Getting Back Into It - Bald Head Island

I have fallen off the photography wagon, so to speak. For the past several weeks I've watched the themes pass by on my calendar but haven't managed to do much more about them than think of photos I'd like to take.

The week of vacation I spent with my daughters and my mom (and my sister and father) would have been an ideal opportunity to gather some good shots for the "Mother" assignment, for example.  And I think that I could have done some interesting things with the balloons I got for my daughter's birthday for the "Up" theme from last week.

Of course, I didn't do any of those things. I hit a funk of sorts. The illness of a friend and her ultimate passing last week has kept me from accomplishing much beyond the basic tasks that keep a family of five running.

I've decided that I need to get back into this project. I think that it will help me to spend some time alone with my camera, so I'm going to ignore the assignments that I have missed and go forward with the remaining ones.

The theme for next week is "Temptation". I have some ideas.

In the meantime, I have taken a few photos that I'd like to share.

I mentioned that I was on vacation with my daughters. The boys stayed home to enjoy a week of drinking milk from the carton and eating cold raviolis out of the can. (I actually don't know what they did together, but I'm sure table manners were not a high priority.)

This is where we went. It is the beach of Bald Head Island, North Carolina.

Granted, this is not a particularly original subject or framing for a shot, but I always liked to see the sand, surf, sky, and grasses of the beach put together.

The sky was so perfect that day. "Not a cloud," as they say.

I walked closer to the water, turned to my right, and saw this scene.

I actually really like this shot. I like the color (this is completely untouched), and I love the one person sitting under an umbrella on the right side. I started to walk down the beach to get a little closer so the figure and umbrella would be clearer, but before I took two steps she stood up, collapsed her umbrella, and packed up her things to leave the beach.

I tried to crop the photo to bring the umbrella closer, but I always lost too much of something else so I left it as-is.

Before I left the beach I happened to see a piece of driftwood that looked interesting.

I love the texture of driftwood. So much contrast.

I wanted to see the wood in the context of the beach, so first I tried to frame it so that I could still see a lot of the sand and surf behind it.

I'd set my area of focus to the lower left corner and then held my breath to try and get a steady shot without a tripod.

Then I went to the other end of the log and focused on the texture I found there.

The closer I got, the more I wanted to shoot from a lower angle to really capture the grooves in the wood.

Nope. Lower.

Even lower.

Okay, maybe that's too low.

In the end, I think this one is my favorite of the bunch. I increased the contrast and sharpness a tad.

Overall, I'm happy with the few shots I was able to take on my own while on vacation. I am excited to get out and rejoin this project. Next up..."Temptation."