Week 5: need more work

I freely admit, I am still fascinated.
With shadows.
There are endless textures, backgrounds, even props.
I think I have to work better on the styling, however...
What say you about some words or icon formed by those cables?
It would have made the picture much more interesting...
although it may not be the best idea when the cables in question are not mine.

We'll work on that next time with my own cable.
In the meantime, there's a festival post pending.
Until next time!

Happy (Belated) Easter!

It's been a while.
We are currently hosting a full house of guests: a pair of grandparents and an aunt, all devoted fan of the Little One.
Sure makes for a busy, noisy, bustling with activity days around here.
And so... two days after the fact, let me wish you a Happy Easter.

And along with that, I shall whisper a little prayer that I can soon continue writing again.
Wish me luck.

Week 4: Cheating

Feet

Guilty as charges, as the image is nowhere taken this past week, rather quite some time ago while I was having a burst of creative energy.
Energy that somehow had been missing for the past... week?
Or maybe it had been eroded away under the heavy burden of simply living?
As another deep breath is taken, patience gathered, and effort made to face the piling dishes at the sink, the ever present clutter everywhere, the dust bunnies clinging under my sole....

Eeeek!

Sorry. I guess with the Kid's school on holiday, it's just kind of hard to squirrel time away (and the needed energy & creative juice) to write, to create, to be active in any way.
It had been simply easier to passively read, maybe occasionally ponder, dream a bit... but nothing active.

Oh, there has been ideas, there definitely some ideas, all those silent soliloquies in front of the sink as I wash the dishes for the n-th time, around the house as I chase even more dust bunnies,
Just no follow through in writing them down.

I should do better next time.
As they say... Just DO it!

Week 3: Starting over

The Carousel mirror

Oh, dear. This is actually not a very good photo, but I was too enamored with the mirror to care.
I suppose the concept was Me being Mama, escorting the Little One on the Carousel, with 'reflection' being the self-portrait theme.
The idea is not bad, but execution? Totally lacking. Hhh... need more practice.
But I'm having fun.

I know I am not following any program of any form. Just roughly posting a photo (minimum) per week of self-portrait. There are, I believe, themes should you join some groups etc on flickr or whatever. I guess I just prefer to be on my own first, until I have proven that I can follow through the weekly posting.

The themes, which I've talked about before, is really helpful in coming up with a creative concept. Like last week's shadow? I am still fascinated enough to think of other different ways of doing it.
As for my self-imposed theme this week, reflection, I find it somewhat harder, although there are certainly old ideas floating around, like using kitchen utensils, pots and pans and any other reflective surfaces as your 'mirror'. Still.. I guess it's not really easy to get a good picture of a reflection.

Still have not decided on this week's theme yet, but hopefully will get one done before end of the week.
In the meantime, here's another reflection from this week.
It's a better one, but I do hesitate from posting it as my main entry, as it is already a main entry in my other blog.
Hhh... I think I should take even more photos next time. Haha!

Reflection

Week 2: Fascinated

Leaf-hearted shadow

I remember seeing an image like this, or not quite. I remember that it was a vintage street photograph. The lady took a picture of her shadow with a leaf placed right where her heart is supposed to be.
I guess it make an interesting picture.
Not quite happy with the result so far, although I did get fascinated with shadows in general.

Take a look at some of my snaps lately:

@ the Playground

Under the tree

@ the car porch

Apart from the shadows, the running theme I notices is also the fact that all are taken while I was waiting for the Little One, usually playing outside.
I guess Shadows do make an interesting study.
The general shape, the distortion, the quality of light, the background it superimposed, even they way different shadows interact (or is it more of the transition from 3D to 2D?)

I do look forward to exploring this theme further. But as it is, this is my take on the week 2 of the self-portrait series.
I might still explore further on how to make the photos of mere shadow can tell a story, but I think the concept definitely have some potential.

What do you think?

Project: photos

These days, it would seem that no matter where I turn to do things, I would keep finding things that I need to learn.
It is good, because as you all know, my motto: Learn something new everyday.
It is also bad, because things get done only after a longer time as I had to stop and learn, find out about my mistakes, fix those mistakes, and so on and so on.

Just take our title today, photos.

Image via MacCreate

I have been using iPhoto '08 for Mac. It old. Some may say it's kind of obsolete, but it's one that I have. And so far, it's pretty fabulous. Especially after adding on the Facebook exporter, the Picasa uploader... made my life so much easier.

And yet, after the so many donkey years (ehmm.. going 3 years) of using the iPhoto, I just found out about the title and keyword function like 2 days ago.
Found out about the album function (from peeping over the shoulder at the Husband's iPhoto) like 2 weeks ago.
Yeah, you can tell me about that feeling of wanting to bang your head on the wall and cursing my own stupidity. Doh.

And I am just talking about the organizing part. There is also about taking those photos themselves.
As you know, I just got my first ever DSLR in January.
Oh my, and it's not simple, cheap, (relatively) easy, beginner DSLR either. Oh no no no.
Not that I am not thankful, of course. It wasn't money out of my own pocket, after all.
But still.... 2 months later, I have yet to learn what most buttons on the camera would do, seriously!

THE camera

With this camera, of course the issue does not end at taking good pictures. There is also the issue of taking care of the camera itself.
Talk about feeling totally inadequate at times, I actually remember that when my (then) boyfriend's roommate in Uni bought his camera, he invested as well on a special dry cabinet to store the camera and whatever paraphernalia he already and was going to buy. Talk about serious investment.
Down here? Nary a blower.
So... learning again.

But the again, no complaints about lacking of things to learn, now huh? Or brain melting, atrophying and growing senile with age yet. Ha!
In the meantime, at least there are also things to celebrate, like learning how to properly attributing images (I followed decor8 way of doing it), the discovery of the huge blogging community out there catering to the wildly different interest, the inspiring stories of oh so many blogger with humble beginning finally making it big...
Not that I am really interested in really making it big in the blogging world.

If I could just make ends meed through doing things that I really enjoy.... it will be dreamy enough.
I have been given a chance to learn, both through parenting and through having some time not working thanks to the Husband's work.
And so we use the chance given. Learn. Learn Learn.

How about you? Any similar problem of too many things to learn? Or are you at the other end of not finding things to learn?

a new project...Week 1

It is a combination of many things,
My mother's comment on the lack of her daughter's presence in the mountains of photos I uploaded every time I updated the family on the Little One's latest antics,
My lovely sister's beautiful (and numerous!) portraits, many of them self-portraits,
The many references to the various self-portrait projects on the web (you can start with Flickr, for example)

I think I should jump in the bandwagon.

In the hope that I would be more comfortable with how I look (extra pounds, white hair, warts and all)
That I would also take better pictures
That I would be able to tell better stories, through sharing also about the one behind the lenses,
The hidden narrator...

So... without further ado...

Presenting:

From 2-arms length

I realize there are quite a few classic self-portrait poses: from an arms length (Mine is two. Do you know how heavy the DSLR is? At that distance... HEAVY), mirror, shoes/feet, shadow,....
Not too sure what else.
I would expect I would go through those 'easy' ones first.

As is obvious from my lack of other 'creative' idea for self-portrait... I do really need to find more inspiration.

We'll do this weekly, and maybe I will try to come up with certain theme for each week. I don't know. It's quite at the spur of the moment currently, so... we'll just see as we go along.

I do hope you'll enjoy it as well.

Oh, and yeah, I really do need those lessons, either on posing to my advantage, or on loving myself the way I am. Not so liking the pic at the moment. Hhhh.....