Photo Scavenger Hunt

As I have mentioned before I have been looking for any excuse to bring my camera with me anywhere I go.  That way Chris can't role his eyes when I say "I'm bringing my camera" and give me a hard time about it... MUAHAHAHAHA!

Anyway, browsing the blogs I follow I found one.  It's called Sunday Scavenger Hunt from Ashley Sisk's Ramblings and Photos.  Each week you are given 5 ideas to photograph and you photograph them throughout the following week.  This past week was the first week I decided to participate.

(And yes, I do realize the photo challenge is called Sunday Scavenger Hunt and I do know today is Monday not Sunday.  Luckily, you are given to Tuesday night to upload the photos to your blog and link it to Ramblings and Photos.  My excuse is I was out of town;))

1. Glimpse

This was taken while driving to work one morning last week.  A glimpse behind me told me it was going to be a beautiful day. 

2. Bliss

Remember being a child and how happy you were on those warm days when you were free to escape for a few hours before the sun went down in late winter months?  Pure bliss. 

 3. Gray

Weather in Pittsburgh this year has been strangely mild.  Lately, it has been even a little warmer.  I went out for a photo walk on my lunch break to take advantage of the gorgeous day before having to spend another 3.5 hours in the basement/dungeon office.  I cut through this playground back to work. 

 4. Crossed

This past weekend Chris and I went to Ann Arbor to visit my sister.  We were getting a little stir crazy and decided to take a walk (cough cough) around the University of Michigan campus.  What a beautiful campus.  The vine covered walls of most the buildings are my favorite.  

 5. Handwritten

The 47 images I am in the process of editing from a Senior Portrait Session for a week and a half ago.  

Have you been looking for an excuse to carry your camera around with you?  Isn't this the perfect one?  I have learned so much in the past weeks just experimenting with the different settings on my camera.  

My Favorite Thing

Week 3 of 2012 has come and gone.  I'm not sure about the rest of y'all but January just isn't going fast enough for me.  Must. Remind. Self. to just breathe and take one moment/day at a time... ahhh Zen. 

Okay, with that off my chest; this week's Weekly Photo Challenge is "Your Favorite Thing."  I have loads of favorite things.  I love to spend time with Chris, family and friends, listen to great music, read with a glass of red wine next to me, soak in a warm bath, be outside, photograph, spooning first thing in the morning, etc.  It was really hard to choose just one thing.  To be honest, I'm not really sure if we were only supposed to choose just one thing but I knew I wouldn't be able to fit all of my favorite things into one photograph.  Just wouldn't happen.  

As I was making a mental list of my favorite things and it got to reading's turn I immediately thought of Harry Potter.  Anyone who knows me should not be surprised by this.  I seem to never get sick of reading/watching/talking Harry Potter.  I have re-read the series a couple of times and it never gets old (mainly because I don't remember it all).  I love to spend rainy afternoons crocheting while watching one of the movies.  I often get teased a lot for this "little" obsession by coworkers, friends and family members who are always reminding (jokingly I promise) me he is isn't real.  

YES! I have a Gryffindor tie and scarf and the Elder Wand.  

I didn't get into the series right away.  In fact, I actually remembering laughing at my sister, Melissa, for reading it.  It wasn't until I nannied for a family for a summer in 2003/2004 (6-7 years after the first book came out).  They older boys were really into the books and had a Harry Potter board game.  In order for me to play the game with them (and lets be honest; win) I borrowed the books from them and have been hooked ever since.  

I went to pick up Deathly Hallows (the last book) at midnight with Chris, Melissa and two of her good college friends, have been to a few midnight releases of the movies and may or may not have dressed up (my catholic high school uniform skirt as come in good use the past few years) for the Deathly Hallows' Part 1 and 2's midnight showing.  I look forward to sharing the wonderful world of Harry Potter with my kids one day.  

Okay, now that I have shared my nerdiness with everyone what is your favorite thing?  Are you a Harry Potter fan?  If you had to choose just ONE favorite thing, what would it be?  

Weekly Photo Challenge

As you know, I love taking photos.  Of anything and EVERYTHING.  Towards the end of 2011 I was starting to get a little discouraged as I wasn't getting too many phone calls for photo shoots and wasn't feeling too motivated to just go out and shoot.  On my twitter feed I stumbled upon a few articles on how to improve your photography and get out of that "photography rut."  

One was to partake in a weekly and/or 365 photo challenge.  I am already doing my own 365 photo challenge (which I will talk about in a later post) so I decided to find myself a weekly photo challenge.  To be honest I am not quite sure where I heard of LensProToGo's weekly photo challenge but it was the first one I read about that sends you an email each month with a photo category for each week of that month.

And with only two weeks in 2012 so far, I have participated in all of them. ;)  

The first challenge was a "A Self Portrait Without You In It."  When I first read this, I was like "whaaaaaaaaaat?!"  How is it supposed to be a self portrait if I'm not in it?  Since I was confused I look at the LensProToGo's 52 Week Photo Project group on Flickr (where participants upload their entries each week) to see what others had photographed.  AHA!  They are asking me to photograph something that represents who I am.  Got it!  

The next challenge was finding something that represents who I am.  I was sitting in my office after a busy Wednesday morning/afternoon and happened to look up and see a magnet that I have had on my filing cabinets since I've been there.  On the magnet are different cartoon-ish faces with different feelings (i.e. angry, frustrated, tired, sad, happy, etc) written under each face.  Another magnet comes with it that looks like a frame that says "Today I feel."  You then take the frame magnet and put it over what ever face/feeling you are feeling that day.  Do you know what I'm talking about?  No?  

Does this help? Anyway, my motto for about a year now has been to find the positive in any situation and always remain hopeful. Since I have made a conscious effort do this I feel my new outlook on life has brought me more opportunities and every day looks a little brighter.  I know it sounds cheesy but it has so far been true for me.  Isn't the face kinda cute?

Week 2's photo challenge was a photo of "Your Front Door."  I thought to myself; "Well, this'll be easy."  However, I was wrong.  Our front door is rather boring.  Not much to it.  It's just a front door.  How could I get creative with a boring front door?  I had an idea in mind that I was so sure would work. Wrong.  Starting to get discouraged as the week was coming to an end (your photo has to be submitted to LensProToGo 52 Week Photo Project's Flickr group by Sunday night).  

As luck would have it, it snowed most of the day Friday (although not enough for work to call us off - boo!).  A lot of snow blew on our front porch covering our doormat.  As I walked up our front steps I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to shoot the front door.  

See, told you my front door is kinda boring.  And as you can see we still haven't taken our Christmas decoration (only thing we put up this year) yet.  I first wanted to photograph my footprints on the doormat but noticed they just kinda looked like round blobs (was wearing Ugg knockoffs) and was not about to put my bare feet on a cold snow covered doormat even for photography's sake.  I then noticed some of the "Welcome" had been brushed away so I brushed snow off the rest of the "Welcome."  To me that has a lot of meaning. Although, our front door may be boring, our home is always open to friends and family and what is inside once you open the door is what really matters.  

What would your photo look like for each theme?  What would you take a picture of for a self-portrait without you in it?  How would you shoot your front door?  

I look forward to this week's challenge: "Your Favorite Thing" (secretly hoping we can pick more than just one) and sharing it with y'all.  

What about you?  Have you decided to partake in any photography projects for 2012?

Hope everyone had a great weekend and not to stressful Monday (if you had to work)!