January 29 - Grow

My little jade plant. A dear friend gave it to me almost seven years ago before she moved away. I have (accidentally) done my best to convince it to die on multiple occasions, but thankfully I have been able to resuscitate it every time. It has come back and grown to it's largest size and healthiest vigor as of late.

 

 

January 11 - Water

Again, another catch-up post. It may be frozen, but it is still water!

 

 

January 4 - The View From Here

OK, so I am playing catch up. Call it cheating, but I just wanted to try to get a few of these up since I started this whole thing mid-January. These were not actually taken on January 4th, but what can you do?

 

 

January 28 - Through

I will have to play catch up with "Together" and "Sun"! But I did manage to take a few peeks "through" the looking glass today.

 

 

January 25 - Landscape

So, I live downtown, and while this may not seem like a traditional landscape to some, it is my landscape. A sunrise on a very cold morning. A beautiful and complacency-inducing precursor to the ice storm to come.

Both photos were shot with my cell phone (Samsung GSIII). The first is untouched, the second has the Orton-ish filter applied.

 

 

January 24 - Stripes

These are two different photos of the same subject (a shadow, cast by my stair railing, but they looked like stripes to me). The first was cropped and a few filters were applied. The second had used the Orton-ish filter in Picasa.

 

 

January 23 - Electric

I was so far behind on my photos, I was sadly uninspired by this prompt. Maybe if I hadn't just come back home from traveling and had a few more synapses firing after my first day back at work, I might have come up with something a little more creative. The first photo was treated to the "I'm feeling lucky" treatment and the second with the cross process filter in Picasa.

 

 

January 22 - Corner

Two different perspectives of two different corners of my house. The first is a rather dirty corner of a balcony, so I added the HDRish filter in Picasa to make it look even more raw. The second photo has only had the contrast adjusted.

 

 

January 21 - What You Do

This one was an internal quandary for me. I certainly do not define myself by my job, nor is it something I actually enjoy doing. But the fact of the matter is, it is what I spend the majority of my time doing. Ick.

Photo #1 was treated to a bit of fill light adjustment, contrast adjustment and a slight cross process filter. Photo #2 was feeling lucky, cropped and HDRed by Picasa. Both were shot with my Samsung Galaxy S III.

 

 

January 20 - Something I Saw

A south Florida sunset and a poinsettia growing in the back yard.

 

 

January 19 - Delicious

My sister received this giant box of yummy from her boss for the New Year. Her boss had purchased these for all of her subordinates, most of whom have signficant others and/or families. My sister, sadly, does not, so she was left to attempt to consume all of these on her own. Thankfully, she did not succeed and decided to bring them home and share them with her family while she was visiting.

 

 

January 18 - Shadow

Can you guess what these are?? Both were taken during my time visiting my parents in south Florida.
 

 

January 17 - Ready

This prompt was quite apropos, as I was leaving the next morning to visit my parents.
 

 

January 16 - Two Things

Two cups of tea, one a bit stronger than the other. (Or rather, one is untouched processing-wise, and the other has had a couple of filters applied.)
 

 

January 15 - An Ordinary Moment

My day was so busy, it was hard to stop long enough to capture an ordinary moment. I decided to just capture what I see in the evening - my husband watching TV! I wanted to get his wine glass on the floor next to him in the photo, but he finished it off just before I started shooting. Plus it was tough to capture a candid shot of him because he kept looking back at me.

I really love the two different feelings I get from each of these iterations of the photo. The black and white feels more artistic and almost unfamiliar, yet still comfortable and casual. The second iteration with a bit of a cross process filter feels familiar and cozy to me.


 

 

January 14 - Something Yellow

So I'm getting started late in the game, but I hope to find some time to go back and play catch up with the prompts that I have missed.

My first observation in this challenge is that it is going to be difficult for me to photograph things in natural light during the week, especially in the winter. I leave work in the dark and often come home in the dark! So I'm starting with some items around the kitchen.

I've started this blog to try to jumpstart my creativity and force myself to find time to become more familiar with my camera. I stumbled across Fat Mum Slim's Photo A Day challenge and decided to put my own spin on it. I'm going to (hopefully) photograph each of her daily prompts and post not just one photo, but two. I might find two different subjects for each prompt, or I might just use the same photograph and be creative with it. 

At this time, I'm just trying to refamiliarize myself with taking photos in manual mode, plus trying to understand my new camera. I don't really know much about post-processing digital images yet, but I'm going to just play around with some of the filters in Picasa and Google Creative Suite for now, just for fun.

I'm hoping to spur my creative spirit and stoke some inspiration in my life. Let's see where this takes me!