Saturday Self-Challenge

Saturday Self-Challenge: Frame within a Frame in Black & White The toughest part of the challenge was finding a suitable subject to shoot! After several failed attempts with different things, I finally chose a couple of my photo books that I display on the coffee table. Have a great weekend, everybody! I wish Pam a healthy, happy week ahead!

Saturday Self-Challenge: "One" How can you make a composition interesting when using only one subject?" I've always been fascinated with the simple beauty and functionality of an hourglass. I keep this one on my coffee table. Have a wonderful weekend, Pam and Ipernity Friends!

Saturday Self-Challenge: Focus A couple of days ago, I found my two cats in a napping position that I had to grab the camera for! Luckily I had enough time to carefully set the camera and grab some clear shots; this was the best of the lot. The only post-processing I did was slight cropping and increased highlights (and of course convert to b&w). Better viewed enlarged on black to see the details. Hope you had a good week, Pam, and wish I wish you and everyone a wonderful weekend!

Saturday Self-Challenge: Photograph your image in portrait orientation. I have taken photos of this doll before, but I thought she would make a good subject for the challenge. This image is SOOC and has not been processed in any way. Portrait orientation is perfect for a live, or in this case doll model, but it also has creative uses for abstract, landscape and street work. Hope this image makes you smile, Pam, and have a great weekend, everyone!

Saturday Self-Challenge: Patterns (no b&w) There was a variety of ways I could go with this challenge, but in the end I chose this simple yet powerful Lego base-plate to use as my subject. In the note is a photo of my wooden color pattern puzzle. Have a wonderful weekend, everyone!

Saturday Self-Challenge: Glass in Black and White This week's challenge was a great opportunity to do two things I like: photograph glass and play with monochrome. I was spoiled for choices this week! The image above was taken of a beautiful glass candy jar I received as a gift from a patient I treated during my time as a Physical Therapist. Other photos I took of the jar and of some old bottles are below in the comment section. Have a wonderful weekend, everyone!

Saturday Self-Challenge:negative or inverted photography This was probably one of the most interesting challenges for me to date. First challenge was finding the right subject to photograph. The next challenge was to see if it would look good negative. Once I decided what image to use, I found that the contrast and color needed to be increased in order for the details to be seen better. I also applied the urbane effect by PicMonkey to give it a little more depth. I thought the colors were quite striking like this. Below is another version of this image cropped differently, another inverted shot of the same fish tank and an inverted photo of my front yard tree. Happy Weekend, Ipernity Friends!

Saturday Self-Challenge: take a photo that represents your "New Year's Resolution". Even though I always make resolutions, I never seem to keep them. Well, it's going to change this year! Here are a few resolutions I've made for 2019: 1. To enjoy more time with my family 2. To exercise more (how many times have I made THAT resolution!) 3. To improve my photography skills, and... 4. To be more creative! Happy First Weekend, Everyone!

Saturday Self-Challenge: Create a "Starburst" image. Any light source will work for example, street lights, sun, moon, Christmas lights, candles etc. The past week was tough due to time constraints and opportunity for the right circumstances. However this morning presented itself with the first real opportunity all week to do something. The clouds looked so unusual and with the sun in direct line with them I got inspired. Getting a photo of full sunlight was another challenge: how to get it without blinding me! For safety reasons I used the screen instead of viewfinder. This image is the result. The composition balance could be better, but I think I conveyed the message of the title well enough. Have a great week, everyone!

Saturday Self-Challenge: Create an image that highlights your favorite aspect of the holiday season. My favorite nativity and vintage Santas in one place. I love to decorate for the season and this is one display of several in my living room. MAY YOU ALL HAVE A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS AND BLESSED NEW YEAR!

Saturday Self-Challenge: Holiday Still Life A few of my vintage Christmas decorations hanging from the Christmas tree. As a child these old colorful balls fascinated me! A very Merry Christmas holiday to you all! Hope you are feeling better each day, Pam!

Saturday Self-Challenge: Pictures taken from a cat's eyes perspective Both my cats love to be brushed, so I thought this is probably their favorite view (besides their food!). Since cats are supposed to be rather nearsighted and not able to see colors as vibrantly as humans, I amplified the shallow DoF while de-saturating the image to simulate how a cat sees this scene.

Saturday Self-Challenge:Take a photo through a hole or opening This week, the challenge itself was fairly easy, but execution was difficult. In other words, I was short on time, long on frustrating hurdles. This week was another busy one for me, since it is holiday season in the store I work for. As such, I was either not available to roam with my camera, or I was too tired to do so. This morning I once more attempted to photograph, but my camera's battery died with no time to recharge. So I went to the last resort and grabbed my phone camera, thinking I would never get the shot I wanted because of limited manual focus capability. Well, I was proven wrong, and was actually able to get the shot I wanted!

Saturday Self-Challenge: Fire Engine Well, this week turned out to be one of the most challenging of the year! It didn't help that I had to work in a big box retail store during the Thanksgiving/Black Friday week. Since I couldn't get out in time to photograph a real fire engine, I had to make due with a toy. I checked out the toy section at work during my lunch hour to see if I could find a fire truck or two. Believe it or not, the only thing I found appealing enough to photograph was this junior Lego set, so I bought it for the challenge. Putting together this little firetruck was the least of my challenges! The next challenge was how to photograph this scene. Being short on time, I could not set this scene up the way I wanted to. All I could think to do was set things up on a table in a darkened room with a spotlight lamp over the scene. I tried to use the Nikon, but I didn't like the results because lighting could be better and I didn't have enough time to properly set manual. So, I cheated and went for the phone camera, which does a much better job in these conditions with less time. Hope you all have a great weekend! ~Best viewed enlarged on black~

Saturday Self Challenge: Take a photo of an odd number of any subject or object (3,5,7 etc.) and arrange it so that it's pleasing to the eye. Nine colorful leaves I found on my wet driveway. Have a nice weekend, everyone! :-))

Saturday Self-Challenge: Negative Space I had an opportunity to visit Shenandoah National Park this week while away on vacation. Skyline Drive is famous for its scenic views of the Appalachian mountains. One thing we saw were many long-dead trees still standing. The American Chestnut was nearly wiped out by a fungus blight brought over on trees from Asia. The remains of one of these trees can be seen above silhouetted against the blue sky. ~Best viewed enlarged on black~

Saturday Self-Challenge: In honor of our second anniversary as a group, choose something you've learned in SSC and take a photo using this technique. I chose long exposure for this challenge because I learned so much about the relationship between exposure time, F-stop and ISO. It wasn't until after I took this image and my camera battery went dead that I saw I forgot to remove the polarizing filter off the lens! I wonder how different my settings would be had I removed it before snapping this photo! These tiny teddy bears are part of a large collection of miniature bears I collected about 20 years ago. They range in size between one and two and half inches (2.4 cm - 6.35cm). Many thanks to all my fellow group members for two years of fun and learning together, and Happy Anniversary, SSC! ~Thank you so very much for your comments and faves, my friends! You are most kind! ~

Saturday Self-Challenge: take a shot of anything while looking upwards. Under one of the maple trees in my front yard, I photographed some leaves overhead that were back lit by the morning sun. Even though we are well into Autumn, the season has been so warm that my trees have not begun to change color yet!