Anyway, the assignment, which I've posted a couple of times in previous entries here, was to make 20 photographs out of the following 14 subjects, and include a child in each photograph:
An egg
Texture
Harsh light
Colour
Junk as art
Window
A face
Black
White
Shadow
Reflection
Round
Smooth
Partnership
I am supposed to just be creative in composing the photos, and let them reflect who I am in some way (easier said than done, I am discovering, since I have no idea HOW to let "me" flow through photographs yet! I guess this is something which will involve a lot of learning for me!). I am not supposed to worry about the quality of the photos or any sort of technical "well-done"-ness! Which is good because I am a TOTAL beginner! ;) But I have found it hard sometimes to not get a bit perfectionist-y about it and want to make it a "good" photo when I take one, and be a bit dissatisfied with the finished product if it isn't a "good" photo, instead of just being pleased that I've created another photograph from the list on my assignment. That's probably why it has taken me so long to get it all done!! Tsk. Anyway, here are the photos that I've done so far - I have got 17 photos for 12 subjects, which leaves me 3 photos still to take to make up my 20, and just 2 subjects left. That sounds doable! So here are the ones I have completed. I didn't edit them at all except to crop some of them, because I want to be able to see how improve as I work through the assignments over time and learn more about photography. Also, some of them "like the texture one" aren't too clear from the Blogger images as they are quite small, but they're HUGE when you click on them, so you can see the texture on the "texture" one, that I was trying to capture, when you click on it to make it bigger! ;)
This is a photo of Nathan touching the bricks on the wall in the back garden. I liked the texture of them and tried to capture that in the photo, but like I said, still very amateur! I like the texture of the fence against it too - a photo with a couple of different textures in it:
Nathan at the window. I really like how this one came out. You wouldn't believe how many "harsh light" photos I tried over the weeks which were just not useable at all in the end! It was a harder subject than I thought.
This one I took near the beginning of the assignment, and it seemed slightly lame to me, not awfully creative. But I couldn't think what to do for it, and the boys were playing with boxes that had just arrived with something or other in them that morning. They set up a "house" on the sofa and as I watched them play I realised I could possibly use a photograph of them doing that for the "junk as art" category. It's not art, but oh well! ;)
I take a lot of photos of Nathan at the window, because he loves to be up there looking at the cars and cats and so on. It was the most obvious way to photograph this category, for me:
I have a million opportunities to take photographs of little faces! And I have a ton I could have used, but nothing out of the ordinary (which it didn't NEED to be, tsk!), until this one. I just like how Nathan's face is the only thing in proper focus, and I love the unusual expression! ;) He wasn't amazed, just making that face for some reason, looking off to the side there. I chose it for this category because it's a little bit different:
I took a ton of photos for the "white" category, which I was really pleased with, and couldn't resist posting the whole lot last entry! ;) So, they're all there if you're interested. But I chose two for the actual assignment:
This one I found really difficult to be creative with. White was easy enough, but I just couldn't think what to do for black, and it's probably the one I ended up putting the most thought into therefore. Given that fact, I'm kind of disappointed with what I eventually came up with! ;) But oh well. We just don't have anything black at home at ALL really, which made it really hard. And I lately haven't been taking the boys out much at all, because I'm just huge and pregnant and tired, so we have not been getting to places where I might find something black to work with! I have two FlyLady black feather dusters, and decided to have Matthew peek out from those. He happened to be wearing the darkest top he owns (well, it's very dark brown, not black!) which helped, but it turned out too posed and so I wasn't really that pleased with it. Oh well. Here it is anyway - I haven't got anything else!
I knew what I wanted for "round" pretty early on in the assignment, so this was taken near the beginning - a couple of my little boys beaming around my ROUND pregnant tummy! :) I guess I was about 33 or 34 weeks pregnant here. The photo quality is poor though, with the light and "noise", but I haven't changed anything about it except to crop it, like all the others for this assignment:
I wanted to take a photo for this category of Arthur and Matthew, because they are best friends and real "partners" in so many things. I wanted to capture a moment of that for this category, and this is what I caught. They were playing in the garden and Matthew fell over on his ride-on digger. Arthur came right over to help him up, and I took a photo of my little boys in their moment of partnership! :)
I had so many ideas for this category, but lots of them didn't work out like I had hoped. I set up the one with the crayons, purposely, because I really wanted an eyeful of vibrant colour in the photo, and the crayons came to mind immediately. There IS a child in the photo (Nathan) but only his little hand :) It's a bit weirdly cropped because my hand was annoyingly in the edge of the photo, and I wanted to crop it out. Other than that I didn't change anything. A couple of weeks later I was randomly taking photos of all three boys drawing at the kitchen table, and I thought of using something for the "colour" category after a while, so took one of Arthur with the coloured pencils all in front of him as he was looking over them. So, I have two photos for the "colour" category:
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I found this a tricky category. Tons of opportunity to take photos with a shadowy influence (especially in our garden, as it's always partly in shadow), but so many of them were just not much good. Which I should not have been focusing on! And I'm not saying the ones I'm submitting for the assignment ARE good at all! But anyway, I found it hard to be happy with most of the shadowy photos I took. I finally got one of Nathan in shadow without it being basically just a too-dark photo, so I am using that one, and then I also took some photos of the boys eating rocket lollies on a warm afternoon, and they were in the shade and came out quite well for poor light (I used manual, not auto setting), so I'm using one of those too. So, two photos for the "shadow" category too:
Then I haven't done "reflection" or "smooth", and maybe I will never get around to it! I want to, and I really wish I had made more progress through the assignments by now, so that I was better at taking photos already in preparation for having a precious little newborn to photograph! But oh well. He's due ever so soon now, and we have so much still to get ready for his arrival, so I probably won't have time or energy to try to complete this assignment before he arrives, let alone start the next assignment (which is the official one at the end of Chapter One of my book - "Photographing Children"). All the assignments from now on will be single photographs. This was just a "something to try" box in the middle of the chapter, and I decided to work on it as an assignment. The proper assignments come at the end of each chapter, and they are all for ONE photo. The assignment at the end of Chapter One is to take a portrait of a child. It doesn't matter much what, why, when, or how. Or if it's any good! Just that there's some creativity put into it to reflect ME in my photography, and to make it unique to me therefore. I'm a bit daunted by that, because I am not sure how to make a photo unique from the zillions I've already seen, or how to feel satisfied with an actual "portrait" (yikes!) of one of my children. But I know that's just me being overly perfectionistic as I have a tendency to! ;) I'll have a go, anyway, and then I can move on and learn more about photography from Chapter Two, which I think is more about technical things that will improve my photographs and my understanding of how to take them - yay! I will have an extra little one to add to my photography subjects pretty soon, and I'm excited about that! :)
I will update again as I can!
