Scavenger Hunt Sunday

My husband was updating the computer, then my blogs disappeared completely for 10 minutes...no access and gone from the internet, so then we finished out the evening by backing up my blogs.  Now I have a few minutes to work on my Hunt.  These were fun prompts, and I didn't get too creative, but I felt like I had several choices for each prompt.  I look forward to visiting the other hunts this evening.

Strike a Pose:

Yeah, this is what you get when you ask for cooperation.  Much better when she doesn't "know" the camera is there.

Footwear:

My little girl really does rock the cowboy boots passed down from a dear friend.  Love these boots!

Hobby:

Yesterday I spent the morning indulging in my second favorite hobby--photographing nature on a walk with 17 people from my photo club.  Then the afternoon was spent indulging in my absolute favorite hobby--taking pictures of my kids while they played.  Sunflower was on a little trike and Huckleberry also rode his bike to the little store down the street.

Shiny:

The lake was so shiny it reflected the geese as they flew by.

Color Me Green:

In our area we have green all year, but the sun coming out after the rain makes the green even more beautiful.

Have the most blessed of Sundays!

Solitude

Today is the start of a new winter challenge -- Poetic Winter.  Today's topic is Solitude.  Personally I love solitude.  Nothing appeals more than the idea of a day completely to myself, okay, not nothing, but it is in the top ten.  But representing solitude in a photo really takes me out of my comfort zone in a great and challenging way.  I hope we aren't supposed to be poetic, too.  I can only work towards mastering one art at a time ever.

This photo I took at a night photography workshop where we took pictures of posed models and practiced using our flash.  It was quite a departure from my usual candid children shots, but she really looks alone (surrounded by 20 photographers with flashes).

When I took the next one, my mind might have decided that the prompt was isolation and not solitude.

All the snow is gone now.

This child is the main reason, for now, that I don't get solitude very often.  Totally worth the sacrifice.

Be sure to check out the other entries at Bumbles & Light,  Sweet Violet,  Project Alicia or Live and Love out Loud.

This or That Thursday

Thank you for your kind and helpful comments on my Scavenger Hunt Post.  I sent the basketball hoop and the fence into class and got a lot of positive, useful feedback.  I must be missing Shoot and Edit, because I feel a need to share that feedback with you.

Everyone felt the fence had a lot of potential, but they didn't like how over-saturated it was.  Said it looked fake.  That doesn't bother me since it totally did.  I was so tired of the gray weather and dull light I went a little overboard in post work.  So in class we played with black and white and desaturation and crop and ended up with this photo about.

I still didn't think it screamed "print me" so I came home and added some textures and a frame and tried other crops.

This is my "final" version, but I might just like the first version that reminds me of Gilligan's Island or a stage in a play best.  No worries.  It is my dad's fence.  I can keep trying.

Now the basketball hoop everyone really liked and my teacher was amazed that this "child photographer" took it, so that all felt really good.  They said often if you have a bright, white rectangle in a picture it can be really distracting, but because this one was not too bright and out of focus it added to the photo in terms of square with a circle of the basket.  Some people liked that I wasn't directly underneath the basket--said it gave the basket movement and others wished I was (though then the light would have been behind the shot and not so great.)  We did boost the black slider in lightroom in order to get all the other details that were not basket or light in the shot to drop out.

I agree it is much better.  My teacher did wonder why I titled the photo 5 baskets because he could not see the "10" in the photo.

It was a great class.  We all talked about a lot of great pictures and said what we did or did not like about it.  By explaining why we felt the way we did it became easier to see how that critique could be applied to future shots.

Now I'm working on my Black and Whites for tonight's class.  It is my last one and a makeup of the one we missed the week of snow.  Should be fun!

Seriously this girl has some looks!

Have a fantastic Thursday!  I am.  We got an update on our future daughter...though no pictures...the orphanage answered 10 questions that are a treasure for us now and for her in the future.