Dogwood Catch UP

Time for a catch up on my progress in the Dogwood 52 challenge.  I have been taking the photos…just not had the time to blog about it having been very busy with the Etsy Resolution programme.

The photo above was my selected photo for week 5 Black and White Landscape.  I love black and white photography so was really looking forward to this week.  The weather was (yet again) terrible here in Cumbria and my potential ideas for photos didn’t happen.  In the end I took this one on a stroll to my local tearooms where I take my work sometimes for a change of scenery.

Week 4 was a headshot portrait.  I really don’t like taking photos of people and as a result I am not too great at it.  This photo was a little bit of a ‘just get something done’ type of photo – still I did learn from it and I suppose that is the point of taking part in this challenge.

I am still waiting for inspiration to strike for week 6: Candy.  There was so many brilliant ideas and photos appearing on the Facebook group – everything I thought seemed rubbish in comparison.  So I have put that one on the back burner for now to come back to later.

The challenge for week 7 was a faceless portrait to show the story of someone or something without showing their face.  Unlike last week, I had an idea this week which I was rather pleased with.  I played around with flash lighting this week and although maybe my idea was better than the execution, I am still pleased with my photo this week.

And so I am up to date with my Dogwood photos on the blog! (lets ignore week 6 for now…and the current week…)

Artistic Interpretation: Red

After my original idea for this week didn’t work out (the post box I was planning to use was for some inexplicable reason wearing a dead hare that day), I cast my eye around my home for inspiration.  It was a good chance to play around with some close up shots and I ended up with a few photos I was quite pleased with. The photo above was the one I selected as my winner and here are my two runner ups.

So now for this week we are back to the people photography…and a head shot. Not really knowing any people in our new area, my victim…I mean model..will be my husband.  It will be odd taking a photo of a photographer!

Dogwood Week 2

 

Traditional Landscape

Here is my photograph for week 2: traditional landscape.  The weather had been against us here in ‘sunny’ Cumbria in terms of landscape shots.  There was a break in the rain so we ventured out to see what we could come up with in less than ideal conditions.  Found this shot on the edge of Miltonrigg Woods just up the road from where I live.  I love this shot more and more every time I see it.

The theme for this week is Red.  There are a few ideas pottering around in my head…nothing as yet decided on though.  I think I have a good idea germinating, just decided how to carry it out and what part of my photography skills I want to focus on developing this week.  Check back later to see what I end up with!

52 Week Dogwood Challenge

Over recent years I have found myself exploring my artistic side more and more.  It has always been there yet I think I pushed it aside thinking that it was not something for someone like me, I was supposed to have a sensible career where I achieved many great things.  Seems so silly to me now looking back on it.  Struggles with illness, anxiety and depression lead me to explore who I was and to find things to occupy my overworked little mind.  I started trying out many things of a creative and artistic nature and this is where Mr B’s Button Jamboree came from as well as new found hobbies such as knitting and sewing.  Photography had always been something I had enjoyed doing, though it was mostly point and shot photography of quite a typical nature.  Over the last few years though I have been developing more of a sense of the style and type of photography I really enjoy doing as well as making tentative steps away from the automatic settings on my camera!  Here is a small selection of some of the many thousand that I took on our travels…

 

Phillip aka Colobus Yeti (check out his blog!) bought the 52 Week Dogwood Challenge to my attention.  It is designed to challenge and develop photography skills both technical and creative.  Despite my misgivings over the fact that about one third of the weeks focus on people photography – an area I really am not keen on, give me inanimate objects any day of the year – I have decided to go for it.  Developing my photography was on my list I drew up in the New Year mentioned in my post on 7th Jan and so this seems such a thing to help drive me on to do so.  Is quite tough putting my photographs out there for people to see, hopefully the experience will help me to develop as a person too.  So here goes…my entry for week 1 in the 52 week challenge was…