curiousillusion

A year ago, I was excited that I survived a full month of project 365.  But last year I made it to 260.  So completing 31 days isn’t as big of a deal as maybe it should be. That being said, my 31 days of this project so far have been pictures I’ve worked hard on and are a million times more proud of than last year’s pics.  So… yay?

And on that note, I can say that I’ve already seen quite an improvement in my pictures.  I mean, at the beginning of January I was taking pictures and feeling that my shots were still looking “point & shoot”-ish. I think ever since I switched to manual mode on my camera, I’ve been more pleased with my pictures – it’s hard to put my finger on how, I just know that it’s true.  Plus I’ve been spending a bit more time in photoshop tweaking things to get it just so.

One more thing… you may notice that my watermark is a bit more discreet.  There are a few pictures where Ican’t even find the watermark until I make it larger. I kinda like that.  Not too helpful for advertising, or probably much else, but I give up with that whole thing.

Anyway, let’s take a look at the last week, shall we?

day twenty nine – come paint my world. This was an idea I had in my head but boy was it harder to execute than I expected!  I do like the depth of field in the end, and the little bit of glitter you can see at the front.

 day thirty – Do you mind? I’m working!  My friend @phampants came up with an idea to get some more project 365 pictures out of me – he would send me a prop and I had to use it through my project. This little guy showed up in the mail and so this is his first apparance.  Keep an eye out for him, he may discretely pop up a few more times.

 day thirty one – shades of… something.  Oh I heart this picture so dang much.  I had seen some white-on-white shots before and really wanted to try it out.  A lot of playing around later, I came up with this shot, and it’s so delicate and clean-feeling to me..  a nice way to end January.

 day thirty two – love is in the air.  I wanted to start February out with some softer, more delicate shots (like the teacup picture).  This love sign I got at Hobby Lobby (I’m obsessed with little word signs like this) and the background is actually pink scrapbooking paper, but it looks so seamless, it’s kind of neat!

 day thirty three – xoxo.  Candy hearts!  I did a shot of candy hearts last year and this picture is quite a change, I’m impressed with how far I’ve come. The soft colors, the background (a texture I added)… I’m learning! :)

day thirty four - “All you need is love. But a little bit of chocolate now and then doesn’t hurt.” This shot kinda… well, I have issues with it, let’s just say that.  Bad lighting led to a TON of shadows and I got rid of most of them, but I left the one on the left to give the shot some depth.  I kind of like the subdued colors but I didn’t get great feedback on this picture so it frustrates me.

day thirty five – live laugh love. I found these vases at Target the other day and set them up with the flowers on top of my classroom library. I kind of like how the colors came out, and the whole feel of the picture makes me happy. It’s not perfect, in fact something about it bugs me (and I won’t tell you, you can figure it out if you want) but I do like it.

So that’s the end of week five. I’m worried that I’m going to run out of Valentine’s ideas, I’m hoping to keep the theme going til Valentine’s Day.  Cross fingers I can do it!

I have to say… when I attempted project 365 last year, I don’t remember it being this hard this early on. In fact, the first 2 or 3 months (I think right through day 100) seemed to whiz by. But this year I feel like I’m already struggling for ideas, and I’m not even on day 30. Then again, at the beginning of my project last year, I wasn’t focusing on technique or anything, I was just taking pictures of whatever I could find and posting them straight out of camera. This year I’m trying to learn about my new camera, I’m thinking about depth of field, composition, colors, photoshopping, etc… I’m a lot more involved. But I like to think the extra work is paying off.

Now here’s the problem with blogging two photography projects at the same time… they cross over. So the Danbo pictures that I use for my personal 365 are also going to show up in the Danbo 365. And to that I say… oh well. :p

day twenty two – Danbo arrives at last. I was so excited when I got home and found Danbo waiting for me. I had been waiting for her for weeks, she traveled overseas, and when I saw her… well it was love at first sight. And thus 365 Days of Danbo was created.

day twenty three – “faith… it’s all the rage.” My mom got these flowers a few days before and I had been wanting to shoot them outdoors in good lighting, which meant I had to wait til the weekend (I’m ready for the sun to quit setting so early). I admit it, I really like how this shot came out.

day twenty four – hope. I went outside on Sunday, just looking for things to take pictures of. I originally went with a self-portrait for my picture of the day, and then the more I thought about it, the more I loved this picture. Simple and to the point. I ran around for quite a while with that flower, trying to find the perfect bokeh background for it. :)

day twenty five – Wall-e and Danbo meet. See, another Danbo pic. I’m hoping to not include Danbo into TOO many of these 365 shots but I really can’t seem to resist. Anyway, since Wall-E has been featured in this project a few times, I figured it was fitting that he would meet Danbo.

day twenty six – good morning sunshine. I love the way the sky glows behind these apartment buildings. Caught this on the way to work.

day twenty seven – breathe. I keep having those “I have nothing to take a picture of” days but luckily my mom bought some new plants for her garden, so I could take a picture of these pink flowers. I played with the colors in photoshop and I kind of like how it turned out.

day twenty eight – “Baby, baby, baby, when all your love is gone… who will save me from all I’m up against out in this world?” Posting the bokeh shot the other day made me really want to capture another bokeh picture for my project, so I went back to the same Starbucks drive through. I think this shot is even better, I like how I got so many different colors and I think I composed this shot decently.

Another week down. :o)