Fifteen Foot Circle

Assignment number two for this most recent photography challenge I am participating in was to only photography things within a fifteen foot circle. This area also had to be one that you are in often. Part of this exercise was for us to see things and work to compose interesting images.

I added one more challenge for myself with this one, I only used my 55-200mm lens. So armed with my camera, I headed off to our front room and started looking for things to photograph.

1/160 sec at f/5.6, ISO 6400

1/40 sec at f/4.8, ISO 6400

1/60 sec at f/4.5, ISO 6400

1/50 sec at f/5.6, ISO 6400

Did you notice a theme here? Every photo has books in it! Yes, even the photo with the chess pieces, the books are out of focus on this one. Just like baking and photography, books are one thing that I love, and we have quite a few books around our home.

I ended up submitting the last photo for the challenge since it combines two things I love, books and photography. That little Kodak Brownie was the first camera I shot pictures with back in elementary school. Pretty incredible how far photography has come since then!

Our next assignment is to include motion in our photography. I have already been looking up ideas and am thinking of ways to be a bit more creative with this next assignment!

What have you been photographing this past week?

Self portrait assignment

If you have been following my blog for a while and/or you know me in real life, you know that I love photography. Recently, one of the photography Facebook groups I belong to gave an assignment to do a self portrait. Now, I am usually the photographer and not the person being photographed. But I decided to accept the challenge and try to be a bit creative.

I took pictures of my hands on my piano. I took pictures of me reading in my backyard. I even enlisted the help of my daughter to try to capture myself riding my bike. I was trying to capture myself doing things that I enjoy doing.

Once I loaded all the photos on my computer, the one photo that I ended up keeping was this one:

1/100 sec at f/2, ISO 400

Baking is something I really enjoy doing. And the kitchen is one place in my home I spend a lot of time in. So it only seemed natural to take a self portrait of myself in the kitchen baking.

Rather than leave the photo in color, I opted for black and white. I felt there were too many competing textures, colors, and patterns to leave it as a color photo.

I failed to post the photo before the assignment was due in the Facebook group, so I wasn't able to receive any constructive criticism on it. I think if I try this again, I may put the camera up higher on the tripod and angle the camera down a bit so the photo is not straight on.

Our next assignment is to capture images within a 15 foot circle from where you are standing. I am sure I can find a few things in my kitchen to capture.

What photo challenges are you participating in?