Week 5 - Landscapes/Architecture

Okay- I procrastinated on this assignment. I am terrible at landscapes. They NEVER look as good in the photos as in real life. That's one of the things I want to learn in the class. But I missed last week's class, so if there were any pointers, I didn't get them. I read the book and picked up a few tips. Hopefully class this week will help. But anyway, I kept putting off actually going out and shooting some landscapes, but I set aside Wednesday afternoon to do it. Then, when I woke up this am it was raining and snowing - yes both at the same time. Not exactly great photography weather. Now I assume that Mister Mark, and other great photographers, would say " You can get awesome shots in weather like that!" But not me. I tried, and I am not totally disappointed with my results, but I am not thrilled either. I did notice when I went to my exercise class at the HIRC, that it is a pretty cool building - so I shot of few pix of it. And then it did stop precipitating inthe afternoon, so I got a few cloudy day shots. By the way, the pix ended up posted in reverse order of when I took them, and I don't have time, or tech know -how, to fix it without redoing the whole thing.

Photography week 4- Abstracts

Well- I enjoyed this week's assignment much more than the last- taking abstract photos. There are so many possibilities. It didn't take me long to get lots of shots. Here are a few of my favs. These are basically untouched. In another post, I will show some that I played around with on Picasa. When you add the option of photoediting,, changing the tint, saturation etc - the possibilities are limitless.

Just 'cause I liked it....

A rare moment of quiet :-)

Photography class -week 3

This week's assignment was to take documentary photos. I found it rather difficult- I couldn't really figure out what I wanted to document, and the photos I did take I didn't really like. But here are a few.

Documenting my biweekly lunch with Jul :-)

I don't know why- but this grouping of signs intriqued me.

I love this mural just hidden away downtown
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I liked this one- even though Julie is not quite in sharp focus - I liked the compostion.

More "documentary" photos

I decided to "document" Girls' Club. Emily and Annarose pestered me for about a year to start a girl scout troop. Their big brothers are in Boy Scouts and do all sorts of fun things. I wasn't up for the official Girl Scouts with all its attendant rules and requirements, so I agreed to start a "girls' club" where we do scoutlike activites. So far it's mostly been crafty things, but I promised a camping trip in the spring.

Making valentines - we certainly had plenty of supplies: punches, stamps, glitters, paint, markers, felt, fancy scissors. The girls went crazy!

If messiness is a sign of creativity- we were super creative!!

Besides making valentines, we started learning to crochet.

Week 2- a few more

A GIRL and her DOG (s)

Emily loves her Siberian Husky, Aleu, and the mixed breed sidekick who showed up on our doorstep in SC and refused to leave. We named him Shorty for obvious reasons. It is a treat for Em, and the dogs, to take an excursion to the park. I figured it was a good spot for pix, so I suggested the outing. We took along homemade dog treats and Shorty and Aleu kept trying to get them out of my pocket.

More week 2 photos

I think the ones above are cute- but if the goal is to capture Em's personality- I'd have to say the next 2 win!

If you notice - in the above photos, Em only has one glove. She couldn't find the other - typical Littlejohn problem- so she kept switching the glove form one hand to the other :-).

I love the mischievous look in her eye - even visible from the side!

Photography Week 2- The GIRL with the HAIR!!!

Week 2 's photography class assignment was portraits- specifically to make them personal.
My choice of subject was obvious. Matt won't smile in a photo to save his life, and Rick..well he'd cooperate more than Matt but he wouldn't enjoy it one bit. Now my 9 month old grandson, Soren - that would be awesome- if he weren't 5000 miles away :-(.

SO the obvious choice was Emily. But what to try and capture about her???
Well, that wasn't so hard either, for she is "the girl with the hair" That's how I have identified her on many occasions - to fellow soccer moms to pick her out on the field, to acquaintances at the park...
Because her hair is memorable to say the least- an amazing, incorrigable mop, of long, incredibly thick, wavy, dirty-blond hair. It it the kind of hair that causes perfect strangers to reach out and touch it and say "I love her hair!!" and her older sisters to say "MOM - please do SOMETHING with her hair!" We definitley have a love/hate relationship with it. At times it is gorgeous, but often it is a tangled mess, that defies taming. Attempting to deknot it brings tears to both our eyes, and even when we are successful, it reverts to it's wild state in hours, sometimes minutes.
So, we make feeble efforts to corral it, but mostly we have "given it over" to it's own sinful nature.

More week 1

The view out our back porch










The necklace Rick and Julie brought me from Israel :-)

Random mall shot - I liked the beam of light.

More week 1 class photos

PHOTOGRAPHY CLASS WEEK 1