So there’s this Instagram challenge thing going on for March. I first saw it on the Year of Creative Habits Facebook page (I’m not sure if that link will show up if you’re not a member of the group!), and then followed that to this here Instagram post. Basically, the challenge goes like this; every day this month there’s a simple topic as your guideline for what you write about, and it’s all to help people get to know the artist more.

I don’t think I’ll try too hard to have my photograph of the day line up with what I’m talking about, but we’ll see how it goes.

Here’s just a handful of the topics:

Feedback, Recommend a Maker, Milestone, Tools, Inspiration, etc.

Today is March 1st, and the topic is “You”.

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I didn’t get out and travel all that far today to find my photograph. This is basically right in my backyard.

I’m going to post this as it is right now, but looking at this shot as it is right now I realize that I could of probably tried to make some of that generic graffiti show up as the only thing that has any color. That would of been a pretty neat effect. I’m going to put that idea in my back pocket though, and I’ll definitely try that out. I’m sure I could pull that off.

While I was out taking pictures today, I ran into a raccoon just hanging out on the sidewalk. On a super busy street even! I took my camera out and prepared to get some pictures (and keeping my distance just in case), as I brought the camera up to take a picture it stood up and started to claw a bit at the fence that was behind it. It seemed to be afraid and unsure of where to go. Which makes me wonder how it got out there to begin with!

I’m glad it didn’t try to cross the street as that wouldn’t have been very pretty. Instead, it turned around the side of the fence and took off into a yard. I was able to get a single photo of it at the last second.

So that was a cool thing that happened today!

It was almost my photo for the day, but there’s nothing artistic about it. It’s just a photo of a raccoon. So I decided to go with this photo of this tree I found. I had the “creative mode” set on my camera; this red tree was the result.

I think it’s a neat photo to start the week off. I hope everyone is having a wonderful Monday 🙂

More and more often I’m noticing that I’m not choosing the obvious “Oh look! A pretty tree” shots. I’m trying to get the weird abstract stuff lately. I like it, and I really feel like I’m going to keep doing that. I’m actually trying to figure out whether I’m just bored of the tree shaped trees, or perhaps I’m forcing myself to pick images that I think people will question a little it. Like why I chose this one.

I picked this one today because of how balanced it all is. There’s branches in the foreground, there’s branches in the background, and some in focus. They fill the entire image. Also, there’s a bird in there somewhere as that’s what I was originally trying to shoot, but he was just too far away. That didn’t work out very well.

I had to take a second look at this photo to realize that it’s all about balance. I decided it was a keeper 🙂

After adding a bunch of color to yesterday’s picture, today was a day to step back and just post the photo as it was. Though I did crop a bit off the top because it’s so blurry in the back there. Also, I set it to black & white to begin with when I was out taking photos, and this is how it came out. I was just in the mood to kinda experiment with various things, and I’m not sure if everyone would agree with me upon seeing all the other photos (there was 30 in total); this was my favorite photo for the day.

It’s my photograph! You can’t take it from me.

I even have a hard time putting into words exactly why I like this picture so much. It was cold out today, but not enough to freeze the water from the story last night. It was also windy, so the water is plenty rippled. It may be a grungy puddle, but I think it’s neat.

So, I had some fun today.

I found some new buttons on my camera. Or I guess rather I decided to experiment with those buttons and see what they do. To my surprise those buttons add filters to my photos and when I snap a shot, it takes like 5 pictures in rapid succession. Each photo, somehow, is of a different part of the image. It’s a bit hard for me to explain, but basically when I snap a single shot, it gives back many different versions of what I was shooting, quite quickly.

Now, what you see above technically wasn’t one of those images. But what it did give me inspired me enough to add some extra color and fiddle around with the image enough to get something cool. I’ve been wanting to take pictures of this tree (appropriately named, “The Spider Tree”, by my niece) for a long time now, and really it was part of the inspiration for starting this 365 day project in the first place!

I think also I was listening to the right music to get creative today 🙂

I’m trying really hard to avoid making my photographs too pretentious. I’m still figuring things out, and I don’t have ridiculous expectations for myself when it comes to making art. Whether that be my usual artwork or this new photography thing I’ve picked up, I’m still new at all of this. I have a feeling that I’ll always feel that way! Always learning.

I find it kind of funny that I wanted a new camera so I could take better pictures, especially during darker times of the day, and yet I haven’t really done that yet. Not on this blog at least. I really feel that I’ve already built up a strong habit to go outside mid-afternoon and walk around for a couple hours taking pictures in the daylight.

The year is long, and I have plenty of time left to do experiment with my shots. I found some new features on my camera today, and did some experimenting with them. Things mostly turned out alright, but this was my first day even using those features; filters, blur, and some zoom effects. I’ll continue to mess around with them and hopefully in the near future they’ll help produce an awesome image!