Announcing Theme Six: Sport

How awesome was theme five: abstract?  Beautiful & interesting images by all!  

Now we're going to head in an entirely new direction:

Meagan has chosen Sport
Shooting runs from 18 Mar - 31 March inclusive
Images post on 01 April 2013

Time to get out and about!

Theme 5: Abstract - Tanya

I have to admit this was my least inspired theme to date, but it's good to get out of your comfort zone. I gave it a bash and these are my results :)


My first is the sort of image that pops into my mind when I hear abstract, and reminds me of a painting I saw at the Tate Modern in London years ago. It's a very close shot of the base of a cup.

Blue




Next was a fluke shot as the wind blew just as I took the shot and everything went a bit blurry and weird, but I like how it came out.




And my final shot is a backlit leaf.




Hope you enjoy these and I'm looking forward to the next theme :D

Tanya

Abs tract

I enjoy abstract photography! In the past my efforts have been for the most part opportunistic or accidental, and my favourites concentrated around water ... the beach or river using light as the primary inspiration. It seems I didn't think of that until the last few days when I no longer had the time to do anything about it. I did get Saxon (gsd dog) out to the beach multiple times this past fortnight and at a suitable times with camera, but like I said, did not have my abstract hat on. Regardless this first shot was from one of those beach trips :)

The 2nd and 3rd images comes straight from a concerted effort to capture abstract ... seriously what is it about trying to capture an image and not being able to, but when you aren't even thinking about it, you get it? I'm realising quickly here, that I'm really not that much chop at taking photos for a specific purpose ... anyway ...

again, hope you enjoy!

Theme 5 - Abstract by Meagan

WOW, what a difficult one this one started out to be for me!  I was terrified with the fear of not being able to complete this task!

But alas, with some gentle nudging from Kerri.... I have snapped these!

I saw a painted zebra at Werribee Open Range Zoo and thought... ooooh

I took this of my Acacia mini-cog plants in the rain

And then with little inspiration left and no macro lens to do much more with....

I shot this.... a sieve!

Am loving everyone's photos!

I look forward to the next Theme... I've decided Abstract is not for me! :)

Meagan :)

Theme five - abstract

It was hard to get motivated to pick up my camera and go take some photos, but on a sunny afternoon I headed into the Kyneton Botanical Gardens and took these.

Abstract - Kerri

I think I scared a few people when they first saw what I'd chosen for the theme this fortnight but I'm hoping everyone ended up having some fun with it once I'd shared a couple of links with explanations and examples. Abstract photography is something I've wanted to try for a while but just never got around to and I'm really glad now that I did as I loved it! As I've been unwell for several weeks, I decided to just use random household items instead of venturing out in to the big wide world and it's really quite amazing to me what you can achieve with every day mundane items, if you just look at them differently.

My absolute favourite out of the three items I used was a rainbow coloured slinky. I was fascinated by all the different shapes and patterns you could create just by changing the angle of the lens or by moving the slinky a little bit. I absolutely love this one.

This second one was created using vegetable oil mixed with Windex in a glass bowl with some coloured wrapping paper placed underneath. It didn't end up looking like I'd envisaged but I'm still pretty happy with the end result.

The last one has a bit more of an industrial feel to it and is my cheese grater.. lol. I promise it doesn't actually look this beaten up and festy in real life!! I added some grungy textures to it to change the tones and make it look a bit more gritty.

Kristen's Abstract

This theme terrified me! I am not an abstract thinker. It was interesting though, once I got started I found more and more and more things to tak photos of and ended up with 3 different views of the same thing and not 1 of them was anything that I planned.

I had been walking around the yard taking lots of photos of different things and was walking inside to have a look on the computer at my efforts when I spotted this item sitting on a cupboard and came up with a whole new idea.

I am not sure if it quite fits the brief but it seems abstract to me - 3 different ways to view 1 simple item.

Abstract ~ by Taylah.

When the theme was first announced I really didn't know much at all about abstract photography. Picasso type paintings and scribbly drawings were the first thing to come to mind. But after looking at a few examples online, I think I have a better understanding!

Unfortunately, I've had to rush this theme a bit and I'm not sure my photos fit the theme perfectly, some lean more towards macro... Hopefully when I have more time I can be a little more creative and explore abstract photography further, because I actually really like it!

Here we go...

Theme 5: Abstract

I found this theme really fun but found it challenging to get pictures that were 'abstract' enough. None of these pictures were planned. I found myself wandering around with my camera trying lots of things, these were all shot on different days and unplanned shots. The first and last shot were just luck that the weather and the sun played along!

Abstract

Abstract - a topic to strike fear into my heart! I'm not an abstract thinker, nor have I ever considered abstract anything ever. Google helped with some definitions and examples of abstract photography that helped a lot. In my mind it boiled down to line, colour and form - so that's what I went looking to catch.

 

Colour, backlit and interesting lines (well I thought they were interesting!). Late night shoot, overhead downlights, torch from the back of the shot. I guess it's my first real attempt at extra directional lighting.

This is a mistake shot - I got my settings so wrong it wasn't funny. But I like it and the more i look at it, the more I like it. So funny how these things work sometimes  The shape is lovely, I love the light in the bell and just the simplicity of it.

Madly hunting through my house looking for things to shoot - feathers, hooray! I love the sparkly, iridescent quality of the feathers and the colours. It just worked for me :)   And it was my second experiment in extra lighting, so just the kitchen downlights and a torch light from the side.

This was initially scary but fun in the end - so thanks Kerri!

Announcing Theme Five: Abstract

Theme four saw some great selfies and lots of facets of animals!  Theme five is going to be a wild departure.

Kerri has chosen Abstract
Shooting runs from 02 Mar - 15 March inclusive
Images post on 16 March 2013

Can't wait to try this one!!

Theme Four: Portraits by Kristin

I apologise for being a bit late to this party.  I have been in Lembeh for the whole challenge and just got back today.  

Portraits are always fun and if I'd been at home, I probably would have done a trio of one of the furries in my household. Knowing I'd be diving daily I set myself a challenge to create three underwater portraits that went beyond the simple to show something essential to the subject and the moment in time.

I had no idea I'd end up with two happy countenances!

- When I considered a moray eel as a subject, I was thinking of one that had a bit of menace and eeriness.  But then this sweet snowflake eel seemed so gosh darn happy to pose for me that I couldn't resist his goofy laughing face
- I was watching this porcupinefish get cleaned when he decided to check me out all up close & personal like.  His nearly maniacal smiley face totally reflects his bouncy, jovial, hilarious swimming style.
- I don't normally like to be in front of the camera, but I wanted some sort of interesting self-portrait underwater.  I was fighting a chest infection for a few days and equalizing while descending was a bit of a chore so I used the extra time to try to capture my image in the rising bubbles of my dive guide.

Portraits ~ by Taylah.

I'm late. Sorry!

So portraits! I started this fortnight really excited about the theme, hoping to finally get the guts to take some portraits of people. But alas, time got away from me and I had a real lack of victims so, my original plan sort of failed.

I decided to Google the actual definition of 'portrait', to sort of find my way around it. Usually when I think portrait, I get the picture of a person from about shoulders up, posed, staring at the camera.

por·trait 

/ˈpôrtrət/

Noun

A painting, drawing, photograph, or engraving of a person.

A representation or impression of someone or something in language or on film.

I ditched my mainstream definition of portrait and just decided that if there was a person (or animal) in frame, it was a portrait.

So here we go. My brother in his natural habitat. I was also tempted to use these outtakes: here  & here.  

 

 I couldn't help but to include a dog photo, so we have Bailey in the sunlight filled garden. 

And lastly, one I'm a little scared to post, as it's a self portrait. Last Friday was Self Harm/Injury Awareness Day, where to raise awareness people choose to wear an Orange ribbon, write LOVE on their arms or draw a butterfly on their wrists as a part of The Butterfly Project. I went with the butterfly. 

'See' you all in two weeks! 

Portraits - canine

Dogs dogs dogs

Okay, so I share my life with 3 dogs. My dogs are the primary reason I became so interested in photography. Chester the Dalmatian was my original muse, then Lotus the labrador, and lately Saxon the teenage german shepherd has taken over. I decided to take the portrait theme as a way of portraying a typical fortnight of photographing my dogs on our daily walks. 

As I almost always take a camera there are always plenty of opportunities and I must admit I feel a little limited by only 3 photos but these shots I hope are a good sample of a typical day (although taken over 3 separate days) :-)

hope you enjoy :-)

Kristen's portraits

I had plans this fortnight - big plans. People! I don't do people photos so here was the perfect opportunity.

And then we had stinking hot weather, cold & wet weather, assignments due and no time to go anywhere and only 1 human in the house besides me. I didn't want to fall back on the dogs but on Feb 28 with no other images and no time left there was just no choice.

For something different I used the screen on my camera so I could get a better angle but I discovered it is much harder to get an accurate focus and these all seem to be a touch out.

With 3 border collies I decided my photos had to be 1 of each (sorry Jessie the beagle - you missed out). Border Collies have a wide variety of ear positions and in my 3 I have:

1 set up (Piper) :

1 set down (Jazz):

And 1 set in between! (Cinna)

And do I get bonus points for getting a drop from a 3 month old puppy in the location I want and looking at the camera when I said her name all by myself?

Portraits

Portraits

My theme - I'd better bring the goods then! When I chose the theme, I had some ideas about what I might like to do - most likely an animal, kid/s and maybe an older person. Turns out I did none of these things! This turned into a self portrait project for me, which I never intended at all.....

This has been a huge learning week for me - flash, posing myself, getting the focus right (thanks to my kitchen broom for being my stand in!), getting the tripod set up right, keeping the remote trigger out of shot and having to look at my flaws on the screen. I HATE being in front of the camera, I'm never happy with how I look. Then I remember that if I were to die tomorrow - there's no nice pictures of me for my son to have. So with that in mind, I thought I'd try and catch the 'best me' that I could. Hair, make up, pose, think 'model' thoughts!

So here I am...

I learnt a lot from this! I have one good side and one 'look' (making me entirely useless for any Top Model series), it's quite confronting looking straight down the barrel of the camera when you mostly avoid them and that I'm glad I did this. Getting it right took a lot of time and a LOT of shots. I couldn't have done this with film, so I am enormously grateful for digital technology. 

Also, doing the shooting myself allowed me to do things and try poses I would never do in front of anyone else and that was liberating. All in all I'm really happy with how the shots turned out - and that I have photos of me that I can look at without cringing. 

Theme 4: Portraits - Tanya

So 'Portraits' - I wasn't even going to kid myself that these would end up being human portraits, but I wanted to see if I could make use of my new flash. I think they turned out ok, but I have a whole heap of stuff to learn with regards to using a flash!


3 Photos, 3 Pets, 3 Portraits :)


First off is Louis - A Chinese Crested (Hairless)





Next is Daisy - Another Chinese Crested (Powderpuff)




And last, but by no means least, is Indy the Siamese - the queen of the household!

Portraits - Kerri

Since I spend more time photographing my dog than anything else and had promised myself I wouldn't use him at all for this project, so that I was always pushing myself to try new things, I had planned on hitting the Adelaide Fringe Festival and photographing actual people for the 'portraits' theme. Unfortunately this didn't pan out due to ridiculously hot weather and some health issues and I have ended up using photos I took of my dog, Justice right at the beginning of the fortnight. When I took them we were hanging out at a park and I was playing around with the wide angle end of my lens taking images that were intentionally distorted to add a bit more fun and drama to them and I'm pretty happy with how they turned out. I've captioned each image with what I imagined was going through Justice's head as I was taking the photos. :-)

"I love summer. Summer is awesome. And I love the park. The park is awesome too."

"Who is this human who dares to interrupt my photo shoot?"

"Did I just hear you say you have TREATS?!?!? Treats are SERIOUS BIZNESS!!"

Hannah's Portraits

Portraits, how scary! Taking pictures of people is way outside my comfort zone, especially pictures of myself... So the first thing I did for this challenge was go out and buy a wireless remote with grand plans of self portraits.

After shooting several hundred images I got only a couple of myself I was happy with. This was my favourite. (Thanks to Kerri for helping tidy up this first picture!)

I had grand plans to shoot all sorts of things but then I got the flu. So I was left with very few days to shoot! I asked some of my friends and family if I could shoot portraits but none of them wanted their pictures on the internet. So I was left with two models, my Brittany Zora and myself again. 

I had already taken a portrait of Zora that I was pretty happy with but this morning after the dawn shot I found some special light and got a picture I liked even better.