Week 19 is “Portrait: Messy”

Spring is almost here and Molly wanted her sand pit brought out to play again. I’ve never really appreciated the feel of sand between my toes but I think most others do and Molly loves it. So there she was in a winter coat and snow pants with her boots and socks off standing in a sand pit kicking sand all around. I figured it would be a good subject for the next photo in the challenge, a portrait of someone making a mess.

Week 18 is “Artistic: Texture”

Spring has finally arrived so it was nice to go for a walk down by the pond at lunch time today. Stopped at a little jetty and sat down to enjoy the view, the sun and a cup of coffee. The old wood was also the perfect subject for the next entry in my 52 project (which I am woefully behind on) Texture.

Week 17 is “Landscape: Urbanscape”

Sometimes the best camera is the one with you. This one is actually an iPhone pano of the road behind the construction site for the new Core Sciences building in Memorial University. I couldnt get all the scene in with one standard photo so a pano works best. The new building is huge and at the moment it’s a steel skeleton. I cant wait to see what they do with the exterior.

Week 16 is “Portrait: Movement”

This one should have been easy seeing how I have a kid at home who never stops moving but I don’t want to make this project all about her. I’ve been trying to find a nice shot of a person or group of people to show movement and finally found one today when some people took to a pond near work to play hockey at lunchtime. A bit brave of them considering only last week there was open water on the pond but the ice held so that’s a indication of how cold it has been lately. The pond has also frozen without much snow falling so the ice surface was perfect for their skate.

Week 15 is “Artistic: Metal”

Somewhat simpler this week compared to last week, at least I didnt need new gear. This week the theme is Artistic: Metan and living in an urban environment there plenty of metal around. Some nice and clean, some rusty and broken. I took my camera out with my 50mm lens on it for a bit of a challenge and wandered around the area I work in. Near my office are some large industrial style warehouses. They are open to walk around so I walked and the things that caught my attention were the red doors in the pale metal walls. I couldn’t get further back without ending up in the trees, perhaps I should have gone back with a wider angle lens so I could get more of the wall in but I had challenged myself to do this week with the 50mm so this one will do.

Week 13 is “Portrait: High Key”

Finally got the gear I needed to do Week 13. The theme this week is high key portrait which means taking a portrait with a blown out all white backround. I also prefer the black and white versions of high key so that’s what I went with. After experimenting to perfect my setup the night before I got Molly to stand for a few shots last night. She just turned 4 so this is also her 4 year birthday portrait. She’s getting good at following instruction, though she’s 4 so time is limited so I have to get everything in about a minute before she gets annoyed at me.

To do this properly you almost need a full photography studio with 3 or 4 lights, a white wall, flags and reflectors. On the other end of the spectrum I’m sure I could have used photoshop and a large window but I wanted to learn so I went for an in between option . Bought some new flash gear (hence the delay) including another speedlite to replace one of my older ones, stands and a reflector holder. I used two lights. One behind in a softbox and my large reflector in diffusion mode to increase the backdrop even more. In front of her I have  a second speedlite in on a stand with an umbrella. Both were triggered by radio triggers.

I’m glad I waited for this, I got a shot I liked and I learned a lot.