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."

"Work" - Mouse and Keyboard

For this assignment I took a slightly different approach.

Instead of using my regular camera, I decided to play with my "Retro Camera" app on my phone. I"ve used it a little bit with the kids, and it gives some interesting effects.

I chose my mouse and keyboard as my subjects.

I'm always surprised by how sharp the photos are.

 
Okay, so my keyboard is a little dusty, but the stark quality of the photo intrigues me.

I like the grain of this one and the curve of the mouse is interesting to me, especially if it is held next to the sharp lines of the keyboard.

Same idea, different effect.

One of my favorite variations of this camera is this one.

The filmstrip look is really fun. Perhaps they won't win any awards, but for an app on my phone, I think the results are pretty interesting.

The app takes a long time to focus, so it's hard to use on squirmy kids, but I keep trying.

"Excitement" - Tricycle On a Hill

I am more than a week behind with this assignment. A period of foul weather killed any excitement we were feeling for quite a while.

Thankfully, the sun came out and the temperatures rose above 50 for a few blessed hours over the weekend. We couldn't have been more thrilled or more eager to finally get outside.

Of course, the kids grew over the long winter, so most of their outdoor toys were either too small or too young for them, but after being stuck inside for so many months, my girls made do with what they had and enjoyed the weather anyway.

I did too. Not only did I bask in the feel of actual sun on my face, but I also giggled right along with them as they ran, danced, and jumped in the grass.

Of course, I was so busy giggling that I didn't get any photos of that part. Fail.

I grabbed the camera when they started riding the tiny tricycle down the gentle hill of our driveway. As far as excitement goes, it was all they needed and more.

This is the photo as I took it. All I did with it (and all the shots in this series) was to sharpen it, and then improve the contrast.

The difference is pretty subtle, but I like the colors much better.

This is my oldest daughter. She likes the camera.

She waves to me to make sure I'm paying attention to all of her photo-ops.

She makes funny faces for it so that I'll keep taking her picture.

She wasn't the least bit scared here. She'd been down the hill a dozen times already. She just likes to have her picture taken and she's figured out that being a little silly usually gets the job done.

Mission accomplished.

On the other hand, my younger daughter would prefer to keep her excitement private.

The slightest hint of a smile is there to betray her, but she's pretending to remain unimpressed.

You can't fool me, Little Girl. I know you're having fun.

Gotcha.

"Fools" - Me

I've had a really difficult time finding my creative Mo-Jo this week. The topic is "Fools", certainly in honor of April Fool's Day. I've always disliked this particular holiday. I never liked the idea of having a day especially set aside for making a person feel stupid.

Anyway, I know there are many other directions I could have gone with the subject, but nothing was coming to my mind. I'd hit an inspirational wall of sorts.

I was feeling sorry for myself about it today while sitting in my office, but then I was distracted by my feet, which were screaming in pain, and that was when my inspiration hit.

I am the Fool, and the Fool is Me!

For only a Fool would look at her abundant collection of shoes in the morning and decide that these were the best choice for work that day.

I bought these shoes recently in order to complete a fabulous outfit for a night out with my girlfriends, and the only way I could justify the expense to myself was to promise that I'd wear them for more than that one outing.

After an hour or so on the dance floor I was begging someone to find me some slippers, but a promise is a promise, and I took the shoes out again this morning.

They are no more comfortable than they were on the dance floor, but I still can't be anything but happy that they are mine.

I didn't particularly need the extra three inches that these heels give me, but I do like it.

Sexy.

Yup, these booties are not intended for the office. At least, not this office. We're more of a "tasteful one-inch pump" kind of workplace.

It's certainly not a place where you would expect to find gold leopard lining, even if it is hidden under my feet.

Tomorrow I will go back to flats and loafers, and my feet will surely thank me.

But for today, I am the Fool.

"Planning" - Els Swim 9A

My kids are still young, so I'm not yet at the point where I need to put together a color-coded command post in my kitchen to keep track of all of our various appointments and activities. (Actually, I'm honestly looking forward to that day, since there's nothing I like better than a color-coded organizational chart. Really.)

Still, a family of five does generate enough obligations to require some method of organization and planning. We may not have things like Girl Scouts and Little League to coordinate yet, but we do have to keep track of a myriad of doctor's appointments, birthday parties, and social gatherings.

At Christmas I made up some calendars for my parents and in-laws with pictures of the kids from the last year. I kept one for myself and that's what I use at the moment to keep myself from forgetting things I have to do.

As you can see, Els has swim lessons every Saturday at 9AM.

A note on my photos and this project. I've noticed that I've been writing less and less about the process of taking these photos, especially when it comes to fiddling with the image on the computer. I actually haven't been doing as much to the photos as I did before. I think that's a good thing. I think that I'm putting more thought into taking better photos and then I don't need to do as much to "fix" them later on.

This photo, for example, is pretty much SOOC. All I did was lighten it up a bit. I'm happy with the angle and the depth of field. I wanted the story to be about things on the calendar, but not about the specific things written on MY calendar. I could have cropped out the top of the calendar and the stuff on my desk (telephone, Rolodex, pens, etc.), but I think they are part of the story. I do use all of those things to plan, after all.

For now, our calendar is working. In a year or two, I'll invest in the color-coded calendar of my dreams. I've picked it out already, and it's glorious.

"Spring/Autumn" - Sprouting

The assignment for this week is "Spring/Autumn" and this is the first time during this project that I entered the weekend without any interesting ideas. In general, the only time I have for taking photos during daylight hours is on the weekend, so The Robb often will take control of the house and kids for an hour or so while I go around and play shutterbug.

This weekend I couldn't come up with a good subject that would encompass both Spring and Autumn, or even something interesting for either one separately.

Of course, my first thought was to go outside and take a few shots of the garden as winter lets go and gives way to spring. Unfortunately, this winter was so unusually consuming that my garden currently looks like this:

Piles of snow and ice have flattened every plant, bush, and shrub.

While they might have withstood the first 2-foot snowfall of the season, having 2 or 3 more significant storms within 10 days took a toll on them.

Considering what the people of Japan are facing, I'm certainly not going to worry about the fate of a few bushes in my garden. I honestly was not terribly fond of them anyway.

I only wanted to explain why it's a little difficult to find "Springtime" outside my house at the moment.

Or so I thought.

It was mild enough on Sunday to take the kids on a walk around the neighborhood, followed by a little playtime with sidewalk chalks in the driveway. The grass is still wet and muddy, so I was trying to encourage all three to stay on the driveway.

The girls were drawing colorful masterpieces and tracing each other's hands and feet while I tried to keep The Boy from shoving clumps of grass and mud into his mouth.

I happened to look toward the walkway at one point and something caught my eye.

Do you see it??

I'll bring it a little closer...

There. Down in the lower right corner.

Do you know what that is?? It's the very beginning of a sprouting flower!

I crawled over and cleared away all the debris so that my new friend could breathe, and then I saw that he has friends.

One day these beautiful green sproutlings will bloom into daffodils, but that's for another day.

On this day I was just happy to actually see a sign of spring.

It's been a long winter over here.

"Underneath" - Flashlights

When I was a kid, I thought I was really clever. I thought I'd figured out ways to get around bedtime rules without getting caught. What else was I supposed to think? I routinely ignored my bedtime and never got in trouble for it.

My system was simple. I'd let my parents tuck me into bed at the usual time, and then I'd wait for them to turn off the lights and close the door. As soon as that happened I'd dive for my night table and the book and flashlight I kept there. I'd throw the covers over my head and read by the thin light of the flashlight.

I thought I was so clever.

Turns out, my parents knew what I was up to, but since I was "getting away with" reading, they chose to let me think I was an eight year-old version of James Dean - rebelling against the limiting constraints of a tyrannical system designed to crush my budding spirit.

Thinking about it, I'm sure they were right to let me think I was getting away with something. If they'd said, "Good night, dear. Go ahead and read under the covers with your flashlight now" I probably would have lost interest in it.

Anyway, knowing this story, you might understand my amusement when I walked into my daughters' room during naptime recently to find this:

Those are my two daughters, hiding under the covers together, using a flashlight to read a book.

I ran downstairs as quickly and quietly as I could to grab my camera. I turned off the flash and all of the sounds so that I might grab some fun shots.

Of course, with so little light, and no time to set up a tripod, getting a clear photo was difficult. Especially so because I couldn't ask them to stop moving for a second so that I could get one decently still shot.

Still, I must have grumbled just a bit too loudly.

Busted!

Now, go to sleep, girls. For real this time.