around me over the past week, that I really didn't know when to stop...

But now, only just now, while typing this, I have decided to post those later. Just to show you I actually do have some restraint :) Which makes it seem like this post stops in the middle. And it does. But I have concerns. About overkill. And sensitive eyes. And breaking rules. All Carolyn of C&C asked for, was a colour. One colour... And I've been stretching that to a scala, already. I can live with that, I can! But I'll leave the rest of the rainbow till later :)
Concluding this post with a square close-up of the gorgeous felted necklace made by Shannon, I'll leave my coloured cloud to check out what everyone else has done! And I'll be sure to come back and post the rest, some time soon - I just know you're holding your breath ;)

daisies

I'm feeling a lot better today. Yay! But also: about bloody time! I've felt like crap (and oh yes, do I mean that!) for pretty much a full week!! Big thank yous to everyone who took the trouble to comment on my 'out sick' post yesterday. It takes a lot of (fun!) time to go through all the beautiful pictures everyone submits for this workshop, and I really appreciate that some of you took time to comment eventhough there was nothing much to see here. I also appreciate that I'm a day late submitting my photographs. I missed the deadline... So even if it means I did this just for me, I'm going to post my still life photos all the same!

I remembered from a previous class that still life photography is a lot harder than I tend to think when I start throwing ideas around in my head. To me, the biggest challenge is creating a setting without 'background noise' - but with, if at all possible, natural light. I don't know if I could have done a better job if I had been able to play around with possibilities all week. But as things were, I didn't have time to experiment. Today, I decided on a spur to see what I could do with three little daisies and my camera's macro setting, and I was really surprised to see what came out! It would be wonderful if I could figure out why my camera would let me get so close that I actually disturbed my set with my lense! this time, when at other times it flashes red when I'm only aiming... For now, it's a sweet mystery, and I'm just really pleased :)


As per assignment 'rules', the photos represent

1. looking from above - bird's eye perspective;
2. as you see it, in front of you;
3. a different angle;
4. close-up;
5. trying to use negative space...;
6. everything out of focus.

eggs

So, like I said; last weekend, I spent some time with an egg. A lovely brown speckled egg. We bonded and didn't much care what people thought of our unlikely relationship. We were so absorbed in each other, we didn't actually have eyes for other people, anyway. Oh sure, we heard some jokes at our expense, but didn't pay much attention.
Sadly, as it goes with flings, ours ended as quickly as it began; at the end of the day we spent in mutual admiration, I had my friend for dinner... But I'll always treasure the sunny spring day we spent together. And luckily, I've still got the pictures :-)

But the photography workshop I'm taking asked for a white egg, first. So I had to forget all about my first love (egg-wise, that is) and start it up with another pre-feathered friend! White on white and white on black, here are the pictures:


Now let's get back to my first friend! So me & my egg - with Man, Squirt & visiting father-in-law in tow - took a roadtrip!
The province I live in is poldered. The land that keeps my feet dry wasn't even here before the late 1960s. Nothing here is older than that; everything only slightly predates my birth. Nothing like a new town to make you feel young ;-) I have no issues with this place on a daily basis, but every so often my feet need to touch old land. I need to see trees my arms could never circle. I need to see crumbling walls and gable stones stating '1758' as if it was yesterday.
It was fun to discover me & my egg were birds of a feather (no pun intended! Neither of us were birds, and it's safe to say, neither of us ever will be. Sad...)! He loved it out there, and it was fun to see how much flair he had posing with the old, the crumbling and the rusty:

These are my own personal favourites:



We also hugged some trees, watched the grass grow and sniffed some culture:
And at the end of a long & lovely day, we rested on some steps together. Me & my egg...
So that was last week's photo assignment! I had a lot of fun - and a lot of pictures :-) I love taking orders when it comes to photography! Never in a million years would I have come up with the idea of investigating the photogenic quality of eggs, but as soon as I read the post last Saturday, my mind was swimming in possibilities :-) I'm looking forward to seeing what's next!

P.S. I'm sorry not all photos can be enlarged - I have no idea how to change this, and honestly, after this photo-rich posting, I'm pretty exasperated with B.log.ger and its image publishing feature! Tips welcome!