Tag Archives: feet

Week 1: Self Portrait

Posted in 52 of 2016 by

Well what better way to start out the new year and the new challenge than by looking at myself.  Oh, my favorite 😐  Yes, I know you know, I kind of hate self portraits, but lucky for me I’m at the beach and with a good idea in hand!  Well, I’m not at the beach, per se, but I am in Florida (woo hoo!), and went to the beach yesterday with the intentions of taking a “self portrait”.

So, like many of my other self portraits, this on is a little abstracted, if you will, and doesn’t show my face.  When my friend was watching me shoot these, she was completely confused on how this constituted as a self portrait, but no where does it say that I have to take a picture of my face, does it?  I suppose that’s what people typically think of, but when consulting my good ole friend, dictionary.com, it states that a portrait depicts “a likeness of a person, especially of the face, as a painting, drawing, or photograph”…..but not specifically the face!

So with that, I happily took a few photos of myself, well, more specifically, my feet!  You know I love the beach, and my toes in the sand, so I though, instead of torturing myself on vacation and trying to get a glamorous, gorgeous “selfie”, why not do something fun.  So I snapped a couple pictures and ended up combining a few together.  Photoshop is something that I really need to practice in, and not forget the little I have learned before the next semester starts in a couple weeks.  So while I liked the bubbles and water of one image, I also liked all the little shells (coquina clams, or as I like to call them, baby clams) in another, and decided to join the two together to get the perfect little beach image.  So enjoy!  I had fun practicing, and hope that my composite isn’t too obvious.  I’m happy with it, but I’ll keep practicing anyways 🙂

bubbles and shells-2

Week 24: Shades of Grey

Posted in The 52 Week Challenge by

Lovely!  This week I have a blank canvas, so to speak.  I have enjoyed working through nearly half of this 52 week challenge, but what has been an unexpected challenge is how blocked I would be when working with specific themes.  I suppose it’s good, and the purpose of this whole thing — not only do I have to constantly get out and shoot, but I also have to think out side of my own box.  I’ve enjoyed some of the themes more than others, but beyond that, I have enjoyed working in ways I would have never thought of on my own.

Now, back to the good old stuff…

Working in shades of grey has me thinking of one thing — black and white photography!  I mean, what else could it be?  Ok, it could be a lot of things, and just as I’m typing it, I’m thinking of tons of ways to capture this theme without taking it so literally.  But the one thing I’ve missed about working with film are the beautiful tones of the blacks, whites, and greys developing in the darkroom.  And the smell?  Yum, weird, I know, but I love it.  Ok, so there are a lot of things I miss, but I digress… Even though I would love to, I can’t do a film project for this theme.  Being out of school has been fun, and weird, but it’s also left me without the resource of a dark room.  So for this week, my digital files will just have to imagine they’re film, and my computer will become its own imaginary little darkroom.

I suppose this theme is coming at the opportune time… I am in a rather “grey” period of life….like a dark slate, thunderstorm, type of grey.  So while I’ll be working in the spirit of the darkroom, I’m probably not going to produce any more of my happy little nature photographs again in the near future.  And with that, I’m off to think, and to reminisce.  Here’s another film project from a past class of mine.  It was the first “story telling” type project that I worked with, and out of all the different ideas that I had, this was my favorite.  I liked that it told a story in so many different ways, without actually saying anything direct.  It allows you to look at it and interpret it as your own story, and to me, it has many meanings, which is in a strange way kind of cathartic.  Changing of seasons, passing of time, a year going by, life passing you by, standing still, running in circles, travel — just a few of the meanings this has to me, and, just a few of the things I’ve meditated on while looking at these photos.  So enjoy, and feel free to leave me a note of what you think!